When a business needs to generate revenue to pay its bills, it can charge more for its product. When a government needs more money to provide its services, it can raise taxes. But when an Alaskan school district is short on money, it can only ask the entities that pay for education, primarily our state and borough, to provide more or it can identify where to reduce expenditures. It cannot raise its own revenue. For three out of the past four years, the district has used its reserves to balance its budget. While this is not an uncommon situation, it is a short termed approach toward budgeting. Knowing that the district’s sources of revenue are unlikely to increase to a point that will close our pending budget gap, the district plans to eliminate some of its expenditures for the next school year. The common way to refer to this is that we will be making some cuts.
For each of the past several years, the district has provided a consistent level of service to our students. Due to enrollment changes there have been some small fluctuations in what is offered at certain schools, but for the most part, our students have not recently noticed a lot of difference in their day-to-day schooling. Because of our good fiscal management, we are just now at this point of cuts that many Alaska school districts reached two years ago. The district’s goal for next year’s budget is to reduce expenditures in a way that will have the least impact on our students’ education. In the coming months the school board will be taking a hard look at all expenditures on both the instructional and non-instructional side. The public should know that the sky is not falling, our students will continue to have the best quality education we can provide. But, we do need to tighten our belt and will be seeking input from the public in November on where to cut.
Tightening our belt
When a business needs to generate revenue to pay its bills, it can charge more for its product. When a government needs more money to provide its services, it can raise taxes. But when an Alaskan school district is short on money, it can only ask the entities that pay for education, primarily our state and borough, to provide more or it can identify where to reduce expenditures. It cannot raise its own revenue. For three out of the past four years, the district has used its reserves to balance its budget. While this is not an uncommon situation, it is a short termed approach toward budgeting. Knowing that the district’s sources of revenue are unlikely to increase to a point that will close our pending budget gap, the district plans to eliminate some of its expenditures for the next school year. The common way to refer to this is that we will be making some cuts.
For each of the past several years, the district has provided a consistent level of service to our students. Due to enrollment changes there have been some small fluctuations in what is offered at certain schools, but for the most part, our students have not recently noticed a lot of difference in their day-to-day schooling. Because of our good fiscal management, we are just now at this point of cuts that many Alaska school districts reached two years ago. The district’s goal for next year’s budget is to reduce expenditures in a way that will have the least impact on our students’ education. In the coming months the school board will be taking a hard look at all expenditures on both the instructional and non-instructional side. The public should know that the sky is not falling, our students will continue to have the best quality education we can provide. But, we do need to tighten our belt and will be seeking input from the public in November on where to cut.