Alaska Senate committee proposes $700 per-student school funding formula increase, following veto

Five days after Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed a major increase to Alaska’s per-student public school funding formula, a Senate committee has proposed a smaller increase.

On Wednesday, the Senate Finance Committee amended a bill related to regulating cell phones in schools by adding a $700 increase to the base student allocation, core of the K-12 per-student funding formula.

The amended version of House Bill 57 remains in committee, which means it could be further amended to include policy changes advocated by the governor. It could also be advanced to a vote of the full Senate without further changes.

Policy differences between Dunleavy and legislators have repeatedly derailed efforts to permanently increase Alaska public school funding.

On Wednesday, Dunleavy reacted on social media, repeating his call for education policy changes in any school funding bill. “This bill is essentially a money only bill,” he said.” While this new bill currently does not have needed policy, there is still time to reach a compromise agreement that includes meaningful reforms. Once again, a bill that only increases funding without policy improvements is not something that I, or most Alaskans, can support.”

On Thursday, Dunleavy vetoed House Bill 69, which would have permanently increased the BSA by $1,000 to $6,960, raising the base level of state education funding by $253 million. On Tuesday, lawmakers failed to override the governor’s veto.

Dunleavy has introduced new legislation, House Bill 204, which would provide a $560 BSA increase plus an additional $35 million for specific programs and focus on his policy priorities, particularly for charter schools and homeschool programs. The bill was assigned to the House Finance Committee, but has not yet been scheduled to be heard. 

Last year, lawmakers and Dunleavy authorized $174 million in one-time bonus funding on top of the BSA, meaning that HB 69 would have represented an $79 million year-over-year increase.

Members of the Senate majority declined to make a definitive statement about their plans for HB 57.

“We are negotiating with the other body right now,” said Sen. Lyman Hoffman, D-Bethel and co-chair of the Senate Finance Committee, referring to the House. “It’ll come out in the wash.”

Rep. Zack Fields, D-Anchorage and the author of HB 57, said he supports the $700 increase. He said the amount is insufficient, but a step forward in providing financial stability for school districts. “We need to restore a meaningful amount of funding within the BSA formula that has been lost to inflation over the last decade. $700 is obviously insufficient,” he said.

To match inflation since 2011, the BSA would have to be increased by more than $1,800. Fields said that’s far from what’s been proposed in the new amendment. “It’s about one third of the funding that’s been lost,” he said. “But we have an extremely challenging administration, so this is what it takes to have folks override a veto and provide a degree of stability for the next year, plus, then that’s what we have to do.”

Sen. Mike Cronk, R-Tok, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, expressed frustration in legislators putting forward another education funding bill without some of the governor’s priority policy changes, at risk of another veto. “Are we just going to throw a BSA (increase) in there with no policy?” he said. “Then we’re going to be in the same boat in the summertime when the governor vetoes it out of the budget, right? I mean, that’s really frustrating to me.” 

Cronk said he hoped to see additional policy changes added to the bill. “I’m hoping they did this to say, ‘Hey, we have something we can work on,’ before the end of the year, you know, 30 days,” he said, referring to the May 21 deadline to end the legislative session. “Being an optimist, I guess.”

Sen. James Kaufman, R-Anchorage, and another Senate Finance committee member, echoed a similar frustration. “Doing these fake victory laps on passing something out (of the Legislature) when you know that it’s going to die from a veto — you’ve got to just quit doing that,” he said. “And just come to an agreement.”

Kaufman said he remains hopeful an agreement can be reached with the governor. 

“I just hope there’s room to do something realistic that can be durable,” he said. “He’s got the stick there. People need to come up with the carrots that’ll allow him to accept the legislation that we put out.”