001recording in progress e e okay good morning everybody it feels like we are ready to go so I'm GNA go get us started I now call to order this joint meeting of the Anchorage school board and the Anchorage assembly we are uh scheduled from 10 a.m to 12: p.m. it's now 10:04 a.m. and uh we'll start with a roll call I'm Clerk member Myers here member Martinez member Littlefield here member Rivera member Johnson here CH constant here Vice chair zotel and it's my understanding that member branga is excused yes member band member Broly here member is currently telephonic here member pres Veria chair you have a quorum thank you in the school district Miss solivan will call roll president Hollman here vice president Jacobs present Bellamy M Dy here member Higgins member Wilson so it
002sounds like you have a corn yes we have a quum yes we have a next we'll go ahead and proceed to the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all I'll go ahead and read the school district's land acknowledgement we acknowledge that we gather here today today on the traditional lands of the denied people of the upper Cook Inlet for thousands of years the denied people have been and continue to be the stewards of this land Anchorage School District is committed to diversity and inclusion it is with honor and respect that we recognize all indigenous people who live and learn in our community so next we have minutes from previous meetings or
003minutes from the December 6 2024 meeting and the December September 27th 2024 meeting do we approve these is that a procedure that we do here um we normally have it as part of the consent agenda but you're the chair so you get to decide so um we don't really have a consent agenda here per se versus a regular other agenda so I'll just go ahead and ask if there is a motion to approve the minutes second moved by Miss zeel seconded by Miss broy um is there any discussion on any of the minutes I see no discussion is there any objection to the minutes being adopted and I would note that Miss Wilson has just joined us welcome I'm hearing no objection so I think it could be noted that uh The Joint meeting minutes
004are now approved next we have the approval of the agenda is there anything to add to the agenda chair constant result I would like to have a brief period to talk about the decision regarding Lake could elementary school if that we have time so um I think that that can be added under other matters of mutual concern them to and maybe a little more broad about not just that one there are a couple schools but which school was it again lakehood Elementary lakehood so we'll start than you there's any no objection all right um so there is uh there are I should say a couple of members of the public here it's our standard uh procedure uh under the assembly's rules to do that at the end of the meeting um the question for the
005members is there any objection if we take on hearing from those individuals first okay I'm not hearing or seeing any objection so we'll go ahead and consider the agenda has been amended to move up um before item d uh public comment and so um other than that is there any other proposed changes then I'd like to ask unanimous consent with the that we approve the agenda is there any objection to the approval of the agenda as amended heing no objection so now we'll go ahead and move into our audience participation part we'll go and call up Denise worth and I don't know who is keeping time thank you welcome is it three minutes welcome please state your name a part of town you're from you'll have three minutes thank you my name is Denise worth
006and I am here to call foul on the decision by the Anchorage uh School Board to aot lakehood Elementary to a school that is currently already in scst and a um ASD building rentree has another two to three years on that building two has $2.5 million in reserve taxpayer money in reserve to uh make amends to this building if if needed and three um oh probably the most important doesn't fill the the lak hood Elementary by 50% they have a student enrollment somewhere between 230 and 270 if we split that difference it's 250 loc lakehood Elementary fits 500 they went against the ASD Administration recommendation for this their recommendation in right sizing and the mission for right sizing is to place the best school in the best building the best fit they went against that
007at all odds and voted for um anccs hope I got that acronym right to go into lak Hood so how did this travesty happen we learned that in December there was a promise made to prioritize anccs no no guard rails were placed on that such as if it's the right building if it's the right size in the right location just that it would be prioritized so when an amendment was floated at the meeting without any prior discussion of this using words like abandonment and fail and reminding the board that they made this promise they then voted to change the recommendation to uh place anccs in lak Hood rather than the charter school that perfectly fits the enrollment is not currently in an ASD building and is facing a financial cliff this goes against your rightsizing
008mission you failed the as the greater ASD community and now you have to do what my teenagers would say man up and own your fail so what can you do now I suggest a revote and I believe Robert's Rules um allows for this I also suggest that anyone with an implied or or stated special interest recuse thems from this vote thank you all right we also have an individual Ryan k please come forward state your name what part of turnning from you'll have three minutes good morning my name is Ryan K I'm here as a $6,000 a year just ASD taxpayer what I witnessed during the last rightsizing recommendation was unethical and downright illegal the administration's recommendations never stood a chance because of the backdoor deal that took place beforehand the member who proposed the
009amendment as well as the one who instantly seconded it have violated Municipal rules of conflict if not bribery I'll be emailing you guys all the information and campaign disclosures Manny aunia the APC chair of the Alaska native charter school as well as an active and prominent member of IBEW Local 1547 sir board member also works for ibw 1547 all those who voted to go against the administration's recommendations receive money from local IBEW 1547 again the awarded School their APC chair works for the union someone here works for the union someone gets thousands of dollars from the union if that isn't a conflict of interest I don't know it is again lakehood was bought and sold in Thousand increments hundreds of students and parents for months advocated for a school whose lease ends in August while
010only six to S showed up last week from mancs who has years on their lease they didn't need to show up because it was a done deal no wonder parents are fleeing this District this wasn't about right sizing this is quid pro quote again lakehood was bought and sold this is just two days of me searching on an iPhone to get this information I can't wait to see what the ethics office and the news outlets find as well because I've already shared this information with them but hey I'm sure it's all just a big coincidence find myself leaning middle to left on most issues but left or right corruption is corruption but it is a Friday and it is payday so I'd like to buy the next school closure all right would someone please come
011gather this litter that was left by the individual who just testified yeah it's just litter it's fake uh performance art everybody um we'll go ahead and move on just I will note that um allegations made here are not facts and that um political contributions are seen under the law not as quid pro Quil so with that then we will go ahead and move on um to our primary item on our agenda which is item D financial planning which is a report on the annual operating budget of the anchor school district for fiscal year 2025 2026 Mr Hollman how would you like to proceed um we have a resident budget expert sitting right next to me I'm going to turn the four or ask you to turn the four over to Mr rth our CFO all
012right thank you um for the record I'm Andy Ralph Chief Financial Officer for the school district and walk through an overview of our 2526 preliminary uh budget that has been submitted to the city for approval um first just quickly go over our timeline right now the school board has approved our budget through the meetings in February to turn it into the city the first Monday of March per Charter um with you guys having 30 days to approve it from that date uh currently the legislative is still in session so we don't know how much money we're actually going to get uh just as kind of on as side that's what happens generally every year we don't know how much money we're going to get until after the assemblies approve the budget for this year we
013didn't know how much money we're going to have until June 28th um so that's kind of where we're at in the timeline uh one of the underlying issues that we're having with this budget is our structural deficit based on a flat funding in the base student alloc since really since 20177 and how much ground we've lost since 2011 to inflation uh this chart shows the base student allocation since 2017 and those blue bars at the bottom and the red line at the top shows what it would have been if it was an inflation inflation adjusted since 2011 uh the gold bars are how much we've used in fund balance the darker blue bars are what we've spent in exra money to help balance the budget and then the state one time in Orange and that's
014really just to show kind of here's how how we've been able to budget balance the budget in past years without uh real significant Cuts we have been making Cuts every about every year um for the last decade or so uh smaller increments but you see kind of see that that's why is we've had these onetime pots of money to help Shore it up but those are gone we do have some fund balance to put towards it this year but certainly not enough to alleviate uh 65 or 70 million in real Cuts uh this is our upper limit similary that we're that we're going to request to the assembly about $866 million um so it's a reduction of about $28 million from the previous year about 3% most of that comes within the general fund although
015there are some addb backs for Grants as we anticipate getting those however uh that's also in flux now as well as we really the grant landscape especially on the federal level is um somewhat unpredictable say it kindly how we generate our money is generated through the base student allocation this is what um how the state funds schools and in turn sets the local appropriation maximum um but really what it does it takes our our student count which just our based on our enrollment rolls it through this formula that applies a district cost factor which anchorages a one every other District gets an increase for uh cost of living in their District um but Anchorage is the base so there's no increase there there's a 20% increase on that uh ADM count or the average daily
016membership to for special needs including gifted special education uh English language Learners and vocational education uh there's a one and a half% increase on top of that for CTE and then we get a 13 times multiplier for intensive needs funding and then correspondence funding set at 90% of their student count um there are a couple bills out there uh at the state level that the governor introduced it would change some of these factors uh the CTE Factor would go from 1 and 12% to 4% and then that correspondence would go from a 90% to um a 1.0 but then it would also roll through those other multipliers so the correspondence would increase quite a bit the CTU would increase a little bit um but still not enough to make up our our deficit the rest
017of that formula rules do is they take that a district adjusted ADM so really our student count um through all those multipliers gets to about 71,000 adjusted ADM and that's really what the basis of multiplying the base student allocation is for for generating Revenue in this case the base student allocation still that 5960 that's been there for several years without meaningful adjustment um gets to about 424 million what they call the state calls basic need or what a school should need to operate uh from that they reduce a portion for required local contribution that's the amount that the city needs to kick in based on statute for um the value of the property in the city um and then they also take a reduction for federal impact Aid uh they take about half of the
018federal impact Aid money the districts receives from the federal government out of the state allocation um through a program that's called the disparity test at the federal level that says if you are equalize your payments to districts then you can reduce a certain amount of federal revenue from the state revenue I think Alaska is the only state to do that now all the other states have stopped that that practice um adding the quality schools Grant we get to about $291 million in state money um and then there's an allowable an additional allowable uh amount for local taxes is about 98 million and that's based on the uh 23% of the basic need and they cap that amount so they can continue to deduct the federal money from our uh from our Revenue um so that's
