By: Corinne Smith, Alaska Beacon
While many school districts across Alaska are facing severe budget shortfalls, several bills to provide a sustained increase to education funding appear to have stalled in the Legislature. But a bill to add nearly $82 million one-time funding and education policy changes is moving forward with bipartisan support.
On Monday, the Senate Education Committee introduced a revised version of House Bill 28, that adds one-time funds for energy relief, transportation, reading and vocational training, to a bill that would establish a loan forgiveness program for Alaska teachers. It also includes a variety of policy changes related to home school programs and others.
Chair Sen. Löki Tobin, D-Anchorage, described it as a “mini-bus” bill on Wednesday, saying the new omnibus bill includes specific education funding to areas sought by the governor and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.
“We heard that there is a deep concern about education reform still being left on the table, and so in those discussions we focused the new version of House Bill 28 on codifying some of the best practices that we know are going to improve education outcomes across the state,” Tobin said.
The underlying bill establishes a new three-year student loan forgiveness program to incentivize teachers to stay in Alaska. It’s focused on teachers specializing in special education, English as a second language, science, technology, engineering and math. It would provide up to $15,000 to pay off student loans for those who go out of state and return to work in Alaska. The House passed the bill last May.
“We need to incentivize teachers to stay here,” said Rep. Andi Story, D-Juneau, who sponsored the bill. “We’ve had such tremendous turnover, and we’ve got this tremendous shortage. And so I think the bill will help.”
The bill moved to the Senate this year, and education committee members tagged on a variety of items on Apr. 21. According to data provided by Tobin’s office, it contains an additional $21.8 million for reading proficiency grants, $9.7 million for career and technical education, $7.3 million for transportation, and $43 million to offset rising energy costs for school districts.
“We do not want to divert operating costs, dollars that should be in the classroom, to just keeping the lights on and buildings warm,” Tobin said.
Meanwhile many Alaska school districts are in the midst of budget negotiations and grappling with cuts to staff and programs to address large budget shortfalls.
Districts have announced at least eleven potential school closures to date in Anchorage, the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, the Kenai Peninsula Borough and Ketchikan.
Tobin said at a Senate Majority caucus news conference on Wednesday the goal of the education policy bill is to garner enough support on both sides of the aisle to be able to override a potential veto by the governor.
“It is obviously the hope for all of us that we will continue to increase stable and predictable funding for our schools and ensure that they have the resources they need,” she said. “However, at the end of the day, our goal is to get dollars into the classroom and to get support into our schools, and I will work diligently to do that with the number of people that I can guarantee will be there to get that bill across the finish line.”
Gov. Mike Dunleavy has been a staunch opponent of increasing funding for schools, saying that education policy changes are needed to improve student outcomes. Last year, he issued three vetoes of additional funding for K-12 schools sustained through the state’s funding formula, the base student allocation, and the last was narrowly overridden by the Legislature last summer.
This year, legislators introduced bills to again provide a sustained increase per student funding statewide. Rep. Rebecca Himschoot, I-Sitka, introduced a bill to add $158 million to boost the per student formula, but so far it hasn’t moved out of the House Education Committee.
Earlier in the session, Tobin introduced a bill that would add nearly $100 million in education funding. A portion of that money would go to per student funding through the BSA, and additional reading proficiency grants and transportation funding. But her bill proposed policy changes to enact reporting and testing requirements for homeschool programs that drew public criticism from homeschool proponents, so the Senate Education Committee stripped the provision and held the bill.
The new draft Senate bill also institutes more reporting requirements from school districts to the state on their homeschool programs, including how many students are enrolled by grade, where they live across the state and how their annual allotment is spent, among others.
The draft bill would commission a state audit to evaluate Alaska’s funding for schools, and make recommendations for changes or for alternative methods of education funding. There is no cost estimate yet for the study, or the entire bill.
Tobin said the funding adequacy study is a top priority of the joint Task Force on Education Funding. “We know that our foundation formula needs some reform, and it also needs some additional attention on particular components that have changed significantly in the last few years, the pandemic really showcased that,” she said.
Story said she supports the changes to the bill. “There’s some really good things that got put in there,” she said. “It’s the end of the session, lots of things are happening, so we’ll just see. But I’m hoping good things happen for teachers and families and for our kids to get more attention next year.”
The draft “mini-bus” bill was approved by the Senate Education Committee and now moves to the Senate Finance Committee for consideration.
Meanwhile, senators are debating the draft operating budget for next year that includes up to $100 million in additional funding for schools, but only if oil prices remain high. The House passed a draft operating budget with nearly $158 million in one-time funding for K-12 schools earlier this month.
A select group of lawmakers from both chambers will negotiate and reconcile a compromise between the two budget bills — and a final allocation for Alaska schools next year — in a conference committee in the last days of the legislative session, by May 20.
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