Unalaska City School District to see big bump in budget

The Unalaska City School District is set to get an extra chunk of money from the state this year.

According to Superintendent Kim Hanisch, the district expects over $500,000 more in state funds than they originally planned. That comes after Gov. Mike Dunleavy recently chose not to veto a one-time boost for Alaska schools.

“The governor even says it’s less than what schools need to function,” Hanisch said. “So yeah, it’s going to make it challenging, but we do have more money than what we anticipated, which is a good thing.”

The school will receive around $600,000 from the state. The exact number will fluctuate based on student enrollment, which has dropped from an estimated 350, when the district built the budget in April, to about 331, she said.

The district also ended fiscal year 2024 with more money in the fund balance than they thought it would. Altogether, Hanisch said they anticipate ending this financial year with anywhere between $500,000 to $800,000. That’s a big difference from the negative $30,000 they planned to have in their fund balance.

When the city granted the district its full ask of nearly $6 million, Hanisch told city council members she would notify them if the district received additional funds.

She said that’s why she’s giving council members the chance to rethink and adjust their contribution later this month.

“It’s more of an opportunity for them to look at what they had appropriated, what they’d approved, and to say, ‘Okay, now if the school district’s actually going to have this much in their fund balance, maybe we won’t provide this [much funding] over in, say, community schools, for example,” explained Hanisch.

The district could survive without this increase, but the extra funding would be a relief, she said.

“Having a fund balance of [$500,000] to $800,000 if that’s where it stays, that puts us in a little bit safer arena — as far as me, as a superintendent, being able to breathe at night, knowing that one little surprise is not going to be devastating to us,” she said.

District officials plan to update city council members on the budget at the council meeting on July 23.