School board adds free student breakfasts to next year’s budget before sending it to Assembly
- Mark Sabbatini
- 6 minutes ago
- 3 min read
Teacher contracts remain a major unknown, with mediation talks set to continue Friday
By Mark Sabbatini
Juneau Independent
Continuing a free student breakfast program was added to the Juneau School District’s operating budget for next year before it got final passage — sort of — from the school board on Tuesday night.
The roughly $81.5 million budget for the fiscal year starting July 1, unanimously approved by the Juneau Board of Education, next goes to the Juneau Assembly where it is scheduled to be reviewed in a joint meeting with board members on March 18. The budget will be subject to further revisions before and during the coming fiscal year, which could be affected by outside factors such as available state funding.
A major unresolved line item is teacher salaries and benefits, due to an impasse in contract negotiations that began 14 months ago, with the next round of mediation talks scheduled to continue Friday and Monday. Educators unhappy with the impasse staged an outdoor protest at the turnoff to Thunder Mountain Middle School before Tuesday’s meeting there.
The budget as of Tuesday contains a deficit of roughly $5.3 million, which is set to be covered using a district fund balance expected to be about $7.8 million as of June 30. Elizabeth Siddon, the board’s vice president, said Wednesday the actual deficit by the end of next year is likely to be smaller because the budget assumes all staff positions will be filled — and the district in recent years has had lots of vacancies.
"Most of our costs are in our staff," she said, "So we have vacancies in the current year — those contribute to our current year fund balance. And then when we create a budget, a projected budget for the next year, we still think that all of those positions are important, whether or not we were able to fill them this year or not, so we include them for next year's budget."
An agreement on teacher contracts may increase the projected deficit, but not to an extent that would appear to exceed the district’s ability to fulfill with reserves. The two sides were about $1.17 million apart when an impasse was declared last July.
The overall budget is largely a status quo spending plan compared to drastic changes made two years ago that included a consolidation of schools, or the changes of similar scale being considered this year by other districts such as Anchorage’s. But a number of last-minute adjustments were discussed during the Juneau board’s meeting Tuesday, at a level of detail such as the proposed addition of a half-time librarian to the three-school Dzantik'i Heeni campus, including the possibility of adding them if funding becomes available.
A board memo summarizing the budget notes it "maintains Pupil-Teacher Ratios (PTRs) across all grade levels and largely preserves current staffing levels based on projected enrollment" of 3,767 students. It also assumes there will be $39.8 million in state funding with the Base Student Allocation remaining unchanged, and the City and Borough of Juneau will provide about $35.8 million, the maximum allowed under a local contribution formula in state law.
Adding the universal free student breakfast program, at a cost of $230,000, was proposed by Siddon, an ongoing supporter of the program.
"This is just something I feel strongly about that supports all of our students, and all of the other supports we may be able to put into place across the board won't do anything for our kids if they’re hungry," she said.
Free breakfasts for all students were launched with federal funding during the COVID-19 pandemic. The school board opted last July to let the program end because federal funding had lapsed and other sources of funding were lacking. But the board restored the program last September when state lawmakers approved an increase in per-student funding during a special session in August. Free breakfasts remained available during the pause to students who qualified for free or reduced-price school lunches.
Some concern about continuing the breakfast program during the coming year was voiced during Tuesday’s meeting, with board member Amber Frommherz asking if it’s possible to rescind the funding later if money is tight. Superintendent Frank Hauser said while that decision is up to the board, approval of the funding now will create an expectation among the public of a commitment to the meals.
"We'd want to make sure we messaged very clearly so families know not to expect that, if there was a change later on to the budget to remove free universal breakfasts," he said.
The board voted 5-2 to add the breakfast program, with Frommherz and Steve Whitney casting the dissenting votes.
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at editor@juneauindependent.com or (907) 957-2306.