019the only reason that I know of that that the additional amount the municipality can contribute is capped is so they can continue to reduce that that Federal appropriation so overall you can see our uh general fund total budget is going down by about 43 million in our Revenue um that coupled with about 20 or $25 million in inflation inflationary cost on that original budget based on uh contracts utilities any you know cost of everything goes up over time this is about 2 or 3% inflation um that gets to about a $65 million in actual cuts that we have to make so loss of Revenue and increase in costs and you can see the property taxes going up by about 4.7 million um that's due to that required local effort going up it went up by
020about 7 a. half million and then we were able to and then we reduced that by the additional local contribution which actually goes down um as a loss of generally that's going to be tied to a loss of enrollment so as we lose some students uh we get less State money and then less we're able to collect through that addition allowable so the net is going to be about a 4.7 million ask for increased property taxes to support the our general fund budget we're going to use about 40 almost $50 million of our fund balance to shore up our budget um about $13 million increase over the previous year and that's going to draw our reserves down to about $6 million about 1% of our uh operating budget and ual spendable reserves um that's not
021a lot to operate on for a district far size or any organization this this size you can see the foundation funding going down by about $12 million that's a combination of the required local effort going up by 7.5 million which is a direct reduction in state money so it's just a shifting in who pays while the taxpayers are paying more the state's paying less the district doesn't get any more money um so we get that question a lot why are my taxes going up but you guys keep asking for money and that's really wise they go up with that required local contribution but the state takes that money right back away from us so we're Net Zero when that happens um so lose about $12 million in Foundation funding and again that's a combination of
022the required local effort going down and then the enrollment declines which are tied to our Revenue as well and then the onetime funding goes away the 49 million um so that's really kind of the components of we see that $43 million decline in Revenue any questions go along and go ahead and Mr dony uh thank you Mr chairman um Andy um what's the actual uh dollar amount per student that the district is getting at this point in time from the state formula whatever uh in state revenue for the budget for FY 26 we have $697 in uh per actual student or ADM not adjusted but the average daily membership it's not necess average daily membership isn't necessarily enrollment it's generally a few hundred students lower than our enrollment based on like part-time students but we
023do use that average daily membership as the as the basis for that $6,900 so not materially different if we used actual enrollment Mr Martinez thank you chair pardon my voice um can you just describe a little better just for the opportunity of public education um the why we're going to be asked to increase taxes this year by 4 point whatever million can you describe that again I have a follow-up question to that yes can um and this slide will help kind of walk through that and this is a history since 2011 of how that's changed um but really uh the basis of it is the state gives us a lots us an amount of money that they say they think we need for Education that's called their basic need and then from that they require
024uh a local contribution um and it's 2.65 Mills of the full value of the property in the in the organized Bureau so that's about $48 million or $ 48 billion um so as that goes up the property values go up over time just like inflation does property values go up uh the required local contribution goes up and then there's a dollar for and then the state reduces their contribution by the amount of that required local contribution so as you see here this is kind of from 2011 to 16 you can see the property values going up from about 35 billion up to 48 billion uh see that increase there and then that required local local contribution has gone up 26 million over that same same time period if you look down to that $19 million
025reduction in state revenue so as that $26 million is increased over the years the state revenue has decreased by that amount as well so again it's just kind of a net zero to the district on that it's just a cost shifting to the Anchorage taxpayers thank you so the followup would be theoretically it's possible although it may not be practically something that has happened what happens when if and when property tax taxes decreased or the property values decreased yep and that's happened like in smaller increments we see maybe you know a few hundred thousand a million dollars in some Years or or it stayed flat in that case then this the it does shift like so the state would pay more and the city would pay less um so the required local contribution again it's
026tied to 2.65 Mills of that property values um and so right now the city's kicking in $128 million of uh local cont required local contributions the property values go down that number would drop and the state would pay a little more but historically that doesn't happen and this will be my final point on that so just just to make sure I'm hearing this correctly essentially um the state hasn't kept up with the the the BSA over time so the shift has been downward to us but if we're successful and have a thriving economy and and values of our properties are improving we get a shorter hand of a stick from the state on that front too correct I mean that's that's exactly what happens if our property values go up the state's going to pay
027less I mean if they somehow doubled overnight then they're you know it's and that's in the face of what they're already have kept up with funding in the first yeah and we have have a slide like towards the end of this that kind of shows the state funding over time just for K12 education and it shows it going down um even in real dollars uh and that's really because the cost shifting has occurred to um districts or municipalities I guess yeah that was kind of the intent to show this slide to show how that required local contributions gone up over time um transportation's gone up it used to be 100% funded by the state now this we're asking the city to put in another 13 million to help Shore up our our bus service and
028then the additional local contribution has gone up a little bit uh the formula's changed a little bit since uh over time but not a lot so we have gotten a little bit more in additional local contributions um but the state in terms of real dollars between 2011 and 2026 is paying $19 million less than now or projected for next year versus what they gave us in fy1 and these are real dollars these aren't inflation adjusted it's the their contributions have gone down over time um so how we prioritize our budget and how we started the build uh this shows I have a few more people with questions your question was answered thank you so uh next Miss Zelo after that Miss Bry thanks so could the state change its policy about the cost shifting is
029that one of the things it could do I don't see why not I mean it's a statute that requires it so all they do is change the statute they did change it I forget what year it was but there used to be a different formula for how that was calculated it was like 4% of the difference between the current year in 201 1999 or something weird what's so with the cost shifting like right let's just say there wasn't cost shifting and you just got the local contribution maxed out as per state law and the state doesn't reduce their amount what's that Delta uh that's the 128 million-ish so it would close your deficit yeah oh hey look we've got another solution on the table thanks yeah if that wasn't in there if we didn't have
030to pay that um but then the city would have yeah then we could yeah I don't know how they would actually do it that it's well so I mean so it could just be a policy Choice by the state versus a monetary Choice by the state right yeah it would it would close our deficit to the extent that the assembly in the city continues to fund the district at that level we've never let you down thanks I know you guys have been great I don't know about never but not in memory um thank you you Mr broley thanks um yeah I feel like we're having the same depressing conversation that we have every uh every three months when we come here so I'm sorry that you guys are the front line of that but um
031just to be super clear so I'm looking at the uh State Foundation Revenue am I reading this correctly so like you said it's not adjusted for inflation so literally since fy1 and I moved to the state in 2011 so almost four 14 years ago almost 15 years ago we were getting $19 million more from the state than we are now correct okay and then projected right or based on what's in statute currently right um and then of course as we saw like like you just said the formula is that the local contribution has increased as a result of that formula not really so much a choice on our part right and part of it's going to be enrollment declines like we have it I mean I me we have lost students so that does affect
032the state revenue U but it's a combination of the cost shifting there have been some increases in the student allocation since then and then the enrollment declin so there's a lot of different factors that go in there but in terms of real dollars to keep a similar amount of buildings open it's gone down thanks um yeah I think I mean it seems like around the table we're just underlining over and over the same problem and so yeah I don't know what else to say about it it just it is a problem thanks all right anyone else ding thank you right so as we kind of get into the meat of how the budget was built this is really where our money goes this is what our current FY 26 approved allocation is I'm kind of
033starting at the middle we've broken it down into just four very broad categories the first being in the direct classroom instruction which is the teachers and Pa professionals all the supplies materials equipment Services software that are in the classroom being used every day um about 58% of our Revenue goes in there 343 million our next categories biggest as student supports and those are the ones that are generally at schools or helping School function um kind of ancillary Services counselors nurses Librarians um security we put Student Activities in there sports uh the curriculum development behind that all the behavioral supports uh principles the clerical staff at the schools professional development Social Services all these things the that we have at the schools to help support them the students are in there not necessarily directly in the
034classroom though spent about $81 million in operations and maintenance to keep our student or our schools operational safe and clean then about 34 million or so on District administration which is just kind of the business end of um operating a government and that's you know me their school board superintendent uh just all all those business functions so the table at the bottom shows how that was a portion back in fy2 so our current budget and then in FY 26 and you can see the percentages are about the same so it's really just showing that we have reduced all these categories from year to year it's no one has really held harmless in this budget uh and we'll go through more details in what was reduced here in a second Mr chair I have a question
035Miss Proby thanks um I'm curious not to go deep into this but um you know we know that the cost of operating buildings has gone up and then we know Healthcare is going up at a rate much faster than regular inflation so I'm just curious not to get in the weeds but of those two categories is that how much is that a driver of these cost pressures because obviously if it's a if it's a zero sum game those things eat up more of the budget um I'm just curious like how much that is part of the because we don't Focus so much on that we focus on the impacts to operations to teachers right which is important I'm wondering for these other categories um yeah I mean we're fairly it's a people intensive business that
036we run so with the operations and maintenance a lot of that money is going to be I think maybe half of that or so a little more as probably people um but then we have like you know utilities all those costs are wrapped into there so uh but yeah you're very you're absolutely right that health insurance has been a huge driver and that's where we see like you know when we're talking about our inflationary pressures maybe 3% um that's trying to hold some levels down and then acknowledging Healthcare is going to be more expensive so that's just kind of the Baseline is like when we're talking about how we have to how much we have to cut projecting out from 25 to 26 here's how much all our cost going to go up and then
