More predictable school funding sought by Juneau legislator in second batch of pre-session bills
- Mark Sabbatini
- 14 minutes ago
- 3 min read
15 prefiled proposals include limits on property assessment hikes, establishing a state spay and neuter program, and boosting inclusion of Indigenous cultures in education
By Mark Sabbatini
Juneau Independent
A bill intended to give school districts more predictability about what their budgets for the coming year will be is among 15 prefiled bills published Friday as the Alaska Legislature prepares for the beginning of this year’s session on Tuesday.
House Bill 261 by Rep. Andi Story, a Juneau Democrat who co-chairs the House Education Committee, would allow per-student funding to be determined using two different measures of enrollment: the past year, or an average of the past three years. The bill automatically specifies the higher of two will be used for individual districts.
"It takes it off a roller coaster," she said Saturday. "It builds more public confidence in our schools because we're not going to be having all the schools and the parents come in and say ‘we don't know what the numbers are going to be."
Story said the idea is based on a 2015 school funding study commissioned for the state whose recommendations include the three-year averaging plan. The report cites several other states where such averaging is used and its effects.
"In Wyoming schools qualifying for the Declining Enrollment provision use a three-year ADM to get optimal amounts of funding, while schools with growing enrollments use their previous ADM," the report notes.
Alaska’s per-student enrollments are currently based on tallies in October of the current school year.
Juneau has been in a long-term enrollment decline for more than 25 years that is expected to continue well into the future. Story said she doesn’t think her bill will significantly affect the overall amount of funding the district receives, but officials will have a better sense of the amount further in advance than current state law allows.
The bill applies to the primary per-student funding provided in the Base Student Allocation, as well as others such as those provided by the Alaska Reads Act, Story said.
The 15 prefiled bills published Friday add to 26 bills published a week ago Friday, which included two bills by Rep. Sara Hannan, D-Juneau, altering the definition of sexual assault and prohibiting police from wearing masks intended to conceal their identity. The third member of Juneau’s legislative delegation, Democratic Sen. Jesse Kiehl, has not yet introduced any prefiled bills.
Other prefiled legislation published Friday includes:
• HB 254, by Rep. Sarah Vance, R-Homer, stating assessors can’t increase property values more than 5% a year "unless the increase is based on an improvement to the real property or information about the real property that the assessor did not have at the time of the previous assessment."
• HB 255, by Rep. Will Stapp, R-Fairbanks, establishing a senior citizen grants dividend raffle fund, similar to the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend education raffle.
• HB 258, by Stapp, establishing a statewide spay and neuter assistance program.
• SB 209, by Sen. Jesse Bjorkman, R-Nikiski, implementing performance standards for students in grades 8, 10 and 12 in economics, science and social studies.
• SB 210 and SJR 22, by Sen. Löki Tobin, D-Anchorage, seeking to boost recognition of Indigenous cultures in public education through a bill and a constitutional amendment.
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at editor@juneauindependent.com or (907) 957-2306.
