Since mid-February the board has been working on a $19 million deficit. It came mostly from a drop in state funding tied to the number of students, which has fallen gradually over the last decade.
The board approved a general fund budget of $238,469,682, and then a supplemental budget of $11,032,511 of CARES II and III money together.
Board president Jennifer Luke reminded members earlier this week that the CARES money is a temporary fix.
“As we kind of right-size our district and wean off of the COVID funding, we can maintain this, and this, and this through COVID funding. Next year -- understand that there're going to be some pretty deep cuts,” Luke said.
Chief School Administrator Karen Melin said there would be $4,060,303 left in CARES money for the following year’s budget.
We're looking at this as a step-down process. And it was, it was in our minds a two-year budget,” Melin said.
Cutting started last month when the board voted to merge the district’s sixth graders into middle schools and closed three elementary schools, Nordale, Joy and Anderson. The savings from that is projected to be $3 million.
At the regular meeting Tuesday night, a proposal was moved to mothball Nordale school, rather than spend money on it as a headquarters for homeschool and alternative programs. It was voted down.
The board did make some small changes from the recommended budget on Tuesday night. Member Matt Sampson moved to cut legal advice 25%, which put $67,000 back in the general fund. motion carried.
The board voted to increase building rental fees but did not attach a dollar amount to the increases, leaving that to the administration to determine.
The board argued to leave the Alaska Association of School Boards, but the motion tied and therefore failed.
Built into this budget is an assumption that the borough assembly will approve $2 million more in local contribution than last year — for a request of approximately $51.5 million. A motion to raise that request to $4 million more was moved but voted down.
The board met three evenings this week and heard public testimony on all three nights. Most of the comments were asking to fund librarians and music programs. That was important to Edward Zilberkant, the director of the Fairbanks Symphony.
“Students who have early musical training and performance opportunities have demonstrated tremendous developments of the brain related to language skills, math abilities, and reasoning. According to data from the us department of education, students involved in instrumental music show significantly higher levels of math proficiency by 12th grade. Studies show music training positively affecting algebra ability and spatial temporal reasoning,” he said.
Retired librarian June Pinnel-Stephens commented on why librarians were essential to student success.
“Teaching classes, helping with college assistance forms, finding the right book for a paper. He subs up to three classes at a time, he distributes all the texts and Chromebooks. He fixes Chromebooks, Mac books, projectors. Daily network issues, printers, and all other tech issues. And works with more students than any other staff member in the building,” she said.
The school district now submits its budget to the Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly, for final approval and integrating into the borough’s overall budget.
