The education of our children is the single most important challenge that we must all face together.

There is one thing almost all of us can agree on! The education of our children is the single most important challenge that we must all face together. That’s why we have spent millions of dollars here in our Kenai Peninsula Borough to build dozens of school facilities, buildings, classrooms, gymnasiums, swimming pools, sports fields, running tracks, music rooms, art studios, theatrical stages, auditoriums and much more. Education is important, the back bone of our society. It appears the cost of operation of our schools is where the problem lies.

Every year our school administrators and our School Board must decide what they will need for the education of our students in all these facilities throughout our very large Borough. They are responsible for every single expenditure in their proposed budget and when they submit it to the Borough Assembly only the total of all proposed expenditures by Administrators and their School Board is shown. The Assembly has no line item control in the school budget. However, the Borough Assembly alone is responsible for how many tax dollars should be spent over the next school year.

So what happened this time around? For the first time in many years the Assembly, on a vote of 5 to 4, changed their collective mind and fully funded the proposed school budget, after trimming the request just two weeks earlier. Even knowing full well that the School District did not need all the funds they had requested.

Many taxpayers are asking a really good question these days. “Why would the Borough Assembly, the only watchdog taxpayers have to make sure all our tax dollars are spent frugally and wisely fully fund the School Boards request for money??

So……. why would the Borough Assembly, led by former postman Pete Sprague and former school teacher Hal Smalley, fully fund the school budget for next year???

They knew that for three of the past four years the school district has requested far more money than they could spend. In 2007, 2008 and 2009 taxpayers fully funded their budgets and more that $12 million was left over and not spent.

The Assembly knew also that in 2007, 2008 and 2009 another $7,937,000 was transferred to the district and not spent.

They knew that the total left over or transferred in 2007, 2008 and 2009 was more that $20 million.

They knew that the School District and Board was less than honest when they told the Assembly in all three of those years that they needed the money for that year’s operation of schools. Taxpayers were not told the money was for a School Board Savings Account.

The Assembly knew also that the School District received at least another $9 million in Federal Stimulus Funds for the coming year, on top of all the money left over or transferred from all the previous years.

It would seem that our Borough Assembly is not doing their job, at all, when it comes to the school budget. It appears that we as taxpayers have been led astray. We have ”left the FOX to guard the HEN house”. And then one wonders what happened to the veto pen of Borough Mayor Dave Carey??

Think About It! JCD 5-26-10

2 Comments to “The education of our children is the single most important challenge that we must all face together.”

Jessica says:

June 2, 2010 at 2:32 am

I would like to know why with all of this money going to the school district, am I struggling to find a good place for my children to get the best education possible? I live in Nikiski and refuse to send my kids to a school that is crowded and seems to roller coaster in and out of the pass/no pass No Child Left Behind every year for the last how many years. I have home schooled my oldest now for 3 and half years. My younger sons attended a private school in Kenai, but I can’t keep doing that because of the cost of tuition and gas, so I will be home schooling them as well. I know so many parents who sacrifice so much by either home schooling or commuting so that their children can get a better education than what is offered here in Nikiski. Why can’t we get a Charter school like Kenai and Soldotna? It seems to me with the current school at capacity and the number of parents who send their kids else where, the school board, who seem to love to get as much funding as possible, would love to see more kids that live in the borough be counted for funding. Think of all the kids out here who don’t count for funding, between home school programs that are in another district and private schools. Instead of rolling their eyes at another charter school, I would think they’d like to see those student numbers go up.
Dave says:

June 28, 2010 at 9:44 am

I Borough did not fund schools to the cap. They funded $2,000,000 less than the cap at $43,251,135. The School District also put in $2,531,115 from their reserves in their proposed budget. Also, the Budget set the $43,251,135 as the cap for future years which means the School District will have to use over $4 million next year and over $6 million the follwoing year to maintain the current programs and staff.