{"id":2399,"date":"2026-05-29T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/alaskas-deteriorating-schools-could-receive-more-than-148-million-for-repairs-its-a-fraction-of-what-they-need\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T09:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T09:00:00","slug":"alaskas-deteriorating-schools-could-receive-more-than-148-million-for-repairs-its-a-fraction-of-what-they-need","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/alaskas-deteriorating-schools-could-receive-more-than-148-million-for-repairs-its-a-fraction-of-what-they-need\/","title":{"rendered":"Alaska\u2019s Deteriorating Schools Could Receive More Than $148 Million for Repairs. It\u2019s a Fraction of What They Need."},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

Alaska would more than triple the funding it devotes to school construction and maintenance projects next year under a budget approved this month by the state Legislature. The funding, which awaits Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy\u2019s signature, follows reporting by KYUK, ProPublica and NPR last year<\/a> that documented a severe health and safety crisis<\/a> inside the buildings used daily for public education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bill would allocate more than $148 million toward construction and maintenance in the 2027 fiscal year, up from $40 million in fiscal 2026, which ends June 30. The new budget line is an effort to help with millions in backlogged major maintenance needs for schools around the state. Years of lacking investment in Alaska\u2019s public schools have resulted in leaking roofs, broken water pipes and failing foundations. If the governor signs off, it would be the largest allocation in more than a decade. The money could pay for more than 30 projects but would still cover only a fraction of the requested repairs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of the worst conditions exist inside rural public schools that serve predominantly Indigenous student populations and are often used as emergency shelters<\/a>. In December, former students and concerned parents told the State Board of Education<\/a> about squalid conditions inside Alaska\u2019s only state-owned boarding school. Their testimony further fueled efforts by lawmakers to help unburden cash-strapped rural school districts in communities where residents don\u2019t pay taxes to help fund education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Alaska legislators wrestled with statewide budget shortfalls, money for education, including for school construction and maintenance, \u201cbubbled to the top,\u201d according to state Sen. Lyman Hoffman, an Alaska Native Democrat who represents the largest rural school district in the state. \u201cEven though the whole state is having a problem balancing its checkbook, at the top of the list is education,\u201d he said during an Alaska Senate Finance Committee meeting in March, at which legislators questioned state education department leadership. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every year, districts follow an application process to submit their construction and maintenance  funding requests to Alaska\u2019s education department. Since 1998, the Legislature has funded only a fraction of those proposed projects. Last year, lawmakers were able to secure about 5% of the nearly $800 million that both rural and urban school districts said they needed to keep their buildings safe and operating. This year, school districts requested more than $1.12 billion for infrastructure \u2014 the second-highest total requested statewide since 1998. Despite the legislative infusion of cash, the 2027 budget for school infrastructure will cover only about 13% of what school districts asked for. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI do appreciate it,\u201d said Kuspuk School District Superintendent Madeline Aguillard, \u201cbut the hole that the state is in is so deep and so big. It\u2019s going to take a long time to hit that word \u2018enough.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aguillard\u2019s district includes schools in nine roadless communities along the middle stretch of the Kuskokwim River in the heart of Alaska\u2019s interior. The district first requested funds from the state to repair a leaking roof at its school in Sleetmute in 2007. For nearly two decades, the leak persisted, resulting in other problems for the building. In 2021, an architect inspected the building and uncovered severe structural damage. Further reporting by ProPublica, KYUK and NPR revealed a bat infestation and other serious health and safety issues in Sleetmute\u2019s school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At least one lawmaker has publicly labeled that school \u201cthe poster child\u201d for what\u2019s wrong with Alaska\u2019s public school infrastructure. Aguillard said news reporting in 2024 on serious structural deficiencies inside Sleetmute\u2019s K-12 Jack Egnaty Sr. School<\/a> \u201creally lit a fire\u201d in the state Legislature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Damage inside the woodshop of Sleetmute\u2019s school in 2024. The school district first requested funds from the state to repair a leaking roof in 2007.<\/span> Emily Schwing\/KYUK<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For years, lawmakers and state education department staff have blamed each other for the annual school infrastructure shortfall. Last year, education Commissioner Deena Bishop told Propublica, KYUK and NPR that she can do little more than advocate on behalf of districts. \u201cThe power of the purse is with the Legislature,\u201d said Bishop, who has served as the state\u2019s education commissioner for three years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this March, at the Senate Finance Committee meeting with education department leaders, co-chair Bert Stedman, a Republican, suggested the committee had not received sufficient information from school districts and Bishop. \u201cShe\u2019s responsible. The buck stops with her,\u201d Stedman, from the coastal hub community of Sitka in Southeast Alaska, told his colleagues. (In response, education department staff said they rely on information school districts provide about conditions inside buildings; those districts have an annual opportunity to make requests for money for maintenance and construction.) Stedman, Hoffman and one other ranking co-chair have been on the Finance Committee for more than 15 years. None of the co-chairs agreed to comment for this story. