Legislature(2005 - 2006)CAPITOL 106
02/03/2005 11:00 AM House EDUCATION
| Audio | Topic |
|---|---|
| Start | |
| Overview of Education in Alaska | |
| HB30 | |
| Adjourn |
* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
| *+ | HB 30 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| *+ | HB 65 | TELECONFERENCED | |
HB 30-APPROP: K-12 EDU OPERATING/DEBT EXPENSES CHAIR NEUMAN announced that the final order of business would be HOUSE BILL NO. 30 "An Act making appropriations for K-12 education operating and school debt expenses; and providing for an effective date." 12:13:35 PM TOM WRIGHT, Staff to Representative John Harris, Alaska State Legislature, stated that HB 30 in its current form is merely a starting point. He opined that there will be numerous discussions related to possible changes in the base student allocation portion of HB 30, as well as the Public Employees' Retirement System (PERS) and the Teachers' Retirement System (TRS) costs and whether to include those in the foundation [formula] or as a separate item. As it is now, he explained, [the cost of PERS/TRS] is a separate item in [HB 30] and not included in the foundation formula portion of HB 30. This legislation includes school bond debt retirement for which there will be some increased costs as will also be the case for pupil transportation. He highlighted that the base student allocation will determine how HB 30 appears when, and if, it moves out of committee. REPRESENTATIVE WILSON inquired as to why there are so many different issues included in HB 30. 12:16:21 PM MR. WRIGHT said that all of the issues included in HB 30 are related to education funding. He highlighted that HB 30, unlike the governor's proposal, is one-year funding. Also, the administration's proposal includes an appropriation for $425,100 to the Alaska Military Youth Academy. REPRESENTATIVE GARA said that he does not know how to evaluate HB 30 without first hearing from school districts [regarding what is needed]. He emphasized that he wants school districts to be able to add staff. He related that preliminary numbers that school districts have submitted for increased foundation formulas are $40 or $50 million more than the governor's proposal. He inquired as to whether [Mr. Wright] would view the aforementioned as out of range for a foundation formula funding component. CHAIR NEUMAN interjected that he has scheduled time for testimony from school districts regarding their needs. MR. WRIGHT stated that the House Special Committee on Education has to decide what level to fund the foundation formula. 12:19:44 PM EDDY JEANS, Director, Finance Department, Department of Education and Early Development, (EED), said that he understood the numbers put forward in HB 30 were intended to reflect the governor's funding level of the current programs as they currently exist in statute and not reflect the governor's proposed increases. Therefore, changes would be necessary so that HB 30 reflects the actual budget request. He explained: The first one would be under special schools. The actual dollar amount that should be reflected there is $7,469,600; that's on line 13. Under pupil transportation ... that number should be $55,027,100 and that would be on line 14 .... The number on line 5 would also have to be amended ... [to] $826,037,800 .... Mr. Chairman, on page 2, line 2, for the general fund, that number would have to be amended to be $793,299,500 .... Mr. Chairman, on line 5, the school debt reimbursement program - that is actually the fiscal year '05 number - the fiscal year '06 number will be $86,463,479 ... that would be on line 5, page 2 .... The revenue sources would also have to be amended, line 9 "debt retirement fund" would be $59,463,479 and the school fund under line 10, would be $27 million even. 12:22:55 PM REPRESENTATIVE GARA related his understanding that the numbers on page 1 through line 2, on page 2, are the current fiscal year numbers, and the numbers for lines 6, 9, and 10 are the numbers projected for the fiscal year (FY) 06 debt reimbursement program. MR. JEANS stated that the numbers given for all of the programs reflect the FY 06 entitlement numbers based on the current programs in statute. Therefore, in all cases it would be the FY 06 budget numbers. REPRESENTATIVE GARA surmised then that the foundation formula numbers remain as long as the base student allocation does not change. MR. JEANS stated that is correct. 12:24:45 PM CARL ROSE, Executive Director, Association of Alaska School Boards (AASB), said that AASB supports HB 30 because it has valuable components of the overall education appropriation. He explained that he recently returned from Washington, D.C., where AASB has been working with the National School Board Association and has had a chance to review some of the impacts of NCLB and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Federal funds over the last four years, he related, have resulted in the $64 billion difference between what was authorized and what was appropriated, nationwide. He said that he has yet to determine what that means for Alaska, and therefore he said he will be working with Mr. Jeans to try to come up with some numbers. He continued: The cost of some of these federal mandates have been balanced on the back of state, local funding mechanisms. Much of what we do at the local level requires us to meet mandates, requires monies to be spent that we are not receiving, which brings us back to the point of the whole educational discussion that we are having. We have been taking a look at some of the trends ... that will show a relatively flat level of funding from the years 1999, 2000, 2001 ... our basic student allocation was at ... $3,960 from '01 to '02, it was moved up $50 dollars and that was to $4,010 dollars, a relatively flat trend. In fiscal year '04-'05, we have started to make a move to increasing the investment in public K-12 education .... In '04, we didn't have PERS and TRS in the foundation formula, in '05 we did and we are starting to look at '06 and '07, and I really appreciate the whole idea of capturing the cost of PERS and TRS. 12:27:00 PM [Due to technical difficulties, the recording ends at 12:27 p.m. and the remaining testimony was taken from the Legislative Information Office's recording.] MR. ROSE continued: The point I'm trying to make is our experience has been ... the year we're in right now ... we received an $82 million increase. With that $82 million, $36 million of that went to PERS and TRS. The remainder, $46 million, is what we experienced in terms of an increase to public K-12 education. The numbers aren't being discussed right now, but in the governor's proposal for '06 he's talking about $62 million; $38 million of that is for PERS and TRS, and the remainder, about $22 million, is what the difference is from last year. The only reason I bring this up is that if we continue on a trend such as this, we will start to reduce the impact of the increase that we received last year. And the proposal that has been placed before us by the governor ... merits consideration, a two-year funding package, ... which we support ... as a starting place. Representative Gara, you have mentioned we haven't heard from all of the school districts yet ... but what we're finding by running our numbers at the $62 million level [is] that we are experiencing shortfalls across the state. ... we want to create a trend line, if you will, that increases the level of education funding commensurate with what the needs are in our state. We've experienced the flat period of funding; we have started to climb in '04, and now [in] '05 we'd like to continue that. And so, I want to bring you some documents that will, I believe, take a look at ... a trend line that I think is manageable for us into the future. [HB 30 was held over.]
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