Anchorage School Board considers allocating $26 million to rebuild of Inlet View Elementary

The Anchorage School Board will vote Tuesday on whether to allocate $26 million toward the cost of rebuilding Inlet View Elementary in Anchorage’s South Addition neighborhood, plus an additional $19 million for other school building improvements across the district.

The decision on whether to rebuild one of the district’s oldest schools has long been mired in controversy. Plans to remodel or rebuild the school have stalled amid disagreements over design plans and other opposition. Last spring, a $111 million Anchorage School District bond that included $31 million to pay for construction of a new school failed.

The funds being considered are left over from two sources: a one-time school bond debt reimbursement package the Alaska Legislature passed in 2022, and a FEMA reimbursement received for earthquake repairs that is currently available for redirection by the school board.

That $26 million would not be enough to fully cover the cost of the Inlet View rebuild, which is estimated at over $34 million, according to Margo Bellamy, Anchorage School Board president.

The remaining money would come from next year’s school bond, she said. Bellamy declined to say whether she supported putting the money toward Inlet View, saying the public still has a chance to give testimony to board members on the issue.

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Board member Dave Donley opposes both the amendment and the way it was introduced. Typically, spending proposals appear on the agenda at least one meeting before a vote is scheduled, Donley said in an interview. That did not happen with the proposed amendment, which limits the public’s ability to prepare testimony, he said.

It’s atypical but not unheard of to verbally introduce an amendment that’s voted on at the next meeting, said Andy Holleman, another board member.

“I think folks who are in favor or opposed to this are following things pretty closely,” Holleman said in an interview. “So it’s not exactly sneaking anything through.”

The funding proposal also includes $19 million for improvement projects at other schools, including library structure and roof repairs, an updated playground at Creekside Park Elementary, and a rebuild of Ursa Major Elementary at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson.

Donley said he was concerned about the full funding proposal as well as the allocation for Inlet View, given the district’s projected budget gap for the upcoming school year.

“Spending these one-time funds now will remove a potential tool for dealing with that deficit, potentially forcing higher class sizes and cuts to educational programs highly valued by the community,” he said in an opinion piece this week.

Holleman said he broadly supported the proposed funding allocations for Inlet View and the other schools, though he said it is always hard to make decisions about where to spend money and where to cut, especially when funding is limited and the future of education spending is uncertain.

“There just has been a lot of hard choices for decades now,” he said. “We would rather spend money on instruction and classroom resources than buildings, but at some point the buildings we have to be maintained.”