Anchorage child care fund board asks LaFrance to move pre-K money off cannabis tax

Anchorage School District preschool and an early literacy program would lose city marijuana-tax funding next year under a plan sent to Mayor Suzanne LaFrance.

Trevor Storrs, chair of the Anchorage Child Care & Early Education (ACCEE) Fund Board, signed its fiscal 2027 budget letter Sept. 3. It asks that ASD and Best Beginnings funding return "to either the alcohol tax or another funding source." The preferred budget falls from about $8.18 million this year to $5.2 million, a 36.4% drop, zeroing the $2 million ASD and $125,000 Best Beginnings lines. ASD's pre-K paid for classrooms at eight Title I schools and served 20 special education students, the fund's factsheet shows. Title I schools get federal aid for low-income students.

The 2025 shift of ASD money to the fund "was presented as a one-time funding adjustment rather than a permanent transfer of responsibility to ACCEE," Storrs wrote. Rollover money (unspent past-year dollars) let the fund absorb both programs. "However, all the rollover funds have been depleted," the letter said.

Voters approved Proposition 14 in April 2023, 55.92% to 44.08%, dedicating marijuana tax proceeds to child care and early education. The letter says the measure was meant to expand support, not backfill existing programs.

In the board's survey of 58 respondents, 55% named operational grants (day-to-day funding for providers) the investment with the greatest impact on their program. None picked ASD pre-K.

The recommended plan holds operational grants at $2.4 million, trims worker subsidies to $1.5 million and cuts pilot and capital projects to $572,000. An alternative keeps ASD funding at about $1.69 million but cuts operational grants to about $1.38 million and subsidies to $1.4 million, eliminating pilot, capital and Best Beginnings money. The letter says that version "continues to fund ASD and early literacy," though its table shows no 2027 Best Beginnings dollars. The letter calls the alternative "not the Board's preferred approach."

At an Aug. 19 board meeting, Storrs said eligibility was not in dispute: "What ASD is doing does qualify for these dollars."

LaFrance proposes the budget, and the Anchorage Assembly gives final approval. The city's budget calendar set Oct. 1 for her 2027 submission, but the proposed budget was not on the city's budget page as of Oct. 2, so her choice is not yet public. The Assembly's first public hearing on it is Oct. 20.