Himschoot Sees Hope for School Funding

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Category: Local News

Created on Friday, 19 January 2024 15:25

By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
    Rep. Rebecca Himschoot says “rumors were all over the map” Thursday that the Legislature would overturn Gov. Dunleavy’s veto of education funding for the current school year.
    But given Alaska’s requirement that three-quarters of legislators must vote in favor, she wasn’t that surprised when the combined votes in the House and Senate came up 12 shy of the 45 needed.
    “I was disappointed because those funds are so sorely needed,” said Himschoot, who is in her second year representing Sitka in the state House.
    “The money is needed, and the money is there,” she said. “There’s no good reason for our schools not to have that money right now. Of course there’s disappointment, but I won’t say I was surprised.”
    The vote called Thursday was to override the governor’s veto of $87 million of $175 million in additional school funding approved by the Legislature last year.
    Himschoot isn’t a declared member of any political party, but is a member of the House Coalition of 11 Democrats, one Republican and four independents. In addition to Sitka she represents Petersburg and Yakutat, plus most of Prince of Wales Island and smaller communities around Southeast.
    “My caucus is 100 percent committed to doing whatever we have to to improve the situation for our schools,” Himschoot said. “It’s important to note that what we were trying to do with an attempt at an override vote was to use the money that’s been sitting there, it’s been budgeted and made available by the Legislature. ... It’s not helping our students, not helping our educators and not helping schools and communities. We’re trying to unlock it by whatever means necessary.”
    Sitka’s Sen. Bert Stedman, a Republican, also voted in favor of the override.
    A vote in favor would have restored the half of the funding vetoed by the governor.
    Himschoot said her optimism about prospects for an override were based on a vote in April when all but a few members of the House and Senate agreed to a $680 per student increase to schools.
    “So something changed between April and last night,” she said. “I definitely felt some suspense. ... But Alaska has the highest requirements in the nation for a veto override, at three-quarters. I was willing to hold out hope because people essentially approved it in April and I wanted to give it a try.”
    The House Coalition statement after the vote said the group would “continue fighting to bring a permanent and substantive increase to the BSA this session.”
    “We’re fully focused,” Himschoot  said. It was the fourth day since the second half of the legislative session was gaveled in. “We’re in the middle of the process right now, and I’m grateful to the House majority for moving quickly on trying to get the Base Student Allocation raised for the 2025 budget. That’s something that doesn’t get dealt with until the end of the session.”
    She said she has high hopes of getting education funding for fiscal year 2025 approved by March.
    “I’m hopeful that we will have not only a substantial increase, but we’ll do it in a timely way, so I’m focused on what’s coming next.”
     She said the battle over school funding that customarily occurs toward the end of the session is occurring right now, tied to a discussion about broadband access grants for school districts.
    “There’s a good faith effort right now to get those dealt with on a timeline that stands to give districts some certainty early in the session, and that’s incredibly helpful to them,” she said.
    The BSA has not been increased since 2017. School districts have received one-time funding increases, but no BSA increase, adding uncertainty in the budgeting process.
    “If we matched inflation since the last increase in 2017, the BSA would have to increase by $1,413, and that would only give districts the buying power they had in 2017,” Himschsoot said.
    She acknowledged the uphill school funding battle ahead, but said she hopes people can see that it is connected to so many issues in the state.
    “Once you go down far enough people become outraged,” she said.
    She said this is the 10th year in which Alaska has had a decline in population, “and we’re finding the outmigration is of working age people... We have people over the age of 65 depending on working-age people, and they’re leaving because they can’t raise their families here because they don’t have the schools they want. That’s a pretty good motivator.”
On the Senate side, Stedman said he’s turning his attention to the next steps on school funding, which includes discussions with school districts across the state on their physical condition, and the BSA.
    “But it appears to me the BSA needs to be increased,” he said. Other funding issues related to schools on the table are higher salaries for entry-level positions, and increasing the state contribution to retirement systems by 2 percent.
    Stedman, a Republican, has served in the Legislature for more than 20 years and is currently the Senate Finance Committee co-chairman. He said as the “lead guy on the operating budget,” he voted in favor of the override, which supported the operating budget approved by the Legislature last spring. He said there was not much excitement to last night’s vote, no discussion, with lawmakers casting their votes and going home around 8:30 p.m.
    He said he plans to work with the governor on funding for fiscal year 2025, and perhaps a supplemental item for FY24 for schools and other items. The deadline for proposing amendments to the FY25 budget is in a month.
    “We won’t really know what it’s going to look like until after February 14,” he said.