Daily Sitka Sentinel

Additional $1 Million For Schools ‘Possible’

By TOM HESSE

Sentinel Staff Writer

“Probably going to be possible.” 

That was as close to an assurance the School Board would get from the  Assembly Thursday night regarding a city budget that would provide an extra $1 million to schools in 2016. 

Deputy Mayor Matthew Hunter said the Assembly has not yet taken up the city budget, and deliberations will take place at the next Assembly meeting. However, he said, an increase for schools is “probably going to be possible.” 

City Administrator Mark Gorman and Finance Director Jay Sweeney have already included a $1 million increase for schools in the budget he has forwarded to the Assembly.

Sitka School Board members factored in the extra funds in their first vote on the budget Tuesday. The extra money would help fill a $3.289 million budget shortfall.

“If we’re able to make this extra million dollar contribution it’s going to be a very difficult, but probably very valuable exercise in community politics,” Hunter said. 

That’s because that money must come from somewhere, and city staff already provided Assembly members with a list of options which include: 

– raising the sales tax cap to $3,000 ($400,000 increase in revenue); 

– replacing the senior sales tax exemption with a rebate system capped at $400 for individuals ($478,000 increase in revenue); 

– eliminating the residential rent sales tax exemption ($657,671 increase in revenue);

– doubling the tobacco tax ($400,000 increase in revenue); 

– increase vehicle registration fees ($400,000 increase in revenue); 

– making the sales tax 6 percent year-round ($672,000 increase in revenue); 

– raising property taxes ($1,064,000 per mill); 

– adding a road maintenance fee as a monthly charge on utility bills. 

The district has already proposed a host of cuts that include trimming operational expenses as well as eliminating three full-time teaching positions. Cuts to Community Schools and the Blatchley pool were taken off the list by a 3-2 vote during Tuesday night’s School Board meeting. If the district does not receive additional funding from either the state, federal or city government, those cuts and others would be back on the table. 

“What’s going to happen is, we will sacrifice the classroom and we will sacrifice teachers and we will eliminate programs,” board President Lon Garrison said. 

Garrison said the cuts the district has already made for next year mean the district cannot weather another hit without extra support. 

“If we fall into a hole, where do we go? We do the same thing that the hospital board did and we come to you. And I don’t want to do that,” Garrison said, referring to the hospital’s financial crisis in December that forced it to ask for $1 million from the Assembly.

If the Assembly does approve the additional $1 million in school funding it will get the district within $800,000 of the maximum limit of local support allowed by state statute. At present, the city provides about $5.2 million in local funding for schools. 

Assembly member Tristan Guevin expressed support for bumping school funding and cutting back on other city expenses.

“In my mind, the city should be funding the schools to the cap. And if that means moving $400,000 out of the road funds and into schools, let’s have a discussion about what people are willing to pay to maintain roads,” he said. 

It’s been several years since the city funded schools to the cap, a policy board member Cass Pook disagrees with.

“I’ve been frustrated that we have not been funded to the cap,” she said. 

Assembly members asked a number of questions about the decisions made at the last school board meeting, including the decision to fund Community Schools and the Blatchley Pool with money from the school district’s savings account. 

The school board was given the option of closing Community Schools at a cost savings of $235,000 and the Blatchley pool at a cost savings of $140,000. City funding comes to both programs separately from the regular school funding, but district Business Manager Cassee Olin said the city’s contributions do not cover the actual cost: “$179,000 does not cover Community Schools and neither does the $121,000 for the pool,” she said.

In fact, the school budget adds $235,000 for Community Schools and $140,000 for the pool in order to keep those programs running.

Assembly member Michelle Putz asked if increased fees could help alleviate that deficit. Less than a year ago the school board approved a new fee structure for using school facilities but even so, user fees provide only a tiny amount of the funds required for both programs. Olin said Community Schools gets about $25,000 from fees – a number that is closer to $30,000 after the rate changes – and the pool takes in $20,000 in fees. 

That means even if revenue from user fees of the pool doubled, it would still fund only about 15 percent of the cost of the pool. 

Given the large public support for the two programs, additional cuts would likely have to come from staff, school board member Jennifer Robinson said. “Letting teachers go is the one topic that nobody wants to talk about, and I think it might need to be one that is on the table. I think it’s very important that we approach our budgets – the city and the school – we need to be very fiscally conservative right now. This is a tough year now and it’s going to be a lot harder next year,” she said. 

That would mean a decrease in the pupil-to-teacher ratio (PTRs). A board priority for years has been to keep those ratios low, especially in the early grades. Right now the ratio for kindergarten and first graders is about 18 students for every teacher. That number jumps to 21:1 in grades 2-3 and 24:1 in grades 4-5. 

Assembly member Steven Eisenbeisz asked if “we need to look at if our ratios are perhaps generous in some areas.” 

Eisenbeisz and City Finance Director Jay Sweeney did a quick internet search and found that the national average for PTRs was closer to 15.9:1. Garrison said Sitka’s was still below the classrooms in Juneau, which are in the area of 26:1. 

City staff also provided a list of potential cuts that could help fund the district an extra $1 million. Those cuts include: 

– selling the senior center and eliminating municipal support ($100,000 savings); 

_ cutting library operating hours ($25,000 savings); 

– eliminating snow plowing and road treatment except for major snow storms;

– reducing newspaper advertising ($20,000 savings); 

– using a contracted service for animal control and traffic enforcement positions ($100,000 savings);

– eliminating one position at city hall ($55,000 savings). 

“It’s going to take those kinds of items to close that million dollar deficit that an additional contribution would create in our budget,” Hunter said, adding that the city faces a multitude of future financial problems. 

“All of us are feeling it in our pocketbooks as we‘ve seen with our rate increases. And there are more rate increases that need to happen if we’re going to actually get to the point where we’re supporting our infrastructure so that it’s here in 20 years. I plan on being here in, hopefully, 50, 60 years and I want to make sure that we still have schools and we still have roads and everything.” 

The school board will meet again at 7 p.m. next Wednesday in the Keet Gooshi Heen multipurpose room for a second reading and final vote on the school budget.

The Assembly will take up some of the proposed revenue issues during its regular Tuesday meeting, and Hunter said some new cuts or new taxes would likely be on the table both in the short term and on an October ballot. Garrison said the school board would support the Assembly in whatever way it could. 

“Certainly, myself as a board member and I’m guessing the entire board,  acknowledges that you’re going to have to do some very heavy lifting and we want to walk arm-in-arm with you to help that in anyway we can,” Garrison said.