Juneau — School leaders from across Alaska told a joint House and Senate education committee meeting on March 31 that the state's flat Base Student Allocation (BSA) and reliance on one‑time funding have left districts unable to plan, driving program cuts and rising deferred maintenance.

At the hearing, Clayton Holland, superintendent of the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District and president of the Alaska Superintendents Association, said districts are building multiple budgets because the final state funding picture is unknown. “We have to guess, and then that corresponds to we don't know how many staff we can bring back,” Holland said.

The message mattered because, as Lisa Paradis, executive director of the Alaska Council of School Administrators, put it later, "Education is not failing. It is starving." That theme reappeared across testimony: school business officials, superintendents and principals described rising fixed costs for health care, utilities and transportation combined with BSA that has not kept up with inflation.

Why it matters: Districts said the mismatch forces them to spend operating funds on noninstructional needs, reduces funds available to hire or retain staff and delays maintenance. Philip Hewlett, chief financial officer of Galena City School District and president of the Alaska Association of School Business Officials, described a “fiscal cliff,” citing repeated one‑time allocations that cannot sustain programs.

Key details cited to the committees included:
- Deferred maintenance: Superintendent Holland said the Kenai Peninsula alone has about $400 million in deferred maintenance; he noted the state backlog at roughly $330 million. "We're losing heat dramatically," he said, describing roofs and crumbling walls.
- Transportation shortfall: Philip Hewlett said districts have spent about $44 million out of general operating funds above state allocations for transportation in the last 10 years; one district this year will spend about $200,000 from its general fund to cover the gap.
- One‑time funding effects: Holland and others showed charts intended to demonstrate how multi‑year, inflation‑adjusted funding differ from episodic one‑time grants, and how uncertainty forces districts to create several contingency budgets.

Speakers urged approaches that extend beyond short‑term dollars. Katie Parrott, senior director of management and budget for Anchorage School District, asked lawmakers to avoid a moratorium on school bond debt reimbursement and highlighted the linkage between bond reimbursement reductions and rising facility backlogs in Anchorage.

Committee questions focused on the timing and scale of cuts under different BSA scenarios. Clayton Holland outlined what a $680 per‑pupil cut might mean for his district: elimination of reading specialists, loss of elementary counselors, reduced distance‑education services, and elimination of sports stipends and other extracurricular staff. Representative Story asked how specific scenarios would affect the Kenai; Holland listed targeted program losses tied to each funding level.

What lawmakers heard about accountability and transparency: Parrott reiterated that district budgets, audit reports and historical expenditure data are publicly available through the Department of Education and Early Development and district websites, and that school business officials face numerous separate audits and reporting requirements.

What's next: Witnesses asked the legislature to consider increasing the BSA to match inflationary pressures and to fund deferred maintenance and bond debt reimbursement separately so districts can stop shifting operating dollars to cover building repairs. Senators and representatives in the room acknowledged the competing state revenue pressures and said new revenue sources would be needed to increase the BSA.

Evidence: The funding discussion was anchored in Superintendent Holland's presentation (topic intro) and the deferred maintenance examples later in his slides (topic finish).