Tuesday night’s Nome Public School board meeting brought further budget difficulties and passed motions up for discussion.
During discussion of the third draft of the revised budget, Superintendent Shawn Arnold announced that the budget deficit had increased. The announcement comes as the result of a lack of funding for the youth facility in the state’s budget. “Without the youth facility, with the way the funding formulas work, it’s over $400,000 lost,” he said.
Because the Nome Public School system provides educational services to the facility, those formulas he mentioned are used as a multiplying factor in some financial situations, such as grants. The inability to claim the youth facility as a school site can affect the amount of money the school district receives. If the youth facility does not receive funding in the final state budget, this will immediately alter money received for technology grants and student enrollment.
Board member Jennifer Reader asked how the finance committee set up by Arnold is handling the added deficit. He responded, “It’s some of their recommendations, but now, we’re having to take the deeper cuts.”
One of those deeper cuts: running the city pool. Reader questioned keeping it.
“This is not fair to our students; this is not fair to our staff — to open a swimming pool when they could have a job.”
Arnold replied that the city council has stated that since the school is an entity of the city, the contributions they give offsets the pool costs. “If we’re not going to keep the pool open, then they’ll reduce what money they’re giving us, because it benefits the whole community and the city.”
Superintendent Arnold and various board members will meet with the City Council on April 3rd to discuss finances.
Onto further business, the board passed all of its action items. Nine policies passed the first reading phase. In addition, the board also approved to join NJUS’ bulk fuel purchase instead of going out to bid.
The decision to become a member of Citizens for the Advancement for Alaska’s Children, an organization that fights for educational equity for rural schools in the state, also passed.
The next school board meeting is the March 28th work session at 5:30 pm at the Nome Elementary Library.
