The Legislature let local voters decide school board term lengths — and Mat-Su is first in line

Mat-Su voters could decide Nov. 3 whether school board members should serve four-year terms instead of three, under an ordinance scheduled for an Aug. 18 Assembly public hearing. The proposal is the latest step in a years-long effort to align more borough races with higher-turnout state and federal election years, and it follows a change in state law the borough itself sought.

The school district's own legislative priorities said existing state law, AS 14.12.050, did not allow the borough to lengthen school board terms, and asked the Legislature to grant that authority. This year, the Legislature did — though not quite in the form of a mandate. SB 143 doesn't impose four-year terms; it lets local voters decide whether their school board members should serve three years or four, the same choice communities already have for mayors and assembly seats. Sponsor Rob Yundt sold it as a local-control measure — why should the state dictate exactly three years for school boards? — and it cleared both chambers unanimously, 20-0 in the Senate and 40-0 in the House.

The unanimous vote came only after the House stripped out a contested amendment that would have imposed balanced-budget mandates on school districts and expanded the education commissioner's authority over troubled ones. That amendment failed by a single vote, 19-20, and two days later the same House passed the narrowed bill 40-0. The House did add, without objection, a requirement that new board members complete ethics and budgeting training within 30 days of taking office. SB 143 was transmitted to the governor July 20.

Its fate now rests with the governor. With the Legislature adjourned, the Alaska Constitution provides that if the governor neither signs nor vetoes a bill within 20 days, Sundays excluded, it becomes law without a signature — a deadline that falls Aug. 12. SB 143's school board provisions would take effect immediately, meaning the state-law question should be settled before Mat-Su's Aug. 18 hearing. If the governor vetoes it, the obstacle remains.

The change would bring school board terms in line with the borough assembly, which in early 2024 extended both assembly and mayoral terms from three years to four, to move more local races onto the even-year state and national cycle. The borough had already shifted its elections from October to November in 2019. The school board is the remaining office on a three-year term.

The ordinance includes transition rules to phase in the change. If voters approve, the two school board seats on this year's ballot, Districts 3 and 6, would serve shortened two-year bridge terms, with the remaining seats staggered onto the new schedule over the following years so all align by 2030. Assembly members Dmitri Fonov, Dee McKee and Ron Bernier sponsor the ordinance.

The measure goes to public hearing Aug. 18, and would reach the Nov. 3 ballot if the assembly adopts it. It could share that ballot with a separate proposed areawide road-powers question.