A second bill has been introduced in the Legislature to significantly boost state funding for public schools.
Rep. Dan Ortiz, whose district covers Ketchikan, Wrangell and Metlakatla, introduced a bill on Feb. 8 to increase the state’s per-pupil funding formula by 21%. The Senate Education Committee a week earlier introduced its own version with a 17% boost.
Ortiz’s bill would add about $320 million to the state budget.
The per-student funding formula has not budged in the past six years, squeezing school budgets, jeopardizing programs and staffing levels, and leading to increasing calls on legislators and the governor to raise the amount.
If passed into law, either of the two bills would increase state funding to the Wrangell School District by more than $600,000 a year, about a 12% gain over current levels.
Ortiz said he filed the bill after hearing from numerous constituents about the need for an increase. “It was based on what I was hearing, quite convincingly, it was pretty alarming potential possibilities, from not just schools in my district, but from Anchorage School District, Kenai School District.”
Districts statewide have been struggling to maintain services as the rate of inflation over the past several years has significantly outpaced their funds. Ortiz said the Ketchikan School District, Wrangell School District and Metlakatla School District all have urged him to support an increase in the state formula.
“They made a good case,” Ortiz said. “They talk about how we haven’t really addressed the base student allocation in any meaningful way for quite some time, and during that time, of course, we’ve seen some significant inflation.”
The representative said his bill is a “starting point” for further discussions with his fellow lawmakers. By introducing the bill, Ortiz said he’s hoping to get the House talking about the issue well before the end of the session in a few months.
“What it really does is it gets the conversation going on the House side, because we haven’t seen any measure up to this point to even discuss the issue.”
As of this week, the bill had not been scheduled for any committee hearings.
“One of the things that I think this bill will get to do will start to (flush) out where people are on the whole issue. … In the end, we’re all going to have that happen,” he said. “And it’s best to have it happen over time and have it happen over reflection, rather than waiting for the last days of the session and then just kind of being forced to vote one way or the other without really getting time to debate it or anything like that.”
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