OPINION: Why do we have a better funding plan for Alaska’s prisons than its schools?

In the ongoing debate over funding for K-12 schools, the concept of inflation regularly bubbles up. What does it really mean, and why does it matter?

Some background: Every year, the Alaska Legislature’s nonpartisan budget wonks at the Legislative Finance Division calculate the increase needed to keep up with costs like labor contracts and utilities.

The result is the “adjusted base” budget, which Legislative Finance defines as “the prior year’s budget less one-time appropriations plus ‘unavoidable’ statewide increases (such as salary adjustments) needed to maintain services at a status quo level.”

The key part is the end: It’s the amount needed to keep doing the same thing. This makes sense, and the Legislature uses these adjusted numbers as their starting point in budget deliberations.

There is one notable exception: K-12 funding.

To be clear, legislators make additions and reductions to the adjusted base budget. But the adjusted base is the default, and reductions to it are recognized as cuts. Because if your budget doesn’t keep up with inflation, you can’t provide the same services at the same level.

But K-12 schools are not given the same treatment. The state provides funds to school districts using a formula that starts with the Base Student Allocation, or BSA, a dollar figure set in law. Raising that dollar figure — even just to account for annual inflation — requires passage of a separate bill. And that turns out to be a huge lift.

While legislators seem to accept the concept of inflation-proofing for road maintenance and our prison system and fisheries management, when it comes to our schools, they balk: the BSA, the foundation of the K-12 budget, was frozen from fiscal year 2016 to 2024, when it was raised by half a percent — it was 1% until Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed half the increase.

Ask the governor and your legislators: Why does the Department of Natural Resources need an annual inflation adjustment, but our schools don’t? Why do the Department of Revenue and the governor’s office need to keep up with inflation, but our schools don’t?

It’s magical thinking, and it is slowly strangling our schools.

“Inflation is like a thief in the night,” said the late Elmer Rasmuson, a banker and the first board chair of the Alaska Permanent Fund. If budgets do not keep pace with inflation, there is no getting around the math: you can’t buy as much with 75 cents as you can with a dollar.

And that’s exactly what has happened with our schools. With the BSA virtually unchanged since 2016, our schools are now getting about 75% of the value of what they got in 2016. And because of state and federal laws capping local contributions for education, communities can’t make up the money even if they want to.

In lieu of the funds districts need to catch up, Gov. Dunleavy is proposing “targeted investments,” like money for teacher bonuses and more money for homeschool students. This is like giving someone money for new tires when they can’t afford a car.

I am a parent of a high school student and a member of the school’s advisory council. We feel the budget squeeze like a vise slowly tightening. Each year we lose more electives, more teachers crowdsource to buy supplies, and students claw for increasingly scarce textbooks. The loss of variety and quality is driving students and families away, further eroding funding and creating a downward spiral.

Our schools need significant, sustained increases in unrestricted operating dollars. First, we need to recoup the losses to the last eight-plus years of inflation with a significant boost to the BSA this year. Moving forward, we need to treat our schools the same way we treat virtually all other state functions, with annual inflation adjustments as the default.

If state policy makers want to tinker with incentives and pilot projects, they can — but not at the cost of districts’ basic operating funds. With accelerating outmigration of our working-age population, we can’t afford to neglect the education and training of our next generation.

A budget is a statement of our values, translated into dollars and cents. It’s time to send a message to our political leaders: Don’t tell us your values, show us. Invest in K-12 education now. We can’t afford to fail our students.

Rebecca Braun is a former publisher-editor of the Alaska Budget Report and a longtime Juneau resident. She serves on the Juneau Douglas High School site council.

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