Anchorage school board bets its emergency reserve on money that may not come

The Anchorage School Board will decide Tuesday whether to spend $6.8 million of its roughly $7 million emergency reserve to reinstate up to 45 teacher, counselor and substitute positions, and to restore busing for secondary sports, on the bet that state money arrives to backfill it. If approved, principals could start posting the jobs this week.

The catch is that the money the board is counting on doesn't yet exist on paper. Under a bill passed this year, Anchorage could receive up to $32.2 million in one-time state funding from an oil-revenue surplus, but the Revenue Commissioner doesn't make that call until Aug. 31, after classes begin, and the amount could come in lower. "We are eligible to receive up to $32.2 million, but we could also still receive amounts less than that," a board member said, describing it as money paid out only after other legislative priorities are met. The superintendent was blunt about the risk: "There is a very real possibility that districts will not get the full funding that was outlined in the law."

The gamble is steep because the cushion is already thin. Board policy sets an 8 percent fund-balance floor; the district has spent down to 5, and this proposal would commit 97 cents of every remaining dollar. "I never thought I would co-author a memo suggesting we spend down to 4 percent," one member said, calling the circumstances "atrocious." Another said he'd back it regardless: "Not filling these positions are going to hurt the kids." About 400 certificated positions were cut in the spring as the district faced a $90 million deficit, and officials said the applicant pools for the newly posted jobs aren't robust.

The board is weighing all this alongside its longer reckoning with closures. At the same meeting, it dropped the Dec. 31 deadline for its Rightsizing Advisory Committee, the three-member panel created in July to recommend how the district should evaluate future school consolidations, after members said a year-end deadline would rush the community out of the process. Board Member Blakeslee said she wouldn't chair the group under it: completing "an entire listening effort by December 31st" would feel "disingenuous to the community," she said. The board also added a rule that if a committee decision comes on a 2-1 vote, the dissenting member gets space in the report to explain the minority view.

One thing the committee won't do is relitigate past closures. When a member pressed for full disclosure of the criteria behind earlier decisions, including Campbell STEM Elementary, Board Member Bellamy drew a line: "We're not investigating past decisions."