Nome Public Schools passes budget with uncertainty of city and state funding

Despite a potential large reduction in funding from the city, the Nome Public Schools Board of Education approved the final budget for the 2025-2026 school year of $ 18.5 million, during a Tuesday night special session. 

On Monday, the Nome Common Council was presented with their own budget draft, which included an almost $2 million cut to the city’s contribution to Nome Public Schools, over 10 percent of the school district’s funding.

New City Manager Lee Smith made the proposal to the council, citing stagnant revenues over the past few years and a need to reevaluate the budget.

“This is just, I mean, talk about coming in and pulling the rug out from underneath people,” Superintendent Jamie Burgess said to the Nugget on Tuesday.

The news came just days before the district is legally required to transmit the final budget to the city. Burgess received a letter Monday morning notifying her of the reduction and stating the rest of the funding from the city was up for negotiation.

Burgess, School Board President Darlene Trigg and Council Member Cameron Piscoya held an impromptu meeting with Smith Tuesday afternoon, where he recommended the board approve the budget with the full amount they expected to receive from the city, $3.4 million.

“Since I’ve been on the school board, I’ve never been in a position where the city has verbally given us a dollar amount that we have planned our budget around. And then tell us that that’s not likely going to be the amount they’re going to be able to contribute to us,” School Board President Darlene Trigg said at the Tuesday meeting.

Smith told the Nugget Tuesday he is confident the $2 million reduction was “not going to happen.”

In a verbal proposal to the Council during Monday’s work session, he gave the number of a $2.9 million contribution, still a $500,000 reduction in what the district expected.

“Our children should not be the ones that are going to be impacted, because the city has some struggles with figuring out their budget,” Burgess said.

It was a somber mood in the Nome Elementary School library as board members heard from Burgess of the potential cuts the district would have to make to balance the budget if full funding didn’t come.

Burgess gave two options for the $500,000 deficit: One would be to halt the process of hiring new teachers to fill open positions, cutting down on personnel for next year and leading to increased class sizes. The only other option, and the one Burgess recommended, is to pull half of the district’s apartment fund to fill the shortfall. This would severely hamper any movement on the teacher apartment building project.

Smith said the letter to Burgess was not a threat, just a legal document they can use to begin negotiations for funding, the real contribution will likely be closer to what the district budgeted, but that’s only if the mill rate and sales tax are increased.

“I have stagnant revenues. The only way to increase revenue are certain taxes,” Smith said.

The school board has an opportunity to help the council, Smith told the Nugget, by supporting them in a push to increase revenues.

The board expressed great disappointment in the move by the city manager.

“I felt like we were being used as pawns to push city council members to take action, in a way,” Trigg said. “And I mean, I think I made it pretty clear to him that that's just not how we treat each other here.”

School board member Jon Gregg echoed Trigg’s sentiment.

While the district’s budget has been approved, there is still time for the board to reassess, in case the council doesn’t offer up the full $3.4 million. But the members expressed hope they would.

“I also believe that adopting this budget and submitting to them signals to them that we have an expectation that they will live up to the commitment,” Burgess said.

Burgess said the move goes against every conversation she’s had with previous interim and city managers over the past year. Since they began creating their budget, the district was anticipating a $3.4 million contribution.

“We had a work session with the city council on April the 14th to discuss the budget. Zero indication at that point in time that there was any, any appetite from the city council or anyone else, as far as reducing the $3.4 million,” Burgess said.

While balancing next year’s budget, Burgess said she was more worried about funding from the state, of which they budgeted a $680 increase to the base student allocation or BSA, the main funding for districts in the state.

The Legislature’s efforts to increase funding to schools has failed so far in the session. Last week the Legislature failed to override Governor Mike Dunleavy’s veto of a $1,000 boost to the BSA.

The Senate passed a bill Monday that would increase the BSA by $700, along with a host of other policy reforms. Dunleavy has stated on social media there is a potential for the bill to pass if all his requirements are included.

If the House passes the bill, it will go the Governor’s desk for his signature to become law. If he moves to veto it, there has been significant support in both the House and Senate for enough votes to override the veto.