Chilkat Valley News - Serving Haines and Klukwan, Alaska since 1966

As the Haines School District braces for possible state budget cuts to education, superintendent Tony Habra says he won’t share his plans for local cuts until June.

The district has balanced its $4.6 million budget for the coming year by borrowing $250,000 from savings and trimming $125,000 in costs.

That leaves about $195,000 in the district’s fund balance.

school board member Jeanne Kitayama asked at Tuesday’s meeting for a plan from administrators about what the district would cut if the Alaska Legislature decides on a 1 percent or a 5 percent decrease to funding.

A 5 percent cut would dock the budget another $170,000.

“I’ve heard legislators say, ‘Well in my district, this is what is going to happen if you cut us this much,’ and it just seems to hit people harder to really know what’s going to happen,” Kitayama said.

“We’ve definitely considered that and had conversations about that,” Habra said. “I’m very hesitant to specifically talk about positions that are going to be lost because it creates panic. And we have no proof that anything is going to happen. That said, we have plans as an administrative team…there’s lots of things being kicked around right now in terms of what we would do.”

The school board approved fiscal year 2018 contracts for 20 staff members Tuesday, including incoming kindergarten teacher Ramie Carlson and fifth grade math and science teacher Jordan Baumgartner. Habra said the district and board may have to go through a legal process called a “reduction in force” to terminate contracts if state cuts come down.

Habra said he doesn’t want to cut any more teachers, and would rather scale back supplies or workdays of other staff. “My goal would be to keep as far away from kids as I could. It would be a challenge, but it could be done,” Habra said.

Kitayama and school board member Lisa Schwartz still wanted specifics. “It would still help me to know what, exactly, would happen,” Kitayama said.

“I think it’s time for us to know those ideas, because we need to start looking at that a little closer and clearly,” Schwartz added.

Habra offered to present his plans at the meeting, but school board president Anne Marie Palmieri said she would like to have a written proposal that board members could discuss at a workshop.

“If you just throw out some numbers and ideas now, I guess I don’t think it’s going to be as effective,” Palmieri said. “We want to do it in a manner that’s thoughtful and well-reasoned to potentially not create panic, especially when we’re talking about people’s jobs.”

The school board set a workshop for Tuesday, June 6 to talk about the administrators’ plans.

Another unknown in the school budget is the cost of a new union contract. District and staff negotiating teams recently arrived at a settlement, but that hasn’t yet been ratified by staff.