Wrangell Public School District unveiled its first draft for next year’s operating budget at its board’s Monday evening meeting.
Overall, the school district’s budget is projected to be 2.3 percent higher than the FY17 revised budget, coming in at $5,953,642. As with other city departments, the new fiscal year is slated to begin July 1.
Accounting for the rise, step-and-column increases are anticipated to raise the teacher and support salaries budget by about $48,000, with another $96,000 increase in payroll benefits associated with a 10-percent health care cost increase. The superintendent and principals line items will increase by $3,577 and $5,001, respectively.
Despite the higher costs of education for the coming year, the district also anticipates a five-percent decrease in state funding from the Base Student Allocation, amounting to nearly $242,000.
“That is our best estimate,” said Superintendent Patrick Mayer. Starting its new session on Tuesday, the Alaska Legislature needs to hammer out a budget yet, which will include allocations made to the state’s 54 school districts. “We don’t actually know where that number’s going to land.”
The district is expecting a $20,000 cost decrease to insurance and bond premiums, due to a relatively quiet year for claims last year.
“That should be firm,” Mayer told the school board, after speaking to their agent.
In order to offset the expected shortfall, staff proposes shifting $375,000 from its capital improvement account to cover costs. With the added inflow, the net difference for the FY18 budget is $204 in the black.
The school board voted 5-0 to approve the draft as a first step to adopting a new budget. Board president Georgianna Buhler announced she would be preparing a report to review at future budget workshops. Drawing on her own background in finance, Buhler is assessing the past five years of district spending for trends, and would like to use the information for more “data-driven decisions” in drawing up next year’s budget.
She would also like to see the district update the way its budget items are presented, in a way that would be more informative for the board. Buhler rejoined the board after being elected in October, but had previously served on it for much of the last decade.
“The district has been using the same format for budgeting for as long as I can remember,” she commented. Monday’s draft was still using the same template, but Buhler expected it might look differently in future drafts.
“It’s not unusual over a long period of time to look at a new format,” said Mayer. He and Buhler will be presenting a joint presentation on the budget at the board’s next budget workshop.
In other board business, Buhler wanted to address ongoing concerns about communication, between the board, school administrators, staff and community members. Frustrations in how input is received and concerns responded to has been a recurring theme at past meetings, with the issue coming to a head during December’s pre-holiday session.
Teacher Anne Luetkemeyer had come forward at that time during the public comment period looking for clarification on how and when parents and teachers can have various issues resolved – in that instance, lobbying to retain the middle school secretarial position – and Buhler had replied that there were mechanisms in place that did not include the school board. The exchange had become heated, and on Monday Buhler said she has since revisited the matter.
“I was really discouraged after the December meeting,” she told the board. “That’s not the way I want to conduct business. At the end of the day we’re all neighbors and we’re all friends.”
Over the break she met again with Luetkemeyer and other staff members who have expressed similar concerns, and concluded their complaints were legitimate. Looking herself through the school district’s policy on “chain of command” – a wording favored by the Alaska Association of School Boards – she found mapping out the structure to be harder than expected.
“Two weeks later, I threw up my hands in despair,” Buhler related. Several years of turnover between principals and school secretaries have muddied the district’s priorities, in her opinion, and she wanted to see a change in focus. “We’re going to focus on policy, we’re going to focus on process,” rather than channels of authority.
Without casting any specific blame, Buhler asked that the board and school administration work with her to improve communication within and without the system. “We could have handled things better over the past few years,” she acknowledged, and asked for patience on the part of all involved while the problems were worked through.
In other school business, the board congratulated high school counselor Kerry Nordstrom for receipt of the Counselor of the Year award by the Alaska School Counselor Association, presented for her previous work at Scammon Bay School. As part of the award, Nordstrom was invited to attend Michelle Obama’s farewell address in Washington D.C. on January 6.
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