The empty playground at Pearl Creek Elementary School is seen on June 3, 2025. The Fairbanks North Star Borough School District decided to close the school at the end of the academic year due to budget cuts. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
As Alaska lawmakers prepare to convene back at the Alaska State Capitol on Saturday for a special session, on the agenda for lawmakers is a vote on whether to override a veto by Gov. Mike Dunleavy of a portion of the state budget.
If the veto is overridden, the Legislature would provide more than $50.6 million for K-12 schools this year.
The vote comes just weeks before the start of the school year, and many Alaska school officials say the funding is essential for education, from managing class sizes, to hiring or keeping teachers and staff, academic and enrichment programs, as well as maintaining stability for students.
Fairbanks North Star Borough School District Superintendent Luke Meinert called the impacts of “chronic underfunding” devastating for the district’s more than 12,000 students. “In the last five years, we’ve closed seven schools, reduced administrative staffing by 25% and eliminated more than 250 positions in our district,” he said. “These aren’t just numbers. These are real people who spend time with our students every day.”
For Fairbanks, the governor’s budget veto represented a $2.5 million shortfall in June, following months of grappling with a $16.5 million deficit, and cuts and closures of three schools this year.
Meinert called for adequate funding for schools that keeps up with the costs of inflation.
“Instead, we’ve been forced to make painful cut after painful cut, classrooms are more crowded than ever. Support services are reduced, and many students have lost access to critical programs that once supported them,” he said. “These cuts are not a sign of inefficiencies, they’re symptoms of a system in crisis.”
Meinert joined a group of superintendents, education advocates and students on the steps of the Capitol in Juneau on Friday to urge legislators to vote “yes” on the veto override on Saturday, and funding a $700 increase in per student funding for schools.
Siena Farr, a rising senior at Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé, spoke about her experience last year when Juneau’s two high schools combining into just one, doubling class sizes and straining teachers. “In my first week of school, my AP US History class had 50 students,” she said, which would have violated fire safety limits. “This ultimately led to 10 students willingly devaluing their education and switching to a less challenging class. … Increased funding would mean more teachers to teach high demand classes and cover for other teachers who might need it.”
Ida Meyer, a recent high school graduate in Juneau, said the increasing cost burden on students ultimately leaves some out. “When students have to constantly fundraise and pay out of their own pockets to be able to participate and travel for sports and activities or even buy school supplies that were once paid for by school funding, the equity of education has been left behind, along with the students that are unable to participate and reap the benefits of school activities,” she said.
Dunleavy issued budget vetoes in June, axing $200 per student from the base student allocation, which is the core of the state’s funding formula. This reduced the annual increase to a $500 per student, which was less than a one-time boost last year. The governor cited declining state revenues, as well his position that his priorities for education policy changes should be enacted ahead of more state funding.
On Friday, Dunleavy issued a statement calling the Legislature’s lack of attention on his policy changes “a shame.” He repeated his criticism of providing more funding without more progress on education outcomes. “Instead, the public discourse is all about money. They say if we only spent more of it, the scores would improve. That is the same excuse that has been made for decades. As soon as more money is approved, the special interest groups and unions get very quiet.”
After the governor’s veto, the amount of public-school funding through the base student allocation is 5.6% less than it was last year, a year-over-year funding cut, according to the Legislative Finance Division. That is due to the loss of the one-time funding.
The governor’s veto represented a $1.4 million loss in funding for Juneau schools and its more than 3,800 students, according to the district, roughly equal to the cost of employing 12 teachers. But district officials had budgeted for a $400 base student allocation increase, so were safeguarded against further cuts.
In an interview on Monday, Juneau School District Superintendent Frank Hauser said he supports the veto override, and noted that even a $700 per student increase does not cover Alaska schools’ costs of inflation. “What a lot of people don’t realize is, well, that’s one of the most significant increases to the base student allocation that public education has received since 2011. It’s still a cut from what was received as one-time funding the previous year,” he said. “Public education funding is not keeping up with inflationary pressures across the state.”
If funding is restored, Hauser said it will go toward classrooms. “It’s going to support, potentially, reducing the pupil-teacher ratio. It’s going to provide maybe those elective programs. Some school districts weren’t able to hire a music teacher or an art teacher, or some other language teacher. That is funding that will go directly to supporting students.”
Hauser added that hiring new teachers or previously laid-off teachers back this time of year is difficult. “The hiring season is December to February,” he said. “So you just don’t have the staff or the potential applicant pool.”
Kuspuk School District Superintendent Madeline Aguillard emphasized her district’s need for school building repairs and major maintenance, which has received national attention, as the Legislature and Dunleavy have approved minimal funding for maintenance.
“No school district should have to choose between replacing a 10-year-old curriculum or repairing fire sprinklers to keep schools safe. But that’s the impossible choice districts are facing every day because the state has failed to meet its constitutional obligation over the last 25 years,” she said.
This year, the Legislature passed about $40 million for school maintenance and construction, about 5% of the nearly $800 million that districts say they need to operate safely. Dunleavy vetoed nearly $28 million. Aguillard says it forces rural districts to draw from base student allocation funding meant for classrooms. “When the governor’s budget is consistently zero for maintenance, and what little funding the Legislature secures gets vetoed, then crumbling schools become the norm, not the exception,” she said. “We’re now forced to pull from the BSA to make major repairs.”
It’s unclear whether the Legislature will take up a veto override vote on school maintenance funding on Saturday.
The Anchorage School District is the state’s largest by population, serving more than 43,000 students. For the district, the governor’s veto represents $4.3 million. Earlier this year, the Anchorage district reduced its budget by $30 million in salaries, benefits and services, and cut 42 staff positions.
In an interview on July 18, Superintendent Jharrett Bryantt said if the funding is restored, it would go toward a major priority for the district: lowering class sizes.
“When I talk to families, they say that the best thing we can do for their kid is to lower their class sizes,” he said. “But the state has to remember, you can’t lower class size if your teachers don’t trust your state to fund their salaries. And salaries should only be funded from the base student allocation. You can’t fund that with a block grant. You can’t fund that with a promise, and you certainly can’t fund that with all of the negativity that we’ve been seeing from the state to date.”
Bryantt emphasized that the back and forth between the Legislature and Dunleavy on school funding, with vetoes and override votes over the last several months, has been challenging. “So I just want the legislators to understand how trust has been extremely eroded by state leaders,” Bryantt said. “And this is their moment to make it right. This is their moment to tell the governor, once again, that this is where our community stands on this issue.”
For the Valdez School District, Superintendent Jason Weber said the district was able to balance its budget this year, with some cuts and reserve funding, despite an unexpected $300,000 insurance premium increase. In an interview Friday, he said if the veto is overridden, he sees those funds going toward future costs.
“Unfortunately, inflation will eat right back in, whether it’s employee salaries going up, which they are, you know, where we’re bound by negotiated agreements, as well as … rising cost of utilities and insurance,” he said.
“So even if we’re on fiscally this year, we will be off fiscally next year already, just because those costs escalations are beyond our control.”