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Previous reporting by the news organizations has also brought to light several problems with the system school districts must use to request funds and the process the state education department relies on to rank those projects. \u201cThere is, I would personally say, a flaw in the system, in the ranking that we are trying to fix,\u201d Bishop said during that March hearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\n\t\t\tAlaska Ignored Warning Signs of a Budget Crisis. Now It Doesn\u2019t Have Funding to Fix Crumbling Schools.<\/strong>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/a>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Bishop described how wealthier urban school districts with more staff fare better than more remote districts. Those urban districts have more resources to hire professional grant writers and pay for building inspections, which can help elevate applications. More than half of the projects approved for funding this year are in urban school districts that also have access to local tax revenue to pay for education. Alaska\u2019s rural school districts are almost entirely reliant on state funding because they serve communities where residents do not pay taxes to help fund education. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSome are winners and some are losers,\u201d Bishop said.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the absence of a permanent solution to pay for decades of backlogged major maintenance projects, the Legislature has relied on a few stopgap measures. For instance, the incorporated Galena City School District proposed a $36.5 million major renovation project that includes the removal of hazardous materials and major upgrades to outdated critical systems like heating and ventilation, plumbing and electricity. In its first year on the state\u2019s list, it was ranked second for funding priority, above several other projects in rural school districts that have waited several years, and in some cases decades, for approval. So lawmakers reduced the amount of money that will go to Galena in order to deliver money to a larger overall number of projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In recent months, Lawmakers have also taken steps to help schools deal with the rising price of heating fuel, which is delivered by barge or air in ice and snow-free months to districts that are not accessible by road. Approached by Aguillard about the issue, state Sen. L\u00f6ki Tobin, a Democrat from Anchorage who chairs the Senate Education Committee, led an effort to create a one-time grant program to help defray those rising energy costs. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to argue against keeping the facilities warm and the lights on,\u201d said Tobin, who acknowledges that the money only scratches the surface. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s so many competing priorities in our state,\u201d she said. \u201cI think we\u2019re all kind of competing for scraps of a pie.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three days before the session was set to end, Alaska\u2019s Senate voted to make Tobin\u2019s program permanent beginning in 2028. Dunleavy has until early June to sign the budget lawmakers sent to his desk. According to Tobin, there\u2019s no indication this year that he won\u2019t sign off. In his eight years as governor, Dunleavy has acknowledged the budget shortfall but used his veto power to cut state investment in public school infrastructure.  <\/p>\n\n\n

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The post Alaska\u2019s Deteriorating Schools Could Receive More Than $148 Million for Repairs. It\u2019s a Fraction of What They Need.<\/a> appeared first on ProPublica<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n
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 www.propublica.org Source link <\/a>\r\nAlaska’s state Legislature has approved a budget that would increase funding for school construction and maintenance from $40 million in fiscal 2026 to over $148 million for 2027, pending Governor Mike Dunleavy’s signature. This marks the largest allocation in over a decade, addressing critical health and safety issues stemming from years of underinvestment, particularly in rural schools serving predominantly Indigenous students. Despite the increase, this budget covers only about 13% of the $1.12 billion requested by school districts for infrastructure needs. Lawmakers face ongoing challenges funding education due to budget shortfalls and the varying capabilities of urban versus rural districts.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alaska would more than triple the funding it devotes to school construction and maintenance projects next year under a budget approved this month by the state Legislature. The funding, which awaits Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy\u2019s signature, follows reporting by KYUK, ProPublica and NPR last year that documented a severe health and safety crisis inside the buildings used daily for public…","protected":false},"author":541,"featured_media":2400,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_analytify_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/541"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}