Daily Sitka Sentinel

Good News From D.C.: Rural Schools Passes

By TOM HESSE

Sentinel Staff Writer

A vote in the U.S. Senate late on Tuesday will remove one fiscal variable from the School Board’s budget talks tonight. 

The Senate approved by a 92-8 margin a Medicare fix that includes funding for the Secure Rural Schools program, sometimes referred to as timber receipts. Alaska’s senior senator Lisa Murkowski, speaking today with the Sentinel from a cloak room near the Senate floor, said it was important to get the short-term fix in place and she’s eager to find a long-term solution. 

“Sometimes it’s a one-year fix. Sometimes it’s two years. It just injects so much uncertainty into our schools and our communities that really depend on this revenue coming in. When your federal government doesn’t pay local taxes it’s kind of tough for these local communities. When you don’t know whether you’re going to have $800,000 coming in, it causes some anxiety,” Murkowski said. 

The Medicare package also allows for a fix to doctor compensation (see story page 2). Murkowski said the overwhelming bipartisan support to fix a long-standing problem shows that Congress is starting to work again. 

“This is like it used to be where the committees actually worked. Sometimes you don’t like the product but you at least have a process that works,” Murkowski said. 

“Because we haven’t been able to wrestle with (the doctor fix) we just kind of kicked the can. To finally put this to rest is a significant accomplishment. It’s not perfect. It is not perfect legislation, but addresses a long-standing problem.” 

The Secure Rural Schools package included in the bill sends $12 million in funds to Alaska for communities that are surrounded by national forests. In the past Sitka’s portion of the money has been shared 50-50 between the city government and the Sitka School District. Superintendent Mary Wegner said the district is estimating that the school district’s half of the Rural Schools money will be $350,000 for the current year, and $310,000 for the 2016 budget that is now in preparation.

She said she expects to have the hard figures by tonight’s School Board meeting.

“We’re very, very thankful and appreciative for our senators and representatives in D.C. to support us on this and all the people who have advocated for us for this to come through,” Wegner said. 

Reauthorization for 2015 had been left out of the omnibus budget package earlier this year, but the latest move will fund the district’s current budget. That’s particularly important for Sitka schools because the district had counted on having the federal funds when it drew up the 2015 budget last year. Had no funding come through, it would have had to draw the $500,000 from reserves. 

While the district still will receive less than expected, School Board President Lon Garrison said the funding has removed some of the uncertainty from the current budget conversation. 

“We’re pretty thrilled that that came through. The timing couldn’t have been better, certainly for us,” Garrison said. 

Garrison serves on the National Forest Counties and Schools Coalition, which advocates for Secure Rural School funding. Wegner said Garrison’s presence on the national stage gave Sitka a voice in the SRS debate. 

“He’s been a leader not only in Sitka but in the state in helping to activate people from around the state who are impacted by Secure Rural Schools funds. He deserves special accolades for his tireless work on behalf of the school district and the city,” Wegner said. 

The move, however, does not provide the district with any certainty for this time next year when it begins working on the 2017 budget. Garrison said many in Congress are looking to end the timber receipts program and change aspects of forest management on federal lands. Essentially, he explained, SRS funds are meant to be generated by the sale of timber on federal lands. That money would then support schools and roads in areas that couldn’t earn money from the untaxable lands. With large decreases in logging, however, there’s been little revenue generated and the funds have been coming from other sources. 

“We have seen continued criticism of Secure Rural Schools in terms of whether or not it’s sustainable and if the federal government can pay for it,” Garrison said. “It’s a broader public debate that will have to happen in terms of how forests are managed and how those revenues are managed.” 

Murkowski said the SRS funds were meant to be a short-term answer to the problem of declining timber receipts and that federal dollars would stop flowing as districts figured out other ways to generate revenue.

“That’s a good idea that you have this federal safety net but when you don’t see that happening, where do you go? What do you do?” 

The answer, Murkowski said, is something the Senate Resources Committee has begun discussing. 

“The level of timber activity that we have had historically in Alaska is not going to be our future,” she said. “Can we and must we manage our timber resources better? Absolutely.” 

That discussion is just beginning and because of that, Garrison said, the district won’t be making any plans for SRS funds until more work is done in Congress. 

“We don’t know what 2017 is going to be so we need to get ready for that right away,” Garrison said. “Until we know it’s going to be there, I don’t think we can count on it.” 

The School Board is still grappling with a budget shortfall of more than $3 million. To close that, the district may cut three teaching positions in addition to drawing from reserves and cutting programs. Cuts to Community Schools and the Blatchley pool have also been on the table. Throughout the talks the district had budgeted for some contribution from Secure Rural Schools, and Garrison said now that the legislation has cleared both houses of Congress  the board has one less number to worry about. 

“That will make our discussions this evening, while still very difficult, a little bit more certain,” he said. 

There may be additional legislation affecting Sitka schools coming up soon. Murkowski said she’s working on an education package to provide “much-needed” reforms to the No Child Left Behind Act. 

She said the package would likely leave committee Thursday and that it also has support from both parties as well as from President Barack Obama. She said the changes would help reduce the amount of federal government pressure on local districts. 

“You may very well see long-term, much-needed education reform that really helps to move Washington, D.C., out from the position of being the national school board that it was under No Child Left Behind to providing the flexibility to the states to manage their own schools.”