037to make the reductions um I don't know if that really answers your question very well but it's yeah I mean I just I know it's an issue with every organization I just um I I just we don't talk much we don't talk as much as we should I think about the cost of health insurance and how it eats into people's wages over time right and we' shifted more our health insurance costs onto our employees our benefits have been reduced over time um that's kind of masks the overall increase in the cost but it is a cost to our employees for sure Mr Higgins question thank you um I know that the university did a review of the cost of living issue about salaries and the impact I mean Juno has lower cost lower energy cost
038than we do now it shocked me uh but the impact is of course we've got a we've got a higher cost of living now compared to with 99 we've had other changes take place during this period of time the amount of salary we are behind cost uh is is more than what this cost of living data would show and we're 85% of our cost or 80% of our cost at least being in Personnel so it impacts I think you made a very good point it impacts it significantly the salary and the benefits uh of both inflationary factors that um exceed the the cost of living in general I believe that's pretty substantial and that's a great point Thank you and that doesn't mention the cost of eggs so all right so how we balance the
039budget uh the biggest thing was we've increased our P to teacher ratio essentially our class sizes by four at every grade level um this one was a tough one to swallow but that's where the majority of our costs are in the classroom um what that looks like at the schools or other adjustments we're making at the schools is for our elementary schools um our nurses and Librarians have both been reduced to if there schools smaller than 300 students uh reduce that to a halftime nurse and librarian eliminated all our library assistants continued our reduction in Supply funds uh eliminated some money for battle of the books limited three addenda at each school and this is kind of the the addenda at the school levels are really well allows um the schools to operate like after
040school programs you know if they want to do a soccer club or uh agenda for you know choir or something some these kind of things that are activities for students that are kind of above and beyond the normal school day uh we eliminated the ignite program for the gifted students and then we closed Lake hood and Ina Valley elementary schools at the middle school level again with the plus4 PTR increase we also reduced we reduce some principals and counselors and then eliminated all Middle School supports or Sports and then um produced the again continued with our reduction that happened this year for our supply funds for all those those schools as well uh for high for high schools we eliminated all our library assistants some principes counselors and office admin um eliminated hockey swimming and
041Diving and gymnastics uh the ice time and pool rentals are really kind of the driver what makes those uh those Sports pretty expensive and then we eliminated the lease with the Dome uh for which does help support our track and soccer programs and then also with the supply funds they were continued reduction as well um alternative programs they'll also see like the middle a lot of those play the Middle School sports so that that'll go away and then they also the PTR increases for those schools as well as a principal that came out of family partnership that we had actually reduced this year and the budget's just catching up to it um so those are the big drivers on kind of the schools to put that in terms of dollars here's kind of where all
042the money falls between uh what's the pup teacher ratio adjustments we did reduce 70 teachers just based on enrollment we lost over a thousand kids this year from what we had actually planned um expecting to lose a few hundred more kids next year so enrollment does continue to decline as birth rates and Anchorage decline and then net out migration uh program based teachers this the immersion programs at elementary schools by and large so we had an extra 12 staff or so at our our elementary immersion programs to help support class sizes in those outside of that PTR metric so those came out there was a there was a change at Girdwood where we needed to shore up their middle school program so that's the other three we reduced our number of holdback teachers which is
043really our uh ability to plug gaps in secondary schedu ual or if you have class size bubbles in elementary you weren't expecting those hold back teachers really allow us to place an extra staff member to alleviate class sizes or help with scheduling um but again we're just principls counselors Librarians nurses uh some clerical staff some of these are due to the um uh the school closures so like the clerical staff you see five being reduced there four those were at those elementary schools that were closed uh and then we reduced a number of other just kind of things that weren't Staffing related to include the service supplies equipment Sports um just kind of all across the board really went line by line through this budget and reduced as much as we possibly could uh to
044get to a balanced budget we in we reduced special services so special education got reduced this year for the first time um in as long as I can remember I think probably when Dr Browder was here was the last time that actually got reduced so it's been a good decade um by and large the teachers coming out of here are with the ignite program but there are some in wh there's staff in Way elementary Ed those positions going down uh so that's really you can see about5 half million doar have reduced costs in our special services um our departments and administration we're taking yet another staff out of our accounting department transferring some purchasing staff Human Resources it mental health teaching and learning all these kind of head Center based programs or departments are being
045reduced to the tune about 8.9 million um that also includes made a list um it's reduction also in like legal fees any sort of travel food purchases software equipment uh major maintenance contracts Capital Equipment uh advertising any sort of extra help we have professional development really again we went line by line through all these departments and cut as much stuff as we we could out of there and still be able to function so that's our general fund reductions for transportation we're really kind of limited in what we can reduce there without stop real quick we did have someone in the queue on that last slide sorry all tell thank you so um what caught my ear is special education did you guys audit the services I mean these kids are supposed to get individualized education
046plans that doesn't really matter what your budget can and can't do and so to see things like um a clerical is fine I mean that's just going to push it on the teachers and that's going to stink right for those case managers um but you've got the educational interpreters I presume that's from the Alaska school for the death and heart of hearing we've been there before um and the par professionals are we going to meet the needs of the kids or are we going to be back in a position like we've been before where ASD says I'm sorry I know you're kid really needs that but we're not going to provide it because we can't afford it like because then it's going to drive up your legal costs so I feel like we are I
047mean and it's you are in an impossible position but is very shortsighted to be making these decisions on the backs to the children and I think in special education especially you have an obligation to make sure these are individualized plans so I would like to know what auditing or what substantive evaluation was done to determine that these won't impact the actual kids IEPs and the ability of more kids to get the services they need as based on their actual needs not what the district can afford right thank you I'm probably not the most qualified to speak to actual the academic Services being provided I count the money but unfortunately we don't have someone here to really speak to the details of that but I can say a lot of those like the educational interpreters that
048school those have been vacant for years um we did Rec kind of tool that budget to make sure that those were weren't positions that were going to be uh students aren't going to lose services on those uh the teachers I believe they were reevaluating the resource programs at the elementary schools um but again I'm not who's the special ed director uh Pam momy and parisha Wayne are special ed directors and then svin would be good to speak to it too but those folks aren't here today okay but we can get definitely follow up much I'll send an email CH hman did you want to speak to that point I I did just uh as someone that spent a few years in schools this this has been a long running program or problem um particularly with
049sped because it times the IEP team creates requirements that that we can't meet um and to be honest I'm I'm not sure but I think your idea of an audit of the IPS as to what is being required and what is actually being delivered would be a good one of course audits cost some money that is something that we would normally turn to the Council of great City Schools uh they deploy teams basically at cost for transportation and lodging um from people from different districts that have expertise and we've used them in other areas but that that could be very telling you know like it's very common for an IP to to specify an aid to be with a student and there simply aren't any in Wesley significantly raise raise raise wages um for those
050folks and we have not in quite some time so it is a a really valid question and an open issue and the reason I ask it is when your pupil teacher ratio goes up and you have kids who are trying to integrate who have special needs they're probably going to need more support in larger class classrooms and it will come back and be hard for the district if parents are dissatisfied that their child their children's needs aren't being met so there's a cost one way or the other um and I think that that's important to realize um there was a time when there was substantial litigation against the school district around special education services I think that time has passed to some extent I would prefer not to see it go back to that because
051it really damages relationships so being thoughtful about that up front and possibly figuring out you know that kind of audit or even just it maybe not doesn't have to be quite that specific but at least a look to see what are kids what are the majority of kids needing what are they needing to succeed um or what is it what is required not even needing what is required in their IEPs and is the budget designed in a way to deliver it could save the district a headache later thank you all right Mr CH Mr Jacobs yeah thank you um I I appreciate the concern and it's it's something that um that I share as a therapeutic foster parent who who cares for youth who receive IEP 504 Services um I think what administration highlighted a
052number of times during the budget process is that this um is their best proposal to um comply with law and utilize the resources in the the best way possible but to be clear this path and this adopted budget um that we're on isn't sustainable um we cannot continue to um pretend that there are efficiencies and cuts that will um mitigate fully mitigate the impact of legislative in action and so um it's something I know all be monitoring while we also continue to advocate for appropriate resources mrin yeah I I recall the legal action because I was at nosto at that time and we were dealing with the same issue and I was having to deal with it but the the opportunity to bypass the obligations doesn't exist for financial reasons you have to meet what
053you have to meet and and I know that that becomes a huge issue I think you're absolutely right we don't have any flexibility on that we have flexibility when we come to negotiating though the IEP and that's an oblig that's an issue that's out there that we can always do but once you've reached that then you got the issues we had the issu of seclusion and other ISS issues that were out there in the school district as well as norto and other other facilities and um um if we have to raise it to five we raise the classroom sizes by five but I don't see how you avoid that I will share with you though that we are doing audits of operations and one of those that's listed out there that we've talked about is
054in Special Ed I know we have support from the superintendent in doing that let do a review that brings in top people from other law school districts to come in review what we're doing see what we can do to improve it and make sure that we're meeting compliance and I like that type of approach and I appreciate the superintendent support for the board to direct that kind of audit all right anyone else on this question Miss broy um yeah I wanted on a slightly different topic although I see it says sped um I wanted to ask about the mental health cut and I'm not ad I know why all these cuts are being made so setting that aside I'm wondering um because we you know we keep hearing mental health is a huge issue behavior
