After much talk this session about a one-time increase to public school funding, the Senate is poised to pass legislation that would permanently increase the base student allocation.
Senate Bill 52 would enshrine the $680 per-student increase currently contained in House and Senate versions of the operating budget, amounting to a roughly $174 million increase to school funding statewide. The precise amount of funding each distirict receives is determined by the foundation formula in state law that adjusts funding depending on the size and location of a school district as well as the needs of its students.
The measure was updated on Monday and hit the Senate floor today, setting it up for a vote as early as Thursday.
The figure is much smaller than the $1,000 increase that emerged from the Senate Education Committee and it doesn’t contain a second year boost, either, but Senate Education Committee Chair Sen. Löki Tobin told the committee on Monday that it’ll provide the much-needed stability and certainty that advocates say a permanent increase will provide schools.
“While the numbers are different, the proposed committee substitute here from Senate Finance meets the policy goals set forth by the Senate Education Committee to significantly increase the base student allocation,” she said, recognizing the dozens of meetings and dozens of hours of public testimony on the issue.
It appears that the Legislature may advance both the funding figure in the budget as well as the separate legislation in case one or the other doesn’t make it across the finish line, but there’s conditional language in the budget that will prevent it from going into effect in case the BSA legislation passes. That’ll stop it from doubling up.
Regardless, the increase would be the largest-ever to school funding in Alaska, but it comes on the heels of several years of either flat funding or uncertain one-time boosts. Several presentations this year have shown the buying power of schools has continually decreased since the last major increase in the mid-2010s.
While the bill falls short of the $1,000 increase proposed by the Senate Education Committee, it’s not the only additional funding this version of the bill will send schools’ way.
The Senate Finance Committee also adopted two amendments to the legislation by Fairbanks Republican Sen. Click Bishop. One increases the funding for the state’s residential schools, which receive funding outside the state’s foundation formula. The other boosts the formula that determines how much districts receive for transportation costs, which would amount to about $8 million statewide. Because that figure is also set in state law, it’s gone unchanged for several years with with the unreliable one-time appropriation here and there, a practice that has forced schools to pull money out of other areas to cover bussing costs.
“We’re acknowledging there’s a problem with the bussing,” Bishop said, “and are trying to keep as much money in the classroom as possible.”
The lone vote against the transportation increase came from Wasilla Republican Sen. David Wilson. Bus drivers for the Mat-Su Borough School District went on strike more than a month earlier this year over unsafe conditions and low pay.
Other provisions in the bill written by the Senate Education Committee that would set up a dashboard for school funding and improve reporting requirements on district financials were left unchanged.
Sen. Tobin told the committee she’s committed to seeing the bill pass this year and has been working closely with the House, where similar BSA legislation is currently in the House Finance Committee and similarly close to passage.
“After 99 days of public testimony, hearings and meetings, it is very clear to us that the Alaska public education system is struggling, and we need to do something drastic,” she said. “This bill does just that. If passed and it becomes law, it will be a permanent increase that will help every child and young adult who receives a public education here in Alaska.”
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.
