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Hello!
Recently,
the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District School Board made the
difficult decision to close four schools: River City Academy,
Tustumena Elementary, Sterling Elementary and Seward Middle School.
Interestingly,
rising property values on the Kenai means less money from the state
for Kenai Peninsula schools. The state lowers funding to our district
when property values rise, expecting district residents to pay more
taxes to fill the gap.
You
may have heard recent conversations about the Kenai Peninsula Borough
funding or not funding the school district “to the cap”. The reason
for this pressure for more funding from the Borough is because the
state is reducing the amount of money they provide because of rising
property values.
Although
KPBSD enrolment is down about 12 percent since 2010, the largest
factor eroding education funding from the State is the over 50
percent cost shift the State has leveraged on to our Borough
taxpayers. This means that although the BSA was increased last year,
KPBSD received $3.6 million less for this school year from the state
because of rising assessed values on property.
For
every dollar that the Required Local Contribution increases, the
State reduces funding by a dollar. This results in the massive cost
shift seen in this graph:
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