It’s not often that a small town welcomes two new community leaders at the same time. But that is Wrangell’s good fortune with the arrival of Joshua Garrett as the new schools superintendent and Albert Rinehart’s return to Wrangell to serve as tribal administrator for the Wrangell Cooperative Association.

Garrett moved here from Kazakhstan, where he oversaw a private, international school about 20% larger than the Wrangell school district both in student enrollment and budget. He had worked in education overseas for more than 20 years before deciding to come back home to the states.

Rinehart, who was born and raised in Wrangell, came out of his semi-retirement to take over the tribal administrator job left vacant by the departure of Esther Aaltséen Reese for a new career with the Tlingit-Haida Regional Housing Authority in Juneau.

Garrett’s biggest task, after acclimating to Wrangell’s weather and learning about the town and its students and school faculty and staff, will be to figure out a sustainable fiscal future for the school district.

The schools have been living off one-time federal pandemic aid and the district’s reserves for several years — and now one is gone and not coming back, while the other is dwindling. Adequate state funding, though required by the Alaska Constitution, is uncertain if you want to use a benevolent word and insufficient and inadequate if you want the honest words.

If Congress gets its act together — which is a big if — and restores Secure Rural School funding this year after the U.S. House failed to do its job last year, the borough will be able to contribute more to Wrangell schools. But the borough cannot entirely cover the lack of sufficient state aid.

Fewer students than six years ago has cut into state funding, even though many of the district’s operating costs are fixed. The school board last month heard a report from a special committee, proposing several money-saving ideas. The board, and its new superintendent, have a lot of hard work ahead to put together a spending plan that balances.

Rinehart will have it a little easier at WCA, which does not face a budget squeeze like the schools. But he has a long work list which includes multiple programs to improve services for tribal members and the general community, including plans to round up funding to construct a cultural center behind the WCA offices. The building could include classrooms for children and spaces for tribal elders to gather, along with a commercial kitchen and space for events.

Community members should welcome Rinehart and Garrett to their new jobs and do whatever they can to help with the challenges ahead.