Budget shortfall dominates school board meeting

Discussion of budget woes was the main thread throughout last week’s school board meeting. Principals discussed how classrooms and equipment in bad condition and lack of substitute teachers are contributing to low staff morale. Only tenured teachers were offered contract renewals. Transportation costs are not fully covered by state funding.
During her report to the board, Nome-Beltz Middle High School Principal Teriscovkya Smith said that the school’s ability to host visitors has been impacted by budget cuts. When sports teams visit, the school has offered up their vehicles for use, but they are down to one van. “That’s our same vehicle that I would use to transport parents to conferences. It’s the same vehicle I would use to take home kids who are sick or not feeling well or need to go home for other reasons,” she said. “It’s a precarious van.”
Patrick Callahan, the Activities Director, has started offering his personal vehicle as a supplement, offering it to visiting teams. Smith said that this is not what Nome should be doing as a hub school that hosts other schools often. “If we are going to continue to be a place that hosts teams and events,” said Smith. “We have to have some more secure transportation.”
The home economics room, where the school hosts hospitality for visiting teams, is in bad shape. A last minute teacher resignation in August costs thousands of Smith’s budget and caused the school to have to pivot and run classes out of the home economics room.  “It is an Achilles heel right now on our campus as far as a classroom space and what we need,” Smith said.
Smith said that teacher morale is low. “Teachers are worried that they’re on the chopping block, especially non-tenured teachers,” she said.
Nome Elementary School Principal Michelle Carton said that the lack of substitute teachers is contributing to staff burnout and low morale. Teachers feel they have to come to work sick because there will be no one to cover their class. “We would love to be able to bring in more guest teachers, so that our teachers can be able to take those breaks that they need to be able to take,”  she said.
Only tenured contracts were offered for renewal at Thursday’s meeting, which Superintendent Jamie Burgess said would be the case until there was a formal funding commitment from the City of Nome.
The school district has said that they are only able to offer tenured teacher contracts until they know what the city is able to contribute to the FY27 budget. Last year, the city dropped their contribution from $3.2 million to $2.7 million. This year, the district is asking for a $3.5 million appropriation from the city. The district operates on an $18 million budget.
Assistant Superintendent Elizabeth Korenek-Johnson said that teachers are nervous about their jobs and they want stability. “We will likely lose a handful of folks in the process, simply because they need job security and they can find it elsewhere pretty easily,” she said.
At a meeting between school board members and city council members on February 3, the idea of a joint work session to talk about budget woes and school funding was floated. In Thursday’s meeting, Burgess said that the school board and the city are looking at a potential date of February 23 to sit down and have that discussion about the budget.
Korenek-Johnson said that as soon as the district has a commitment from the city and is ready to offer contracts to the non-tenured teachers, the offer letters are ready to go.
School board member Darlene Trigg pointed out that the issue of funding is not limited to the district and city level. “This is not working for anybody,” she said. “It’s failing us when there’s not enough money inside the system to fund public education.”
Jim Shreve, the district’s technology director, discussed the district’s move to Chromebooks instead of replacing the aging MacBook laptops, mostly as a cost saving measure. The board voted unanimously to approve the purchase.
Chief Financial Officer Genevieve Hollins said that the money received from the Department of Education for transportation reimbursements is not enough to cover the actual costs. The board later voted unanimously to approve the transportation contract with Morgan Enterprises, their sole bidder.
Burgess said that the cost of transportation has continued to climb due to inflation and that funding from the state has not kept up with the rise. “This is another one of the things where, unfortunately, our state funding is falling short,” she said. “We have to supplement state funding in order to continue to provide transportation services at the level we have.”
The board approved the renewal of the contracts for Hollins and Bonnie Voves, the payroll clerk. They also voted to approve an extension of the contract to fix the roof of Nome-Beltz, a project that has stretched into overtime after a dispute over who is responsible for issues with water leakage. Burgess said that the contract extension was necessary because, regardless of who is responsible for the leak, work will have to wait until the weather permits. “It’s going to have to push into when into the spring, once we actually have conditions that are liable to get people back up on the roof and get it fixed,” she said.
The next regular meeting of the school board is scheduled for March 10.