Easily the most important topic of the session, a permanent increase in education funding has been the subject of many hours of legislative hearings, rallies, lengthy public testimony hearings, a legislative walk-out and the focus of several bills.
Why it was important this year: Alaska’s habit of essentially flat-funding education is finally catching up as both a windfall of expiring covid-19 money and a one-time boost of state funding are expiring at the same time, revealing just how much inflation has eaten away at schools’ buying power. While some districts are facing bigger cliffs than others, the pain is being felt throughout the state as districts consider bigger class sizes and fewer offerings.
To be clear, while additional education funding always seems to be on the wishlist, this year’s situation is particularly dire. The funding falloff wasn’t about building up or investing in schools but averting the worst cuts as schools hit their fiscal cliffs. While there was certainly the usual conservative grumbling about schools demanding money without accountability, there seemed to be a pretty broad bipartisan understanding of the fundamental problem that school budgets haven’t kept up with inflation and other costs. It also seems like legislators generally understand the value of having a dependable, permanent increase in funding.
However, as these sorts of things go, there wasn’t much agreement on the details and specifics.
The Senate passed an increase to the base student allocation, but the Republican-led House wasn’t nearly so jazzed about the plan. Its far-right conservative core has long been antagonistic about schools and school funding with several members doubting the need for an increase in the first place. That conservative core has pushed, instead, to delay such an increase, arguing that the far-right culture wars and private school vouchers required their immediate attention.
They also brought up plenty of how the state’s foundation formula, the system of laws that determines school funding levels by taking the base student allocation and adjusting it based on the size of the school district, its location, number of students and the needs of those students. Setting aside the immediate funding debate, opening the foundation formula would be a herculean task ripe for inequitable favoritism.
What we ended up with: Yet another one-time increase in school funding, albeit the largest one-time increase in state funding in state history at an equivalent to a $680 increase to the base student allocation. While it’s not a BSA increase, it will be paid out like one. The precise amount each district receives is based on the foundation formula, but the figure was specifically based on the needs of the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District and some schools are expected to be forced to make cuts.
Despite there being broad support, the House Majority successfully quashed any last-minute hopes that a permanent increase would advance this year.
Where they left things: Things got particularly interesting in the final hours of the legislative session when we saw the House Majority’s members on the House Finance Committee fracture over a permanent increase to BSA. What happened was Democrats, independents and moderate Republicans all teamed up to put a permanent increase to the BSA into a Senate bill dealing with internet broadband upgrades. That prompted a visit from House Speaker Cathy Tilton and Rules Chair Craig Johnson that effectively delayed the bill a day, sidestepping the inevitable infighting such a measure would cause.
However, that means the education turducken bill is a step away from a vote on the House floor. There was quite a bit of pressure for the House leadership to advance it on the final day, but it was the House leadership that was hoping to slow the bill in the first place. It’s likely further challenges will be placed in front of the bill, but it’s close.
Matt Acuña Buxton is a long-time political reporter who has written for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and The Midnight Sun political blog. He also authors the daily politics newsletter, The Alaska Memo, and can frequently be found live-tweeting public meetings on Twitter.