055issues suicide ideation right all of these issues with our kids younger and younger so I'm just wondering um because I see there's six positions being eliminated so what what is that as a share of the whole Mental Health Department I guess um is that I'm assuming that's not all the staff and I know these kinds of issues also then fall on teachers and others but I'm just curious kind of what what that looks like um specific like how much of a cut is that $57,000 in six positions sure that's a great question and it's really only five positions one of those positions is moving over to the special ed because that's where the work was being done we're just trying to get in the right uh function code so um currently in this year's budget
056they have like they have 22.3 FTE and mental health um and that'll go down to 15.3 for next year um or yeah and and sorry that's for every school or sorry it's for entire District uh well there's other mental health professionals in the districts we have a psychology department that wouldn't be included in here all the counselors that we have that are a school base that's not included in here this is just the ones that are um kind of managed by a central Department here and then pushed out to schools as needed the positions that are being reduced here the behavior positions have been vacant for a couple years as well um so they're not currently filled positions thanks and then just a quick followup too I mean um I know there's Community organizations out
057there that also provide these Services I know there was a change recently to allow bilding Medicaid for more services I guess has there been discussion about other opportunities to increase those services in schools and I I know it's something that you guys have been working on right but I'm just curious where that's at and whether it needs because if it's cut out of the School District budget it's obviously still in need so is there a way to fill it with other you know other entities and Mr chair if I could answer this please yeah so this is a great question M BR and one I asked at a recent um School Board committee meeting what I think I understand about the state processes they're currently laying the groundwork for um how uh districts in in
058our state can begin utilizing that billing process but that framework um to the best of my knowledge hasn't been established yet but it's it's very close um as soon as we can begin turning on that spigot I intend to push Administration to do that um they added a position to assist in that billing work which will drive additional Revenue and provide the district additional funds that I would like to to utilize them in a fungible way to continue to support this work um so as to not divert funds from our primary source of Revenue the State dollars through the foundation formula I just note that even that is in question now the potential of Medicaid services Mr Martinez thank you chair I just wanted to ask a question about the vacant positions um you described
059at least on two occasions in the last couple minutes that there were positions that had not been filled essentially that are being eliminated now um when the municipality was looking at um our positions to some extent there had been similar challenges with keeping positions on the budget with the hope of recruiting for those positions um can you describe that those recruiting efforts what how would the district project recruiting efforts in a time of clawback so essentially are we holding on to positions for too long and is the right sizing conversation only in a a res um a reactive nature rather than proactive are there more positions that we will not be able to fill there's we know that the the the the Rope is short there's no other resources coming you know usually it's a
060stack of things that build up to be able to have things hit the the classroom the schools um over time to sustain positions in the first place often right so can you get it can you give me a little more sense of the way we look at vacancies and or when we have vacancies on the book are they actively recruiting for those jobs uh yeah that's a great question and kind and it'll go back to guess the type of position like the ones in our central office uh we've been holding all those any vacancy that comes up and holding it for at least 10 days before we post it and we've been trying to review those to make sure there's need and that's where we found some of the reductions as we're trying to replace
061those is okay you've gone a long time without having that fully staffed can we reduce it um but the bigger ones like most a lot of ours are in the special education department you know so otpt speech psychologist those positions are hard to find Nationwide and while we've been recruiting Nationwide um it's really hard to fill but we need to provide those Services somehow sometimes we take that money and backfill it with contractors um or in the case of like teachers we'll do it with long-term subs or something but we still want to try to recruit those certified Personnel so I'm going to I'm just going to speed it up just to to to the point that member zel made before every bucket is not the same so the bucket that have legal requirements I'm
062not interested in in those because they're not as subjective as some of the other buckets that may have subjectivity in terms of holding on to them without a projected opportunity like have we been holding on to positions and you may not have the answer fully but that we know to activate those positions thoroughly would require the state to do more for example so then essentially we're sandbagging up the budget a little bit to just hold space in the okay but there are different buckets with legally required to do that and then we're all leaning up and how long does it maybe we we could get to lean faster so we can get to how we can improve uh our ability to to withstand the state cuts better right because if we have dollars on the
063books that are not going to be filled with positions I don't want it like that I rather those dollars be get get shifted into the other positions into the other areas much faster and maybe it's not a big number there but it seems that at least on a few occasions it's been identified as there have been positions on the books that are essentially connected to budgets that are now being cut but uh we could get better faster rather than being so reactive in that way yeah and really the way that we do our budget is in regards to that attrition and vacancy because we know we're going to have a certain amount of positions open throughout the year um we've estimated that at about 40 million $41 million in savings for next year of having
064either turnover vacancies or people waving medical insurance so we do make a reduction in our budget we say okay we're going to gamble that $ 41 million going to be saved through the course of this budget and we're going to put that in other areas so to some extent we already do that um and it's not where we're going through like we want this position that's take an IT position it's been vacant or turns over a lot should we cut that and then just reduce that attrition line item um so it's kind of we do try to account for it and then we do go look at those positions to make sure the need to have them open is there um because a lot of these that we show I mean they just like rotate
065it's not necessarily vacant all year it's we'll have someone in there for two or three months months they leave someone two or three months and probably gets back to your comment about um does the state need to be to be able to do more so we can provide the wage increases to get the appropriate Professionals in our in our uh company so right Miss Wilson I I was hoping we could talk or you could talk a little bit specifically about the nurses because and how our schools are going to be affected by uh cutting 15 nursing positions yeah great question again I'm not the academic expert by any means on this but you know it will have negative effect on those um it 30 schools or so that have those nurses coming out uh I
066you would end up probably having nurses shared between schools so halime at one school halftime at other maybe they're splitting days but if there's an invent of emergency you know that's generally the person that they call uh the nurses also probably provide a considerable amount of like mental health support you know there's that's just another person in the building to talk to um give teachers bathroom breaks I mean there's a number of things that these positions do even if they're not like in a classroom full-time and it's going to have a negative effect on our schools but the actual actual programmatic part of it is I'm not quite as versed in Mr Higgins yeah I I appreciate the question because we have some qu some positions that are filled with a with a Visa we
067have France providing uh teachers we have Spain we there have two new rotation so we to to delay that or interfere with that would be a problem that was brought up at the school board meeting superintendent and the response for that was they're proceeding forth with that they don't have to get to the point of approval at this point but they need to go the process going in they're not holding back on that otherwise that would impact the immersion programs pretty significantly and that was what my concern was we have about 50 long-term Subs now so we and I heard from uh aea that they're looking at a turnover about 350 again a high number we've got we we are fighting to fill the positions we've got right now uh which we're not being totally
068successful so the opportunity would turn over and other issues with it we like um anything else in the state of Alaska we don't have enough applicants for the positions in all of our areas um we've got six I think schools that do not have the lunches because we can't get the managers in there so we have got you've got a serious crisis and and South on an issue no defined benefit is an issue that causes to turnover higher so the first 5 years when we have higher turnover that's when the growth of the teacher skills improve um in any profession and so we have a higher turnover rate there and the superintendent talked about that Comm at the chamber and said you know we're trying to achieve these academic things but that's going to be
069a serious impact and I agree with his assessment at that point in time so we're not we recruiting is is not I don't think mean delayed at all uh we don't make the offers till later anyway because we don't know how many positions are going and people will be interviewing and making a selection uh so I don't think they're they're slowing down at all the recruiting aspect it's just finding the applicants the salary the benefits and the turnover is is a little killer for us and the timing was most serious for me was for the J1 Visa those visas are pretty easy but you still have to put them in process to make sure they're timely otherwise it's going to impact those emusion programs I think the [ __ ] the um the two that stand out
070of the French and Spanish and then we got the Chinese so um we I I think that HR is doing what it needs to do in the recruitment aspect of it the turnover is something being caused by all the other factors that we're talking about and so I don't think that we're slowing down the process we just simply need to somehow force people up here um involuntarily if necessary uh to fill the positions necessary it's a real crisis that we've got I have myself in the cube just briefly um there's this conversation going on about getting lean faster um that term really struck a cord in my head I think we experience a term that I just found out I'm not the originator of financial or budgetary or monetary dysmorphia our perception of our financial
071POS position if people believe we have a lot of room to get lean is like we have a form of dysmorphia there isn't in my read of all of these things a lot of room to lean out this budget and in fact the leanness of this budget is starting to suggest illness it's starting to suggest sickness right when someone gets so lean that they start to be Skin and Bones people start to ask what is going on and so I just want us to be really clear we're not here talking about a fat budget that needs to get lean in the context of dysmorphia we're talking about a very lean budget that has been leaned out for the last 10 years that is getting to the point of critical and so that I want to
072make sure is held in mind in this conversation back to the slide presentation Mr Hollman yeah um I was G to speak uh to to what Mr Martinez was saying I I I think what I heard you saying is we may have positions we don't really intend to feel in the budget as kind of a a protective layer and to my knowledge that doesn't exist um we have a lot of unfilled positions and they act that way uh that's been the thing that's recharged our fund balance um through the year we we start off you know like in this case we're going to start off with a 5% fund balance which really is dangerously low um but assuming we have the same success rate in recruiting people that number is going to rise as we
