For the third time in two years, the Alaska Legislature has approved a bill to increase long-term state funding for the state's K-12 public schools.
On April 30, the state Senate voted 17-3 and the House voted 31-8 to approve House Bill 57, which would permanently increase the base student allocation, the core of the state's per-student funding formula, by $700 per student, almost 12%, at a cost to the state of $183 million for the 2025-2026 school year.
The increase would send more than $400,000 in additional state funds to the Wrangell School District, likely reducing the need to draw down all of its operating reserve funds to cover spending needs for next year.
The legislation also makes some policy changes to help charter schools, creates a grant program to encourage schools to improve students' reading performance, and establishes an education task force to recommend further changes.
"I wholeheartedly urge the governor to sign House Bill 57 into law," Ketchikan Rep. Jeremy Bynum said in a prepared statement.
The House and Senate actions sent the bill to Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who vetoed two previous bills last year and this year that attempted to increase the funding formula.
The governor has not commented on the Legislature's action.
Even if he allows the funding increase in statute to become law, he could later reduce the actual budget appropriation with his veto power.
While lawmakers failed to override the governor's two previous vetoes, the result of a third override could be different, legislators said.
Since the start of April, the governor has urged the Legislature to include in any education bill policy changes for charter schools, an open-enrollment policy between schools and districts, an extra funding boost for homeschooled students, and grants for school districts whose students meet reading standards.
The Republican minority caucuses in both House and Senate negotiated some of those provisions into HB 57. That was enough to sway some Republicans who voted against prior school funding measures, such as the recently vetoed measure with a larger increase in state funding for schools.
Last year, lawmakers approved $174 million in one-time funding for school districts. The main advantage of this year's permanent increase in the base formula is that it allows school districts to plan ahead when budgeting, instead of waiting to see what the Legislature approves each year.
At the start of the year, school districts said they needed a per-pupil base formula increase of more than $1,800 to keep up with inflation since 2011. The final version of HB 57 is a little over a third of that figure, and some lawmakers called it a good first step.
But not everyone was pleased with the final result - of the Legislature's 60 members, 11 Republicans voted against the bill.
Wasilla Republican Rep. Cathy Tilton said she was unhappy with the final versions of policy proposals inserted into the bill. The reading grants won't become effective unless a bill updating corporate taxes becomes law. Open-enrollment provisions, which would allow students to transfer between schools and districts, were referred to a task force and not included in the bill.
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