Kelly Lessens
58:11 - 59:18
"this proposal, in essence, in Memo 016, and quite frankly also in 016S, says with that dollar, that 5th dollar, dollar number 5, from 4 to 5, we're going to spend 97 cents, leaving 3 pennies for our students if there's an emergency."
“this proposal, in essence, in Memo 016, and quite frankly also in 016S, says with that dollar, that 5th dollar, dollar number 5, from 4 to 5, we're going to spend 97 cents, leaving 3 pennies for our students if there's an emergency.”
- Speaker
- Kelly Lessens
- Timestamp
- 58:11 – 59:18
- Community
- Alaska News
- Location
- Anchorage
- Captured at
- August 4, 2026
From the transcript
Of that 8% of those $8, we have to retain about half of that to protect the municipality's bond rating. Can't touch it. For at least the past 3 fiscal cycles, maybe 4, really when the federal COVID relief funds expired because they've been masking our ongoing structural deficits, we started spending our fund balance down to 5%, $5 for every $100. This proposal, in essence, in Memo 016, and quite frankly also in 016S, says with that dollar, that 5th dollar, dollar number 5, from 4 to 5, we're going to spend 97 cents, leaving 3 pennies for our students if there's an emergency. Um, so the proposal is at its core to leverage $6.8 million in our unallocated fund balance at the start of the school year under the assumption— it's not a promise, it's an assumption— that this waterfall funding will be received at least in part.
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