The Kenai Peninsula Borough School District’s Board of Education on Monday unanimously voted to add nearly $2 million in spending to its budget for the current fiscal year in response to the increase in funding received from the state this year.
Some of the changes described in a direction from the board to KPBSD administration calling for increased spending of around $1.8 million more this year include reversing cuts made in the face of a $17 million deficit and stagnant state funding earlier this year. Others are new spending for staff and programs. The revisions were authorized by unanimous consent of the board during their meeting in Seward on Monday, Sept. 8.
Among the changes are restoration of funding for the pools at Ninilchik School and Susan B. English School in Seldovia. The school board this year said it would cease to fund school pools after this fiscal year, but while it left other pools in Kenai, Soldotna, Seward and Homer funded through June, it cut funding for the two smaller pools. The Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly asked the board last month to restore funding for Ninilchik and Seldovia’s pools under the same one-year arrangement, and those communities are already working to take on management of the two facilities.
Operation of Ninilchik Pool is projected to cost $92,000 and Susan B. English Pool is earmarked for nearly $54,000.
Board President Zen Kelly, who is not running for reelection this year and will not be on the board starting next month, said he hopes the board holds to its promise to cut funding for pools next year. He said that, across the state, “no other school district” is being asked to fund what he said are “predominately community centers.”
The revision includes full funding for the stipends paid to coaches for sports and extracurriculars. Much of that funding was restored last month, but this week’s change calls for full funding for the stipends. That’s an increase of $213,000 in spending, and the new revision also reverses a cut of $145,000 for extracurricular travel.
An additional $100,000 is directed to the Kenai Peninsula Middle College under the new revision. That program was previously slashed in half in a cut of $132,000. Already this year, Kelly said, some students have unenrolled from the district’s brick-and-mortar schools and chosen homeschool programs instead to direct those allotments to tuition that previously would have been considered by the middle college. That’s a loss to the district greater than the money being spent.
The largest reversed cut is a restoration of funding for curriculum materials, an increase in spending by around $357,000.
KPBSD Superintendent Clayton Holland said the curriculum spending means being able to purchase materials “key to our staff being able to implement what we’re doing.”
In addition to reversing several of this year’s cuts, Monday’s budget revision describes around $967,000 in new spending. That includes adding a communications specialist for the district, adding five SPED or intensive needs aides and a counseling secretary, purchasing a warehouse truck and investing in programs to develop local paraprofessionals and expand career and technical education opportunities for students in smaller schools.
There was some consternation over the idea of restoring a communications position — an estimated cost of $136,000 — to the district, with not all members of the board in agreement. Holland said that the position would allow the district to better communicate its successes and promote itself with the public in ways that the district cannot currently.
Kelly said that there is a cost to the district by leaving communications unfilled and failing to take the lead in its messaging. He and several other members of the board said they were excited to see such a position return.
“To unify our communications, unify our message, unify our story, I think $136,000 is money well spent at this time,” Kelly said.
The CTE “proposal,” Holland said, is to spend roughly $69,000 to take students from remote schools for “two-week intensive CTE courses” where students could stay in the recently reopened dorms at Kenai Peninsula College. Those students, he said, would get the opportunity to earn industry certifications that students in central peninsula schools do.
The board decided against adding funding to restore one director to the district office. That would have cost around $195,000. Holland said KPBSD’s administration is smaller than the teams in much smaller districts. The district office has constricted deeply in recent years and lost many of its personnel. It’s difficult to operate, he said, with so few people in the district office — one person out for any reason leaves few people to respond to issues that may arise.
“It’s not healthy to keep going this way,” he said.
The budget leaves roughly $2 million in surplus funding for the district. Kelly said the district still has to see how its negotiations with the unions representing district employees will play out. Those negotiations have been ongoing since February. Another potential impact to district finances is the rising cost of health care.
The district is already beginning its planning for next year’s budget, including monthly discussions about school closures for next year.
A full recording of the meeting will be available at the KPBSD BoardDocs website.
Reach reporter Jake Dye at jacob.dye@peninsulaclarion.com.
