Senators Joe Paskvan, Dennis Egan, and Gary Stevens during the closeout hearing of the Senate Finance DEED Subcommittee, March 20, 2012
This blog contains highlights from the Alaska Education Update. The update is issued daily during session and contains detailed summaries of education issues under consideration by the Alaska State Legislature. If there is a hearing on a Monday, a report will, with few exceptions, be released by Tuesday morning. There is also a weekly edition of the update. During interim, reports are issued only when there has been action. Interim action may include hearings, bill signings, the release of the Governor's proposed budget for the next fiscal year, and other items that may be of interest to the education community.

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Monday, April 16, 2012

Capital Budget & Explanation of Education Funding in SB 182


Here is a link to the capital budget: http://www.legis.state.ak.us/PDF/27/Bills/SB0160C.PDF.  This is the House Finance version: HCS CSSB 160(FIN).  It was amended on the floor of the house with the addition of $25 million for revenue sharing, but that version is not available on line yet.  Once you pull up the bill, you can do "find" search within it to quickly find specific projects.
Here is SB 182, the education funding package: http://www.legis.state.ak.us/PDF/27/Bills/SB0182C.PDF 
The fiscal notes for the bill have details on how much funding each district will get for the individual provisions of the bill:
Fiscal Note #3: http://www.legis.state.ak.us/PDF/27/F/SB0182-3-4-041412-EED-N.PDF shows how much increased state contribution for education a municipality will get for going to a flat mill rate of 2.65 for required local contribution.  This provision has the most widely varying effect on districts - for those municipalities already funding to the cap, there will be no benefit to the school, although there will be a benefit to the municipality.  For those already at the low end of the local contribution mill rate, there won't be as much benefit, and for REAA's there will be no impact.  For municipalities not funding to the cap, there would then be more money available at the municipality's discretion, should they decide to increase educuation funding.  For instance.....

Friday, April 6, 2012

HB 284 - Conference Committee Appointed, House & Senate


The conference committee for HB 284 - Operating Budget has been appointed in both the house and the senate:
House: Rep. Thomas is the house chair, with Reps. Stoltze and Gara as the other house members

Senate: Sen. Hoffman is the senate chair, with Senators Stedman and Thomas as the other senate members