073get into the school year if we're unable to hire people and so that's been happening and I I think that when they did this budget and again correct me if I misinterpreted this we didn't look at positions that had been vacant for quite a while to cut those so that we didn't lay off anyone we actually had working in the district because a certain percentage of them will not come back um I've seen the recruiting fairs lately um they're anemic they're anemic here they're anemic other places there aren't very many candidates even showing up um I did stop by the one at the cook that the state used to hold or maybe they still hold it um in 1993 and there were literally thousands of people that had flung themselves up here to stand in
074line and hope for a chance to work in Alaska as an educator and and they're just not there anymore more so I I think we have these positions open because at any moment someone walks through the door and it happens all through the school year we want principales to be able to interview hire and place people um but yeah some of those positions may have been used so that we didn't weigh anybody off in the the process right and I think within some of these positions that we did reduce there are people in those and they may get uh pink slips particularly our um non-certified folks uh um we you know we'll try to find a place for them though of course we do have vacancies we can move them around but if those positions
075are going away then we have to find something to do with them uh with respect to gaining the fund balance like this year we have we um I'm sorry Mr Martinez was hoping to speak before you proceeded sure yeah just to continue on that point U the one thing that I don't think has been mentioned is the positions that are on the books are connected to a need yes you needed to say that extremely clear guys right so that the opportunity for the public to understand is not just in a in a rhetorical way right these are things that student needs are being kept from being met for married reasons and this particular one is from my vantage point looking at the vacancy question and recognizing that we are extremely lean and I really appreciate
076like you could get so lean you know I've lost some weight healthily and people are like what's wrong with you right and I'm like I'm doing better than you so that you know like L come jog with me or something right but but the first impulse is to think what's going on um so I wanted to be real clear because I don't think it was mentioned and I was hoping that it would be um Carl mentioned it to me made sure that he understood what my point was which is even the the vacancies on the books are connected to a student need somewhere full stop yeah we certainly don't have any positions in there we don't intend to fill but on our side we do make that but even beyond that if you intended to
077fill them but they had no connection to need you don't have those jobs on the books right certainly they where there's a need for okay so they're all connected to need thank you thank you Mr hman laugh note on this one and we'll move on by D go ahead um and and I think because something is very apparent to those of us that have worked in the district and and you may be right to people outside it may not be as clear but it it's an indication to me how uncompetitive we are and I I kind of object to us using the word recruit at a different time in life I used to work for the University of North Carolina Athletic Association I know what they mean when they say recruit and they show up
078in a beautiful van with credit cards to great restaurants and so we've never recruited teachers like that we do sign contracts with them yeah but um but yeah the I I think those vacant positions are are like a a warning flag that even doing what you're doing you're not able to to attract people to work in this industry any longer and it is a sign of ill health um whether the budget gets met or not I think really we're not trying to recruit we're trying to stop the bleeding that's where we are at this point want to proceed that was our general fund uh for our transportation fund we'll have our we are requesting another nearly four or $3.9 million in property taxes to shore up our transportation um our costs continue to escalate with
079those um our underlying state revenue has not changed since 2016 the per student amount uh however the state mandated starting wage for drivers has increased 33 % uh based on the we have to pay our P drivers two times the minimum wage that's in statute so that minimum wage will have increased 33% between 2006 and 2016 and 2026 um so our costs are mandated to go up however the revenue to pay for those is not so we've been riant on the city to help Shore that up uh thankfully again the city you guys to for helping them do that but um again it's just more pressure put on the Anchorage taxpayers or it's really hard to reduce these Services even as we you know have fewer kids they're not all from one neighborhood so we
080can't really reduce the number of buses and still get kids to school on time before you move on there's two of us myself in the queue um I think there was some discussion about this earlier um this Transportation cost shift um what analysis has been done on the risk of us as a group F falling or kind of falling outside of the maximum allowed local contribution because of that policy that the state has kind of chewed back and forth on so if we do this are we at risk of loss based on that state policy um that's a great question my understanding from deed at this point is they will make a recommendation to the State Board who will they determine the AAR that that govern this policy um which I guess to back up
081is within that additional allowable contribution that the city can give districts um historically we've taken the approach that transportation is outside of that uh the conversation is what should be included within that additional allowable so there's not a disparity between how much local communities can fund individual districts um my understanding is D is going to make a recommendation to the State Board to have transportation be within that additional allowable so additional what it says is you're not going to be able to put in that extra 13 million to shore up busing it's going to have to come from some other source you're going have to make Cuts elsewhere to do it unless there's an increase in state revenue which would actually increase that allowable contribution um but that would go into effect for FY 27
082as I understand it or that would be Deeds request to the State Board is to have it to go into effect for not next year but the year after um given us time to make that adjustment but my understanding is it's not 100% up to deed to make that call that's up to the state board so when when they get it they could conceivably enact it immediately and we would have a $13 million problem so in some ways this is a gamble yes okay and I think rational argument could be made that there are a few other districts that have the same Geographic concerns that that our transportation is unique because the number of trips some of them have airplanes which is a different thing but um there are probably arguments to be made but
083I want folks to recognize that's a gamble that is embedded in this budget because that's what it looks like to me right and speaking with d they had they absolutely have no intent of doing anything other than recommending it for another to be not into effect this coming year with the year after um but again you know it's up to the board and not feed at that point yeah Mr Don yeah I in examining the statute That's the basis for the funding we get which hasn't been updated since 2016 it seemed to me that it was last time it was renewed it was not subject to any data or logical analysis it was just percentages increased so this thing's really old really out of date um and I think Anchorage is badly discriminated against in
084that those dollar amounts that are stuck actually dollar amounts per District separate dollar amounts and it's another thing that we desperately need a new analysis of to see if we're being treated fairly which I don't believe we are in that statute right and our costs have just continued to escalate so fast in our transportation just to get our just to hire the drivers you remember a few years ago and a third of our routes weren't running um yeah so kind of the history on that is early teens they the state used to have this 100% reimbursable And they changed it to a per student amount based on what the costs were at that time and then they added some inflation proving up through fy16 but since then it really hasn't so up through fy16 State
085100% covered it but then inflation's been eating away of it for the last decade um but yeah per student base and as our students go down it's it's been increasingly difficult we did get some onetime funds for this year for transportation but again that's going away for next year it's just the nature of one time all right I think we can proceed all right uh for Debt Service is the other one that has property taxes attached to it that we want to discuss um we're reducing our property tax appropriation request by about 5.2 million for debt just based on the bonds we expect to have to pay off in that time frame uh we do have a little bit of fund balance in that that we can apply to help offset those property taxes our
086fund balance is generally in this fund is generally generated by uh if we refund or refinance a bond and get a lower interest rate we have some savings during that year um or if we estimate a bond sale and the bond sale comes in a little bit lower so this is generally accumulated over several years and then we'll say okay we have this year we have three and a half million we think we can put towards uh just alleviating additional property taxes so we did that our payments are going down by about 7.3 million overall to about 47 million total I'm sorry change in local taxes from 25 to 26 we're requesting about $3.4 million in additional local support on our fiscal year again that's in based on the required local contribution going up uh
087ction on the additional allowable contribution and then Transportation going up Debt Service going down um overall our on a calendar year it'll be about uh 73% increase by $1.9 million um so this is the request that's in front of the board or in front of the assembly for uh two weeks um we are requesting as much as we can through the local tax cap we do calculate that out um separately as a district I know the overarching tax cap for the city is just one one number U but if we were to do it just for the district here's how it kind of math out so we're taking up um as much as we can based on this to uh for the the city tax cap because we're beholden to the lower of the city
088or the State caps on uh dollars we can receive um so really our key takeaways here is we balanced our budget based on our known revenues there's no projection for increased state revenue in here uh our class sizes are going to increase our supports are going to be diminished at all our schools uh Sports and special programs are going away um our administrative and maintenance services are going to be diminished reducing our ability to respond to uh building problems we have or you know anything else that comes up we're not going to have that flexibility in our fund balance to cover emergencies less flexibility for even enrollment changes if we see a more significant decline in enrollment again this year than we're projecting then that means less and we have to cover that somewhere um
089so we're just increasing our RIS on our district you know our reserves are going to be away we're not going to have those hold back positions to sh up classroom bubbles um but the legislature is in session hopefully we get some good movement out of there I know they've had a lot of conversations it's been a big focus of the legislature and really hopefully they can come to an agreement to fund education appropriately and we can add some of these positions back lower our class sizes um with that I did want to discuss one other thing which would be the amendment that was made to the 26 budget by members Jacobs lessons two questions for you miss Alo so it's a bit of a comment but the budget process lines up with the lottery process
090and this year as a parent trying to engage in the lottery it was nearly impossible what am I lottering for because your budget decision is made as the lottery closes and what I didn't see I'll tell you and this is a little bit my own bias because I'm about to have a high schooler is any information about what the impacts in high school would be about your budget cuts I heard a lot about Middle School sports I heard a lot about nurses I've heard a lot about charter schools and immersion programs I had no clue what it was going to be in high school and I didn't know if your proposed student your pupil teacher ratio PTR means something else in another part of my world I had a hard time with that one your
091PTR was going to apply to the lottery programs and so it is really hard to make a choice and I think a lot of parents are stuck in having made a choice or put in for an option and then now when those lottery results will come out they're going to be faced with different programs than what they sought and so it's it's a timing issue and I know you guys are in a tough spot with that but I think it's a communication issue as well um so I wanted to provide that feedback having kind of just went through it um because it's hard also again no communication like all of this is fine but about what happens in high schools all I heard about were middle and elementary schools and I don't know why so
