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During a work session
Thursday evening, the Kodiak Island Borough Assembly discussed a resolution
that will set the minimum amount at which the borough would fund the school
district. The cap is set at $10.3 million and the resolution calls for just
over $9.9 million as the minimum contribution from the borough.
Borough
Mayor Jerome Selby proposed adding $400,000 that would come from increased
revenues from the fish and severance taxes. The extra money would bring the
borough within about $50,000 of fully funding the school district.
"Rather
than pass a resolution that lowballs it in effect and then come back at the
June meeting of the assembly and changing the number to some other number, I
think that misleads the community. I'd rather be up front. We know right now
tonight that you've got $400,000 of additional revenues that you can recognize
and put into this budget. I didn't hear anybody talking about some other place
we needed to spend that extra $400,000 and it's sitting there."
Assemblyman
Dave Kaplan spoke in favor of fully funding the district or at least following
through with the mayor's proposal.
"I'm
tired of hearing about this national education defunding train. I don't think
we should be on that. As I said, our kids, our education, that's our best
investment. I just can't see us growing as a community if we defund our schools
and our teachers. I would like to go to the cap if at all possible. If not, I
would support the mayor's proposal."
Hesitating
to commit a windfall to the school district, assemblyman Mel Stephens suggested
leaving the amount as written in the resolution and discussing a potential
increase at the next regular meeting when the borough's FY 13 budget will be
presented
"I
don't like the idea of taking monies now that we are undoubtedly going to need
in the very near future and putting it into the school district. I think the
better time for the discussion of increasing above the figure that is in this
resolution would be at the next regular meeting."
The
assembly agreed to leave the language of the resolution as is and will discuss
it further at this Thursday's regular meeting. The borough will meet with the
school district to discuss its budget June 7th.
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