Nome Public Schools is seeking an additional $315,000 from the City of Nome to help offset a significant budget shortfall. The request followed a line-item veto of education funding by Governor Mike Dunleavy and months of back-and-forth between the district and city over its contribution amount.
The Nome Common Council approved $2.7m in funding for the district – $700,000 less than the previous fiscal year – at its June 9 meeting.
The district’s Superintendent, Jamie Burgess, formally addressed the Nome Common Council during a work session Monday night. She outlined the district’s long running financial challenges and warned of further cuts that could impact student services.
“We’ve been flat funded for over a decade,” Burgess told the council. “We’ve seen nothing but increases in our expenditures, and we continue to cut and cut. We’re at the point now where we can’t cut without having some significant impacts on schooling for our kids.”
The requested increase would bring the city’s total contribution to the district for the 2026 fiscal year to $3,015,000 according to a June 20 memo from the city’s Finance Director Nickie Crowe.
Burgess said the district has already lost key staff, including attendance secretaries at both Nome-Beltz Middle High School and Nome Elementary School. Burgess said these vacancies will be particularly difficult to manage, especially at the elementary level where support staff has already been eliminated due to previous budget constraints.
“We are having a brand new principal coming in. She does not have a lot of administrative experience,” Burgess said. “The elementary school has no counselor, no behavior specialist, no social worker. It’s been the principal, assistant principal, and their front office team handling everything.”
The situation has been exacerbated by the uncertain future of a legislative veto override, which could restore the $315,000 in state funding. Burgess expressed doubt that the legislature will reconvene before the next session in January, and noted that the bar for a veto override is higher — requiring a three-quarters majority.
“We will have the cash flow to get us until there,” Burgess said. “But it’s still going to impact us… there’s no guarantee the veto will be overridden.”
Council member Mark Johnson asked whether the district could manage operations until January without the requested funds. Burgess confirmed they could, but said doing so may require cashing out certificates of deposit, which would forfeit anticipated interest revenue.
Council members discussed several budget options presented by city staff, including increasing the city’s sales tax from 5% to 6.5%, reallocating existing funds, or drawing further from the school bond fund.
Finance Director Crowe advised caution, warning that the city’s general fund balance has dropped significantly in recent months — from $1.7 million in April to roughly $663,000 in June — and that reserves are already diminished.
Burgess also cautioned against pulling additional money from the district’s apartment fund. The fund had received a $500,000 grant from the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation for a proposed housing project, but only $450,000 has been utilized. The remaining $50,000 is being held in reserve until the project is completed, and further withdrawals could jeopardize those funds.
“My business manager is not supportive of trying to continue to pull money out of the apartment fund,” Burgess said. “We’re really loath to continue to pull down.”
The Council did not take immediate action on the funding request during the work session, but discussion is expected to continue in upcoming meetings as the city finalizes its budget for the next fiscal year.
