Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed more than $230 million in spending from the state budget but left intact $6.5 million for repairs to Wrangell school buildings, along with $5 million for stabilization work at the community’s water reservoir earthen dams and $200,000 for the borough to start planning an emergency access route from the southern end of Zimovia Highway.
In addition to covering state-provided public services, construction projects and community grants, the budget bills signed by Dunleavy on June 27 also will provide an estimated $1,650 to $1,720 for every eligible Alaskan in this fall’s Permanent Fund dividend.
The dividends will cost more than $1 billion, the second-largest expenditure of state dollars after K-12 education funding.
Though he vetoed multiple appropriations for community grants, seafood marketing efforts, improved reading programs for K-3 students, snowplowing crews and boosting University of Alaska Fairbanks research work, the governor let stand a large one-year increase in state aid for public school operating budgets.
Legislators this past session compromised on a one-time boost of $175 million in state funding for K-12 education, though school districts had been pushing hard for a permanent increase in the per-pupil funding formula for state money.
The 11% one-year increase in the formula will produce an estimated $440,000 boost in state aid for the Wrangell School District for the 2024-2025 school year.
State funding covers more than 60% of the district’s operating budget.
But because the borough assembly reduced by $440,000 the amount the schools had requested from the borough for the next school year, the district will see no gain from the increase in state funding.
The borough’s annual contribution to the school district comes from sales tax revenues and a federal aid program that helps pay for education and roads in rural communities. By taking advantage of the higher level of state aid to reduce the amount the borough contributed to the schools, the assembly was able to retain more of the federal dollars for road projects.
In a big plus for Wrangell, the state budget for the fiscal year that started July 1 includes more than $62 million to reach far down the list of major maintenance projects at schools around the state. It was the largest such appropriation in more than a decade.
Repairs to all three Wrangell school buildings are No. 16 on the state’s list, which the budget funded down to No. 25. Wrangell will receive $6.5 million.
The borough, which owns the buildings, and the school district have been working to determine which repairs and upgrades are the top priorities. They will combine the $6.5 million from the state with $3.5 million raised by a bond issue approved by Wrangell voters in 2022 to undertake more than $10 million in work to the buildings over the next couple of years.
Wrangell also has $695,000 in federal grant funds administered by the state to put toward a new roof at the Stikine Middle School, adding to the $10 million.
The governor’s budget vetoes included $10 million for increased seafood marketing efforts amid weak markets and low prices for fishermen and processors; $11.2 million to help rural schools increase access to broadband internet services (cutting one-third from the Legislature’s appropriation); $5.4 million for the graduate program at University of Alaska Fairbanks so that it can strive for status as a top-tier research university (a cut of 25% from the Legislature’s spending plan); $2.6 million in Head Start grants (half of what the Legislature approved); and $4 million for the University of Alaska drones program (a 40% cut from the legislative appropriation).
For most, Dunleavy said his vetoes were to “preserve general funds for fiscal stability,” without providing further explanation.
He also vetoed about $1.5 million intended to improve snowplowing of state highways in Southcentral Alaska; several parks and trails projects; scaled back the legislative appropriation for renewable energy grant funding; and vetoed $15 million for a short-term skilled nursing facility at the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium in Anchorage.
The budget vetoes totaled just over 3% of state general fund spending.
The Alaska Beacon, Juneau Empire and Anchorage Daily News contributed reporting for this story.
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