An ordinance to retrieve unspent school money to use for maintenance was postponed again last night. The Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly and the Board of Education are bickering over the authority to spend leftover money in the school district budget. As KUAC’s Robyne reports, both bodies are worried how the state education department might weigh in.
New Assembly member Marna Sanford had been doing her homework about the issue since the ordinance was introduced in October.
“As I’m getting up to speed on this, there has been a lack of trust and I don’t see how we will ever mend that… in what I’ve been calling the school board-fund-balance-fiasco. That’s what we’re calling it at my house.”
To re-establish trust, the school board and the assembly met in a joint meeting Monday night to talk about the way the borough gives money to the school district. The millions of taxpayer dollars the borough gives the school district is called the local contribution, and although it’s the biggest chunk of money the borough handles, it’s a small piece of the school district’s total budget – about 25 percent. A much larger piece, more than 60 percent, comes from the Alaska Department of Education.
The balance between those two sources might get thrown off if the borough takes back unspent money from the school district, according to Andy DeGraw.
“Unfortunately the state would consider a lapse of funds affected by this ordinance, as a reduction in the actual local contribution.”
DeGraw is the district’s new Chief Operating Officer, and that comment last night, got the attention of the assembly. DeGraw has called the state department of education to find out how big a reduction the state might make. Assembly member Aaron Lojewski asked him about it.
L: “So if the school district lapses one dollar, how much less state money is expected? Is it one penny? Is it 50 cents?
DeG: The number that I roughly calculated is that if there were $7 million lapse, per the ordinance, as it stands now, it would be roughly $1.5 or $1.6 million.
Reporters were unable to confirm last night how the state’s contribution might be affected.
The ordinance was introduced by former mayor Karl Kassel to use unspent school money on maintenance – especially three school roofs that urgently need repairs. If money is not approved soon, the 2019 construction season is lost.
The school district is still working on a plan to return unspent money and has it on the agenda for its meeting November 26.
The Assembly postponed the ordinance until its only meeting in December, on the 13th.
Last night the Assembly also made Matt Cooper its new Presiding Officer.