092I there some feedback it's tough um so on that list there's just this one of the things one of the key takeaways that I wish was on there is parent uncertainty to make choices about their child's education because this isn't just happen in the district buildings this happens within our community around people trying to make choices in a set of bad circumstances it's not just you all having to make choices it's the parents and the children and I I feel like we had a disconnect this year thank you Mr Su thank you chair I'll be quick so just two comments and kind of a question um one is around the process hopefully that you you know ask all departments to get involved and the way you probably do this in the business world is you
093know we have the 5% cut everyone gets that challenge and hopefully it goes all the way down to the classrooms that they are able to participate in this process and provide feedback because they may see waste at the front line that you're not seeing at an administrative level um I also want to make sure that during this process as you look to optimize budgets that underserved or under vocalized communities don't take on a disproportionate share of the cuts which can happen um since they have less time maybe to come in and speak or less familiar with how to speak and make their voices heard we definitely want to make sure we're continuing to serve the those that need the services the most and the last is I this is my request I know you do
094benchmarking we've talked about in the past what I'd like to see is is how you track your budget towards dollars that are physically spent in the classroom you know whether that's teacher salaries or resources for the for the classroom not broken down by on a per student basis but really that's where we want to see those dollars spent is in that classroom and and on those students and I'd like to see a metric in that in that reference if you could thank you that's great and we do track that through like um if you look at our state functions in our budget State function 100 is direct classroom instruction State function 200 is direct classroom instruction for special education and we provide the history on those so we can track you know how much we
095are spending in those areas um try to simplify that a little bit because a lot of people don't understand State functions um so this slide you show up that shows up here is really the the simplest version we show of it where it shows direct classroom instruction um and this is actually based on an amendment that I could even let uh member Jacobs or Lon speak to if they want but I wanted to highlight this amendment as it comes up in the event that we get, BSA increase Mr chair if you'd like a can Mr Jacobs yeah thank you um so the board um when we adopted our budget did so for at least the first time best of my knowledge since I join the body without amending administration's proposal um in part and I'll
096only speak for myself to avoid pitting uh one program against another in part due to the representation concerns that um member salt alluded to what we did do uh at the request um on legislative floor sessions um on radio through radio interviews um through op-eds um through social media posts um is be responsive to uh members of the angor delegation specifically to express a vision for how a permanent increase to the base student allocation would be effectuated specifically to funnel resources directly into the classroom and so uh Mr Ratliff um was very generous with his time and support to provide um a metric that we're showing on the screen now which highlights that uh over 61 % of our budget uh would effectively be utilized for direct um classroom instruction with with much more um
097additional support um through other categories like uh student um supports and operations and maintenance with um all but a very small percentage of our budget going to Administration which I think puts us very competitively as one of the lowest percentage um districts in the state I think right now we're third or fourth um with our fy2 budget and um the The Proposal that member lesons and I drafted and the board unanimously approved would reverse many of the harmful cuts um that had to be implemented as part of this budget process um reduce the and reverse the uh plus4 people to teacher ratio increase restore value programs like ignite language immersion um High School sports and Middle School sports um return our Li Librarians to full-time status and nurses to the same uh battle the books
098Etc and then also make um additional Investments which the legisl that just called for specifically would reduce class sizes to some of the lowest we've seen since 2016 uh in addition it would um invest millions in a highd does tutoring uh to support um reading and math uh which is a priority for um our appropriators at the legislative level who are who who are for understandable reasons hyperfocused on standardized testing outcomes um and so it really is a vision for um how the legislature can help Drive the outcomes that they so Des L uh join us in wanting to to see become a reality um with that said um you certainly the the amendment is public record we can definitely get a copy for the assembly uh to review and ask any questions um to
099speak to the budget process the assembly will undergo shortly I just want to say that there is a unique opportunity to get creative and joining us with advocacy and the assembly has been amazing and a constant supporter um during my time on the board and I'm extremely grateful um and and the mayor's joined us um in join in in that advocacy and so I'm grateful to Mary Le France as well um when you choose to adopt and vote on our budget um at your next meeting you could choose to um move to amend our upper limit spending Authority uh in line with what is proposed and envisioned here uh with this amendment and increase that by $1,000 uh effect effectively $1,000 BSA increase um that wouldn't have any practical impacts on the municipal budget as
100I understand understand it and I've verified that with uh Mr Ratliff um but it would um if paired potentially with an assembly information memorandum um which attached this amendment Um send a strong message that the assembly's vision for what we should be funding aligns with the school boards and the communities and so um getting creative in that way would allow um joint advocacy one channel of communication but then also practically speaking um save some Administration administrative time once House Bill 69 passes um which is my expectation and my demand of my elected officials um we wouldn't have to go back to seek an amended uh budget and upper limit spending Authority and so I wanted to throw that out there as an option for the assembly to consider as you take up our budget and
101I'm happy to answer any questions on the amendment as well I just offer that someone ought to communicate that in a structured way to the assembly in writing so that if such a move are to be made um information is enhanced sooner than later Mr CH I'm happy to do that I wanted to introduce the concept here first last minute work won't be very good but if you get it to us soon it might be possible Mr H um I did want to speak to Mr Salty's uh comment and one of the things that makes it very difficult is where you draw a line on what is directly in the classroom um and and what's not and some things clearly aren't I mean the people that work in this building for the most part aren't
102interacting with students but they do things like payroll and purchasing and whatnot that are essential functions of keeping the whole District going um in addition you know like bus drivers fall under Administration or overhead um and we could use a couple more of them to to ease some times and whatnot and yet they do directly interact with kids and and they are important that way cafeteria Staff office staff um there's always some debate about whether or not we need assistant principles uh but again as someone has walked through the office of schools on a bad day and you see every single adult in the office talking to a student uh it's not because people are taking a break it's because there's been like a fight or something major that suddenly occupies every adult in the
103building that is not in front of 30 other kids or whatnot so the the dividing line of what really helps direct instruction in the classroom um and what's administrative is pretty fuzzy at times and uh I I'll say again as a classroom teacher if there's nowhere to send a student that's blowing your classroom up you have to Simply keep dealing with them until they do something you can call the police about is what we never want to do if we can avoid that so I I do hope people will or I wish people would have some latitude on it and and I will admit a lot of teachers get tied about it too they they they look at people in the office and feel like they've got wonderful marvelous jobs that are never very difficult
104that's not really true but but you on a bad day it looks true but um so many people in our buildings are working with kids and are a key part of it even if they're not actually teaching a class I just think we always need to keep that in mind I would offer that um I have had some very heated and passionate exchanges with hockey parents who assert that hockey playing teams are classrooms too and and I think it's not without reason to think that and so it is a fuzzy kind of part of the conversation uh we have about 10 minutes left because we do have a couple more items on the agenda so uh let's just put that bound on time so we can make sure we get through everything thank you finish
105up really quick then um this slide was just a articulate the detail that went into the amendment made by member Jacobs and lessons to show just what levels or what things will be added back with that 71 million we have a copy of that and then if we do propose some language to you this will be included too uh wanted to come back to this you know again just to highlight our underlying problem have that BSA not being increased over years and then my last slide is um just to show to highlight the difference between how the state has budgeted for State departments versus K12 support to education you'll see D the lines to highlight there the deed operations that's the total money that goes to deed and then in the grade out portion is
106how it's broken out between either K12 support for districts or other deed operations um and it really just highlights the fact that the state has applied inflationary drivers to nearly every other department in that they budget and not a12 education over that same time period And since you give me a microphone on a slideshow I'm going to keep continuing to throw this slide up there to highlight those inequities that have been um put the K12 education to help balance the state's budget that was it all right I'm Miss proba thanks yeah I appreciate the overview and I'm also certainly interested in um your your guys's recommendations how we uh deal with the budget that we're going to get from well we have from you guys that we're going to be taking up in a couple
107weeks um I guess the the observation I want to make is because it feels like again we're in this conversation we we we know we've all been here for years right um it just feels like there so much of the attention is on efficiency and and I want to unpack the Assumption behind that which is that there's marginal efficiency improvements that can be made and that is what's holding back our outcomes or that is what will improve our outcomes I think really what's at stake in the state and I I know where I sit on this I think I know where most of the folks sit in this in the room on this is is it the government's job or is it valuable in society for our resources to pay for educating other people's kids
108that's what public education is it is not just my own children it is everybody's children and there's an economic implication there there's a social implication there there is a Civic implication there and I and I say that not because I believe that the school district is on the wrong side of that I think you know what we are sitting here talking about public education I a product of public education 100% um but that's what I keep struggling with if is we're talking about numbers and we keep trying to have this conversation about numbers and really what is at stake and what some people in the state believe is that it is not worth F public education to educate other people's kids that's what it feels like to me so I just wanted to put that
109record I know that's much that is the bottom line and at some point I feel like we have to actually call that out and talk about it directly um and again not because the folks in this room are what I believe are on the wrong side of that conversation but it is real um so sorry just wanted to say that thank you other members on this item so I don't see I'll just end by um putting some cabin around the assembly's actions um this is probably the most prescriptive vote that the assembly has in all of our votes that we take the the code provides that the budget shall be transmitted to us on the first Monday of March and it automatically sets the project before us at our that next meeting for introduction and
