From the transcript

I invited Alexi Painter from Legislative Finance, the Director of Leg Finance, to come and speak with us to give us a better understanding about the contingencies embedded within HB 263, which is the one-time appropriation that the legislature approved, but with contingencies tied around making a determination about whether or not those funds will be released to school districts across the state on August 31st, which is long after the school year starts. So we invited Alexi to come talk to us about any potential confidence or probability models he could give us around how likely that funding would come to fruition. He also enlightened us about some additional accounting infighting, I would say, that OMB and the Department of Revenue are having around another priority item that might have to be paid out prior to school districts receiving funding. The waterfall funding— it's called waterfall funding because the one-time appropriation that School districts are slated to receive— ASD would be slated to receive up to $32.2 million. The waterfall funding mechanism, though, is really FY26 surplus funding that would allow us to receive that appropriation.

Related Coverage

Thursday, August 6, 2026Thu, Aug 6, 2026

Anchorage board weighs pledge to close no schools this year

Anchorage School Board member Paul McDonough introduced a resolution as a non-action item Tuesday that would commit the board to close no schools this school year absent an emergency. He said he expects the board to take it up when it next meets, in two weeks.

by Walter AlaskaNews22h ago2 min readAI

Anchorage