Anchorage board rejects Campbell STEM budget amendment 3-4, legal questions linger

The Anchorage School Board rejected a budget amendment to restore Campbell STEM Elementary on a 3-4 vote Tuesday, but the debate surfaced unresolved legal questions about the school's closure status and board members questioning the district's financial assumptions behind a decision made five months ago.

The vote came during a broader debate over an $11.6 million budget revision. Board Member Paul McDonough moved to redirect $2.78 million toward restoring Campbell STEM within a spending amendment, arguing the figure nearly matched what the district said it would save in the first year of closure. New state revenue had put that amount on the table. "The state undermined our own justification," McDonough said. "$2.78 million is nearly identical to what we said we recovered from the first year of closing Campbell." Members Blakeslee and Higgins voted yes alongside him. The motion failed.

An Unresolved Legal Question

What emerged Tuesday was that the closure may not yet be legally final. District staff told the board that about 50 pallets of equipment had been moved out of the building, but the district has not yet submitted its verification report to the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development. Staff said that when the report is submitted in the fall and DEED accepts it, the school would technically be officially closed. Staff repeatedly stressed that legal review was still needed and that they could not give a definitive answer. Board Member Rachel Blakeslee put it plainly: "It sounds like we don't know if the school is legally, technically closed, but that's something that legal needs to vet."

CFO Andy Ratliff noted that House Bill 28, passed this session, reduced the window barring reopening a consolidated school from seven years to four. Whether the legal ambiguity around the closure's formal status gives the board another opening remains a question for district counsel.

The Vote

Board Member Kelly Lessens, whose original amendment the Campbell proposal would have replaced, voted no. "The amendment to the amendment restoring Campbell would do a good thing," Lessens said, "but it would also prohibit the ripple effects that utilizing those funds across the district would enable."

Board Member Margo Bellamy framed the majority's position around enrollment decline and diminishing resources. "We are still in a climate of diminishing resources," Bellamy said. "We are facing declining enrollment. We're going to have empty seats."