110the subsequent meeting for vote um if the first day of March is a Tuesday then it skips the whole introduction process and just ends up on our second meeting agenda and then the code provides that we can increase decrease or approve the budget as written but there are no line item amendments allowed but the maximum local contribution essentially establishes cannot increase budget beyond what we are to give thus the assembly's real only actions are to approve or reduce the budget and still there's another provision that says the assembly shall approve the budget as amended and appropriate the necessary funds by before 60 days before the end of the fiscal year if the assembly fails to approve the School District budget and make the appropriation within the time stated the budget proposal shall become the budget
111and appropriation for the fiscal year of the school district without further assembly action and so any um proposition to withhold a vote only falls upon a deaf ear of the law will enact these processes our choices are narrow so I just want to make sure that's really clear for everybody who might be listening and understand the assembly's role in this effectively is increase decrease approve if you don't do any of those it's simply approved and so that's our process before us on the meeting of the 18th which will be coming soon so any further matters on this topic probably go around for a long time on this seeing hearing none we'll move on oh Mr H go ahead um something I feel like we should make clear to the assembly If This Were to become
112the budget which would be pretty horrific but we are going into the year at a 5% fund balance which we consider anemic um now if nothing bad happens until spring we're probably in good shape we've got a really good track record of staying on budget and our fund balance tends to go up from the positions we're unable to fill um but if something were to happen in the fall like a school fire like a major earthquake or like some of the other events that we have had um we could be in a situation where I think we'd be asking Mr R to write checks that the balance couldn't cover the only place we would have to turn to unless it was actually a a Statewide disaster would be the municipality um and I know that
113that would be a extremely difficult thing for everybody but I do feel like we need to say it that I can speak probably on behalf of myself most of the assembly and the mayor um should and the emergency befall our schools the city will be there okay with that then we'll move on to our next item on the agenda next item is a brief legislative update ASD in the assembly I don't know who's taking that on put that on the agenda so I can Mr I can take and then um this really will be pretty brief um I just wanted to highlight that um House Bill 69 was amended this week in house rules um there were a number number of different changes um that that will take some time to analyze and the district
114doesn't have a full report on at this point but in short um from a funding perspective it reduced a future permanent years worth of increase in the base student allocation reduced the inflation factor that would be implemented immediately and then set a permanent increase to the based D allocation of $1,000 um I've been told anecdotally um the amendment that member lesons and I drafted and that got approved by the um School board unanimously here was some of the inspiration behind um that school of thought and then um we're also seeing um districts like Fairbanks as well as potentially keenai consider drafting their own versions of what we've passed here to clearly articulate to their delegations that there's not only a need but a vision for what public Ed public education can be if we update
115the foundation formula the same way we um increase spending Authority for Department budgets like Public Safety and Corrections um with that said there's also some compromise language regarding um open enrollment uh the cell phone ban which was one of the other things that the the um board implemented at our last meeting was also included um definitely some some other technical changes as well um I I think I saw something from the governor this morning indicating that he feels the bill is headed in the right direction U my understanding is there's going to be a floor vote um on Monday um and so the uh 21 member majority and 19 member minority will certainly have discussions as to what the bill looks like before it heads over to the Senate um and so that's the primary
116Bill we're tracking right now for obvious reasons um the board certainly has continued to prioritize and continued to advocate for a return to uh Define benefit retirement options or a pension for um public sector employees to include Educators uh for obvious reasons that was one of the top priorities um that was outlined as part of a 4,000 uh member survey that was done by the dun Le ad Administration in 2021 they highlighted that a pension was one of their priorities and we need to make that happen to have an even playing field if we're going to bring up Educators from the lower 48 um and so those are I think our our high points in terms of advocacy and legislative action um we appreciate the assembly's continued joint support and continuing to advocate for reasonable
117education policies and and bills to pass the House and Senate thank you um first Miss Bry then Mr Donley yeah thanks um and I appreciate the update on the funding and I will be watching that um just in general I'm curious I know uh when we were kind of scanning bills that are out there pre-filed and and are out there now um there's a number of kind of uh policy or curriculum related bills and um you know we don't really get into that World um but just wondering if there's any of particular uh interest or concern um and again I know that's not the primary focus of what we do as funders but um just wondering because I know there's a lot out there thanks I can I can speak for myself I think there's
118um one specifically regarding mental health curriculum that I think is valuable and I think by and large um ASD does well to implement some factors um you know financial literacy as another bill uh that I think is being pushed um at least it was out of Senator Wow's office again that's something that I think uh the bill came out of inspiration from something ASD is already doing um I I don't know of a bill that is on a fast track to pass uh that would pose any imminent challenge to ASD or any significant operational changes um however if that changes we certainly will Lo the assembly in the legislature seems very intent and hyperfocused on um funding and then to a lesser extent um the the pension reform bill at this point at least all
119right thank you Mr doy thank you uh one item that the assembly and the school board unanimously agreed on as a priority for the community with legislative agenda was the funding of a new District cost differential study um I don't believe any progress has been made on that yet in the legislature are you aware of anyone in Juno carrying that project no okay thank you anyone else in the legislative report it's definitely a go time in Juno we're having fun down there fun and quotes um okay then we have the item that was added to the agenda this is the lakehood charter school conversation um that just pressed into the conversation I will say that there was a letter that was sent to us by Mr salt or sent to the school district and the
120school board um and in it I think it's fairly careful not to Levy any direct allegations but I think it is a bit um there are some issues there that I think everyone should exercise caution in discussing so as not to um direct any kind of um unwarranted aspersions toward any members of either of these bodies and so let us just have caution as we proceed and let these processes work out as they may so Mr salt you ask to put this item on the agenda thanks chair yeah I agree with you wholeheartedly um and and I'll say that letter is written from what I've heard it's one side of the story so we definitely need to hear the other side but I want to share what I have and I'm not going to speak
121to any ethical issues um we all have them I was past president of rasula Incorporation SE at so I believe we all have a duty to to separate those conflicts uh that we all have and definitely disclose those conflicts which is very important I don't have any I don't any comment on the schools involved I think the schools are all great programs and the way I look at this is I'm removing the schools from the conversation so but I'll I'll include them because it gets confusing without it um School a Alaska Native Native cultural and charter school is in a 500 80,000 SQ foot building Abbot loop with 356 students which is a designed to hold 461 so 77% occupancy lease expires in three years paying zero rent now the facility at Loop does require
122repairs I I don't have the details on that I don't know what they cost I understand it has to do with the fire system I do understand that we have approved roughly $2.5 million to make those repairs I'm not sure if that covers the total bill School b r Cula is in a 39,500 foot facility with 485 students I don't know the design capacity but 500 rings of Bell so I'm going to say 97% occupancy that need to be confirmed and their lease expires in five to six months at a cost of 738,000 a year the available facility lakehood Elementary is roughly 61,000 ft scheduled design to hold 525 students so School a Alaska native cultural school would fill that at 68% School B Roka would fill it at 92% um I know as& ASD
123made the recommendation for Roa to go in there um it does seem to make sense when I remove the names and look at the financial cost of moving paying rent all these costs don't necessarily trickle up to ASD um but I will bring you a solution po possibly uh proceeding with the move for Alaska native to lak hood and then move RKA into the newly remodeled and repaired Abbott Loop School um if you could do that before the next school year otherwise you're gonna have one or two most likely High short-term rents paid by Roa that hopefully ASD would help with in some way although after going through the budget that's a that's a tough ask um not to mention you would have dou the moving cost versus only one but it would provide a
124very clear well-defined executable 100% within our control to solve the problem forcs and reala short-term problems um it would make sense to stick with the to repair abot Loop and allow ancs to stay there and stick with the the administration's recommendation but again I don't have all the details I've been trying to dive into this after my phone's been ring off the hook since uh I think it was Wednesday night you had the meeting but just want to hear um any comments on on how we're going to get out of this this decision and solve this problem thank you com um the idea has come up um I will ask staff to correct me if I'm wrong I don't think there's any way we can Remodel and take care of the fire suppression issue during
125this summer um it's complex we have asked the the um Administration to come back to the board to talk about how much would have to be spent to bring the building up to code uh from where it currently is because the last time it was really looked at in detail was several years ago um that bond to do some repairs to AB it was PID asked prior to us considering that the building was going to be closed um but it is still approved by the voters that money is still there I don't know that it's sufficient to to actually do it there there's a discussion about a system that might be able to be installed without raising the roof but if we were to put in a conventional fire suppression system we literally would have
126to raise the roof of the building um inside abot loop I can stand flat footed and reach up and touch the ceiling and I'm not a real tall guy U but there's just not room to put anything up there without it interfering with folks you would possibly bump your head on a fire suppression system there so uh but but using it as housing for at least a couple of years or possibly longer uh I know our operations department is talking with them about that and um with the will of the board I I can't imagine it would be objection to making that happen if that is the best way forward for them can you clarify what that is making that happen uh move fory into Abbot L out of their current location okay Mr salt
127no I appreciate that and I just look forward to the ongoing discussion of of how best to I guess solve the problem I know it's not easy it's been stated several times um but we do have you know again on paper it looks like the wrong decision was made um again I me I don't have all the issues and all the details like the school board or the administration would but it seems like you have a very short-term problem uh with the lease at rasula and maybe it gives you a few more years with um anccs and Abit Loop but I hope we can find a solution that works for everyone without jeopardizing either program since I want to see them both be very successful thank you that's pin thank you I got a lot
