JUNEAU — A last-minute proposal made by Alaska legislative leaders late Tuesday would slash $13 million from education funding by stopping a planned $50 increase in the state's $5,900-per-student funding formula.
The money was supposed to be the third chunk of a $250 increase over three years, phased-in starting in 2014 with the passage of former Republican Gov. Sean Parnell's omnibus education bill.
The legislation was designed to help schools keep pace with inflation, with leading GOP lawmakers saying then that it would provide three years of guaranteed funding for schools.
The reduction was proposed Tuesday evening by Republicans on a House-Senate conference committee charged with hashing out differences between the competing budgets passed by each chamber. The vote was 5-1.
Supporting the cut were Sen. Pete Kelly, R-Fairbanks, Sen. Anna MacKinnon, R-Eagle River, Sen. Lyman Hoffman, D-Bethel, Rep. Mark Neuman, R-Big Lake, and Rep. Steve Thompson, R-Fairbanks. Opposed was Rep. Les Gara, D-Anchorage.
The committee's co-chairs, Kelly and Neuman, offered no explanation during the Tuesday evening hearing for why they were making the proposal. Kelly refused to answer questions about the cut Wednesday morning, while Neuman, in an interview, asked: "Can we hold education for a year without an increase?"
"We're in pretty tough financial times right now," he said, referencing the state's $4 billion budget deficit.
Thompson added: "We're not excited about cutting anything. It's tough."
Neuman and Thompson are co-chairs of the House Finance Committee, while Kelly and MacKinnon are their counterparts in the Senate.
The conference committee's decision isn't final, and won't be until an identical budget is passed by the House and Senate. House minority Democrats, whose votes are needed to access a savings account that will likely be used to cover the deficit, will add the missing school funding to their list of requests in negotiations with Republican leaders.
"We know those things have been added to make the negotiating hill higher," Gara said in a phone interview Wednesday morning. "I can't tell you that I know what's inside the minds of some of the Republicans, but to me I just see it as negotiating strategy rather than budgeting."
Neuman acknowledged that the conference committee's proposal was essentially a negotiating tactic, suggesting that school funding is a priority for some of the members in his own majority — not just Democratic minority members.
"I think it's very important to many legislators," he said.
After the 7:30 p.m. vote Tuesday, education advocates began planning their response. One group, Great Alaska Schools, sent an email to supporters at 1 a.m. Wednesday urging them to attend a lunch-hour rally at the Anchorage legislative offices.
One of the group's founders, Alyse Galvin, said she was outraged when she learned of the proposal.
"I had to leave the meeting I was in and scream. I couldn't believe it," Galvin said in a phone interview Wednesday. "We were assured everything is going to be okay. We were just keeping our eye on the budget. Now, all of a sudden, our whole world is upside down."
Galvin and about 50 other people gathered on the sidewalk Wednesday afternoon outside of the Anchorage legislative offices. They held signs that read "What the ?????" and "Stop the anti-kid budget." Galvin led chants over a bullhorn.
"What the heck happened last night?" she yelled. Others joined in. "No public process. Bad policy."
The proposed cut would take away $4.6 million from the Anchorage School District, translating to about 46 teachers, said school board member Tam Agosti-Gisler.
She said the school board had already set this year's budget anticipating the $50-per-student increase. The deadline for laying off tenured teachers has already passed. The school district would have to give notice to non-tenured teachers by Friday. Classes end Thursday.
"We have to suddenly go back and do a new budget after the fact," Agosti-Gisler said in a phone interview. "It puts us in a real bind."
Heidi Embley, Anchorage School District spokeswoman, said school administrators would review the budget Wednesday and Thursday. The district hopes to avoid issuing layoff notices at the end of the school year, she said.
"We understand that layoff notices this late in the game would have a significant impact on staff, and ultimately students," she said.
Ed Graff, Anchorage School District superintendent, sent a letter to lawmakers Wednesday asking them to reconsider the funding reduction.
The Kenai Peninsula School District said in a prepared statement Wednesday that school officials worked on next school year's budget since August 2015, not adding in the $50-per-student funding increase until the last possible school board meeting. Contracts had already been issued.
"We understand that there are very difficult decisions to be made. However, in order to plan for our staffing and the educational needs for K-12 education and our students, we need to be included early in the process, and not receive financial surprises such as this, so late in the legislative session," Superintendent Sean Dusek said in the statement.
Another source of frustration for schools advocates was that the proposed cut wasn't included in either the House's or Senate's budget proposals — affording no opportunity for public testimony or opposition until Tuesday, which was the second-to-last day before lawmakers hit a 121-day constitutional limit on the length of their session.
Andy Holleman, president of the Anchorage Education Association — the teachers union — said he became aware of the proposed funding cut late Tuesday night. He said didn't see the cut coming, and was concerned the the Legislature had skirted public process, not allowing educators, students and community members to weigh-in on the impacts of eliminating the $50-per-pupil funding increase.
"We're kind of startled by the process and startled by how they managed to do this in a way that really limited the opportunity for input," Holleman said.
Under its rules, the conference committee is limited to choosing between proposals in the House and Senate budgets — it can't go outside them. But the complicated way the two chambers proposed next year's education funding allowed committee leaders to propose the cut nonetheless.
The Senate's budget proposal includes the full amount for next year's schools funding, an estimated $1.164 billion.
The House's budget is $1.019 billion, or $145 million less.
But House members were still planning to spend the same $1.164 billion on education as the Senate — making up for the difference with money that it was proposing to retroactively transfer into an education account in last year's budget.
On Tuesday evening, the conference committee rejected the idea of the retroactive transfer and picked the House's $1.019 billion proposal for schools funding, leaving the budget $145 million short.
Then it added $132 million, which covered the shortfall but left out the $13 million increase in the per-student formula.
In a prepared statement Wednesday morning, House Democrats blasted the move as a "last-minute assault on public education."
"The people of Alaska, especially those who work every day to help our children, deserve the respect to have their voices heard on this dangerous cut," Rep. Ivy Spohnholz, D-Anchorage, was quoted as saying. "This is not the way to conduct the business of the people of Alaska."
Alaska Dispatch News reporter Tegan Hanlon contributed to this report.