Timber funds delay
jolts school budget

By Tom Morphet

Delays in securing federal timber compensation funds will cut a $450,000 hole in next year’s $3.9 million Haines Borough school budget.

Superintendent Michael Byer met with borough mayor Fred Shields Tuesday to discuss ways to bridge the shortfall.

“It’s not good news. If we had to cut $400,000, that would zero out our carry-over. We’d have to make some deep cuts in several places. It would be hard,” Byer said.

Following the meeting, Shields said the borough could probably contribute as much as $150,000, but said other money coming from the Alaska Legislature this year also could help fill the gap.

“It’s a problem. A half million dollars to us is a lot of money and we have to be very careful we don’t spend money we don’t have,” Shields said, adding that a downturn in the national economy could hurt borough revenue sources such as sales tax.

U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens recently told state officials that the funding – money that communities near national forests get to cushion the blow of diminished stumpage revenues – wouldn’t be taken up in Congress until August or September, said Bill Rolfzen, of the state Department of Community and Regional Affairs.

That’s too late to incorporate into school budgets formulated in the spring. More than 30 communities near national forests in Alaska get the funding. “Everyone’s scratching their heads, wondering what to do,” Rolfzen said.

Haines received $452,000 from the program last year, when Alaska’s Congressional representatives sought a five-year appropriation, but came away with only a single year’s funding. A push to fund the program in December failed. Uncertainty about the future of the program for years has worried local leaders during budgeting.

“You could almost see a foreshadowing there,” said  Shields.

Some districts already are proposing teacher layoffs, but Byer said this week it’s too early to talk about cutting teachers and he’s aiming to protect programs like vocational education. He said the meeting with Shields would provide a starting point for revisions of a district budget he planned to submit to the school board Tuesday night.

Personnel and energy are the district’s biggest expenses, and Byer said he hoped that recent work of the a local energy task force might help. “The borough is looking for alternative (energy) sources and that could also benefit the school.”

The district also is scheduled to enter into negotiations with teachers this spring over salaries and benefits.