128of issues to address but let me just say first of all I know no one at Alaska native cultural charity school I have no kids going there no financial interest at all um I did encourage them to speak out to the void on what they would like to have in fact I encouraged them to do three different options that was something I discussed with the superintendent who suggested they give us a a b and c type of approach and at their request when they're working when the one of their committees met they asked me to join in I know uh Mr Jacobs joined in too and so I attended that and I felt like that was giving them information that was appropriate and that's it um the history of here just a little bit real
129quick is that uh at one time they thought they had to raise a roof at Abbott Loop uh then about five about six years ago 7 years ago then see uh the Chief Operating Officer with talk R he came in and said that's not required for code purposes you simply put something on top it would cost about a million dollars uh to do that it did not require RA rais in the roof and that would be all that would be required to do it and so it was kind of being removed from the school district of being a school replacement um that then about uh two years ago when we closed schools uh anccs reached out they were trying to uh relocate they had been to their original school was closed because of code issues
130they were then some of them at East High School uh very hostile for them in that kind of situation uh the superintendent supported uh placing them in abot loop I like that and then they reached out again when one of my schools that I visit um and they were concerned because there was a fiveyear limitation that was approved that they had to address the code issues in those 5 years or it would be U not be allowed to be continued um given a low cost I advocated for it that was not being supported uh then I was told that the cost might be three million and I said what can we do and there wasn't support for it in fact at the end of last year with the administration's recommendation and the board approval they
131added it to the list that in uh when the five years were up that we would eliminate the school level it remove it for the for the municipality uh someone had to request the municipality they want to use it for other things that land if it's not being used as school um I I had concerns about that as well I looked at last meeting with the possibility that if we can somehow keep abot Loop and commit to doing that then we would have nccs there will forer at lak hood and I saw that as a win-win that discussion in the work session didn't go well uh as far as fixing and addressing uh abot loop and so that made it so that it was vulnerable haveit loop at the end of the next few years
132they have to be gone and they would be out there was the likelihood of having another school location is low my goal was the safety if they could not so I'm not worried about the cost so much I think if we get the ,000 uh wi Schuler was looking at 600 something thousand to 7600 to $700,000 additional funding they'd be able to cover that but I my concern was safety when we have a big earthquake hospitals and the schools built for ASD are safe and I like and for all Charter Schools that's a concern to me but I didn't have the the opportunity there the choice to keep anccs there so um uh the issue was Lake Hood uh is limited to one and so I'm only going to have one school not Abbott Loop
133and that's concerned so um uh anccs would be vulnerable of having no school while will Kula was vulnerable paying more money with additional BSA I believe that we're going to get uh the risk to to laskan cultural charter school after everything they've been through and everything else is pretty high uh that school by the way does very well when we compared to other Charter Schools it was number one in growth compared to how those same types of kids are doing within our school system and I just saw a recent study they were uh number two in growth per year in third grade of pal W they growing they're behind academically but the growth is very good the other part we had feedback from the community was that they had an interest in a anccs but
134those kids can go into the school easily you're not going to take a third grader coming into the thing and adding into emergeny program understand that but still my my primary issue was safety was number one and then academics number two this would give Lake Hood a a a kitchen it would give them a library and it would give them the space uh anccs has over 100 people I understand on the waiting list trying to get in and that's a factor as well when you want to compare the numbers they can't meet that they've turning it down and they've been successful that way so both schools would benefit from from this within that do I think that we're going to close the school in the next two years that's what the think the administration was
135looking for but during that period of time uh and it didn't happen okay and I'm not optimistic that we if we do close the school that's going to be large enough for either one of these schools uh so my primary concern is safety but we only got one school for that and then academics what's best for the kids I understand the frustration with Wula because I as I said in the school board meeting it was the most frustrating school board meeting I've ever attended in 13 years it was Unreal uh this is not an outcome I was happy with uh I think we had options and we didn't do it we now talk about Will oua coming into a school that we didn't let anccs stay that's kind of interesting uh within that so this
136I I'm more than disappointed with the outcome of this I uh and and and not being able to be more successful with it I think there was a gamble there that they thought they would close the school good enough for uhcs it didn't happen and so as a result we were in this box but I I appreciate that the presentation with the administration was let's try to fix it up and but the response in general from the from the board members with comments then were not supportive so um uh that's why this thing came out the way it was and highly dissatisfied and and frustrated I was I was almost late today because I was working on my dissertation in response to how frustrated I am uh to share but that's what took place I
137don't like it uh can we do other things to help we need to all of our charter schools are in buildings that are not built safe for earthquakes they are inadequate for what we're doing and they are ASC kids and they are they are our kid I mean AD and a school district kids okay and we need to we need to do more for them but it's difficult and within that we're not I am not supportive of closing a school just to make it available for um a charter school I don't think that's appropriate I think we can multi-use a school and we can address some issues that way but this has been the most frustrating situation I've ever dealt with I appreciate the comments here what can we do to to help wi Kula
138and recognize I was not supportive of putting the only alasa native charter school out on the street again and and I believe that in two years that's what that's what they would be looking at trying to find something and that was unacceptable too so given that difficult decision the board voted 4 to3 put a in CCS there given the limited options we have and the impact the impact of will be I think will be addressed the financial part with something with the a BSA let's face it the entire school district is being gutted uh if we don't get a BSA increase so of course it's impacting all of our Charter Schools just as well but I was more optimistic going into that meeting and disappointed uh that we got what we did but I was
139not going to abandon AC a the only Alaska they have charter school and put them in that same spot and I am they gambled two years in a row that they would find another place I think the next two years would be a gamble to you not only what cool what close it has to be large enough to meet those demands an AC Val wouldn't have worked if it would have I think we would have looked at that so I don't know what was going to happen the next two years could be schools closing enough for either one but this was not a good outcome from my standpoint I appreciate the the trying to to do something with um um AOC Loop because I know that the the community there didn't want that school closed
140ear and they were fighting for it and they were supportive of what's going on right now they were even trying to build a park behind it with the parks and range parks for that school for those kids great cut but that's what it was at Mr Higgins uh I thank you for testing out your dissertation so um we have a few people in the queue and five minutes left and no majority no quum on the assembly to extend the meeting so um I have in the queue Mr Jacobs Miss Broly Mr Donley and four minutes so Choose Wisely so I'll be I'll be as brief as I can um just to the member Su points about um how the board can help um one of the things that the board did at our last meeting
141was I specifically asked Administration to examine how we can utilize the annual loan payment that um the program is making um to ASD on an annual basis to repay an initial $2 million investment uh to be in their current building as I understand it um that's somewhere between the neighborhood of1 $200,000 so I think that's one option available um to the board um approved an amendment I made to include language to prioritize the pro two programs not chosen for a facility Highland Academy and R pul um in future right sizing conversations previously in mid December we adopted a right sizing memorandum which committed um to continuing the conversation as to reducing our footprint at the elementary level um we know that we need to continue having that conversation about right sizing our um space that
142we use for elementary schools and that there are potentially other uses for programs like um Ro and Highland Academy and so I I remain committed and will work with my colleagues to have us continue that conversation um and then just yesterday I was in contact with President Hollman about um adding a item to our next business meeting specifically about the possibility about allowing rul to use the remaining time on the fire marcial's approval that I think goes through um um the next couple of fiscal years um and school years um while we um work with them and collaborate through the right sizing process to identify another building uh that might be a suitable candidate and so I think there's a few irons in the fire on the conversation isn't complete yet and and won't be
143complete um but I I think I will speak for at the very least myself but I suspect more in saying that we will um utilize the right sizing process to one reduce our footprint responsibly um and then two benefit as many students as we can thank thank you we have two minutes and two speakers Miss broy yeah uh disclosures uh lakehood Elementary is in my district uh we have a couple kids that are going through one has gone through Polaris uh so uh not any stake in in either of these schools I do vote at lakehood elementary I guess the the two things that I would hope it sounds like we're really just extending a conversation that happened at the last school board meeting so we're spending a lot of time doing that um I
144would hope one to observe that we're asking at least one of the charter schools whoever answer up in Abbot Loop to be in a building that doesn't have proper fire suppression so that's either way that's unfortunate um and then also um because I I know we have kids at Polaris um I know that the reala scho building was built recently so I would be curious to make sure that that's part of the conversation as well um again I don't know the right answer it's not my call but just to note that that building was built a few years ago and so my question is um why are they moving and I understand it is the rent um and again I'm not trying to say who should go in that school but I think that needs
145to be part of the conversation thank thank you Mr donle yeah I agree with the comments of member Shelty and I voted against changing the superintendent's recommendation and I supported putting rosula into lak Hood I also support upgrading the Abbott Loop building to ensure a continuing home for the Alaskan native charter school I will conclude by um telegraphing to the public testifiers that um while there are probably were some really important things within the context of the communications a lot of that was lost with the theatrics in the communication because people serve on this body they serve publicly and they serve honorably and um the kind of that that part of it I don't think served your cause very well in the effort but thankfully Mr salt did put forward a communication that made clear
146some of the concerns which will hopefully be addressed through the internal School District processes and um we definitely robustly support public participation and I would offer if you want to be heard it's better to strip away some of that whatever that was and so um with that thank you everybody uh this was a very packed agenda even though there were just a couple of items and uh I think we got through it I think we will wait to receive your communication we have this item before us on the 18th we'll see some of you there with that we are adjourned thank you all for being here great