JUNEAU — The Alaska Senate Education Committee on Wednesday advanced an amended school funding bill with a $1,000 increase to the Base Student Allocation, the state’s per-student funding formula.
School administrators have been advocating for a $1,000 BSA boost, saying the public education system is in crisis. Districts report that hundreds of educators face being fired, popular programs are set to be cut and that school facilities are crumbling.
But many in the Legislature, including some members of the Democrat-dominated Senate majority, believe a school funding increase of that size would be unaffordable with the state facing a substantial deficit. The $1,000 BSA boost would cost roughly $250 million per year.
Last month, the House approved House Bill 69 with the same school funding increase. It contained several policy provisions intended to appeal to Gov. Mike Dunleavy who vetoed a bipartisan education package last year.
The House measure included limits on cellphones and plans to make it easier for students to attend the public school of their choice, regardless of where they live, among other policy provisions.
“We recognize that we need to have a substantial increase to school funding,” said Anchorage Democratic Sen. Löki Tobin, chair of the Senate Education Committee, at a Tuesday media conference.
A new version of House Bill 69 was unveiled Wednesday in the committee. But its total cost has not been estimated yet.
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Staff for Tobin highlighted some of its new policy provisions: School districts would be required to set target class sizes and explain why they are unable to meet them; if three-quarters of a class shows improvement academically, the school can get recognition or financial benefits; and provisions were added to make it easier for charter schools to appeal denials of applications — among other changes.
“I’m generally pretty excited about it. I think it’s a good bill,” said Sitka independent Rep. Rebecca Himschoot, who was the lead sponsor behind the original version of HB 69.
The measure advanced from the Senate Education Committee on Wednesday with unanimous support. Tok Republican Sen. Mike Cronk, a minority member, was absent from Wednesday’s hearing.
At the start of the legislative session, the nonpartisan Legislative Finance Division estimated that a BSA boost of more than $1,800 would be needed to make up for losses from almost 15 years of inflation.
Since then, education advocates have been calling for the $1,000 BSA increase.
Anchorage School District began informing more than 180 educators this week that their positions will be eliminated unless the Legislature substantially raises school funding. Displaced staff would get opportunities to fill vacant positions, district officials said.
However, some Republican lawmakers have said that a school funding increase must be tied to improvements of Alaska’s bottom-of-the-nation test scores.
Lisa Parady, executive director of the Alaska Council of School Administrators, told a joint meeting of the House and Senate Education Committees on Monday that the state’s public school system needs a major investment to be made whole.
“When I hear, ‘education is failing,’ I say, ‘No, education is starving. It’s not failing. It’s starving,’ ” she said.
HB 69 heads now to the Senate Finance Committee. It remains unclear whether the $1,000 BSA boost will be approved by the full Senate.
Kodiak Republican Senate President Gary Stevens acknowledged Tuesday that his majority caucus remained split on the BSA, reflecting similar divides across the Legislature.
Lawmakers are balancing a school funding boost against this year’s Permanent Fund dividend.
“As you’re well aware, when we raise education funds, we sometimes have to lower the dividend amount,” Stevens said at a Tuesday media conference. “So that’s an issue that our caucus is dealing with, and hopefully we will come to a conclusion and be able to come to agreement with the House as well.”
In contrast, Wasilla Republican Sen. Mike Shower, the Senate minority leader, said his six-member caucus was not split on the BSA. He said by text Tuesday that the caucus could “tolerate” a $680 boost to the funding formula, which would match the same figure appropriated last year on a one-time basis.
The cost of a $680 boost to the BSA would be roughly $175 million per year.
Sitka GOP Sen. Bert Stedman, a co-chair of the Senate Finance Committee, said there was broad recognition that the current school funding formula is insufficient. He said the Legislature should approve “a minimum” of a $680 BSA boost this year, matching the school funding figure modeled in the Senate Finance Committee’s budget discussions.
Senate majority members on Tuesday spoke in favor of new revenue measures to bridge the state’s fiscal gap over the next several years.
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Senators have introduced bills to raise state revenue, including by hiking oil taxes, but those measures could face long odds of being approved by the narrowly divided House.
But a $680 boost to the Base Student Allocation may not be enough for many of the state’s 53 school districts.
Clayton Holland, superintendent of the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District, told lawmakers that a school funding increase of that size would still see layoffs. The district is set to send out warning notices this week to 160 educators that their positions could be cut with a $680 increase to the BSA, he said.
Legislators have shown a renewed interest in increasing spending for school maintenance after a report by KYUK and ProPublica detailed the results of years of underfunding rural school infrastructure.
Holland, who also serves as the head of the Alaska Superintendents Association, told legislators Monday that Kenai schools have a $400 million deferred maintenance backlog. He said walls and roofs in schools across the district are crumbling.
Holland said his most “shocking story” about infrastructure failings comes from Nanwalek, a small community off the road system on the Kenai Peninsula. He said the school’s pipes are old and corroded.
“On a regular basis, my principal has to have a vacuum cleaner to suck up sewage coming out of those pipes in order to keep the school going,” he said.
One potentially contentious policy area of House Bill 69: provisions affecting homeschooled students.
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The Alaska Supreme Court recently asked a lower court to determine whether it is constitutional for those students to use public funds to pay for private school tuition.
HB 69 would require greater district oversight of how homeschool allotments are used.
Additionally, House Republicans sought a funding boost for homeschooled or correspondence students, but those proposals were rejected and do not appear in the Senate’s education bill.
One new provision added to HB 69 would require homeschooled students to take state tests, alternative assessments or to produce a portfolio to receive allotments from the state. Currently, around 15% of homeschooled students take a key annual state test, which has frustrated some in the Legislature, who say the performance of correspondence students is difficult to track.
Nikiski Republican Sen. Jesse Bjorkman, a former teacher, amended the bill so that the testing requirements would only take effect in July 2026.
