More than 30 kids packed the Juneau Assembly Chambers last night to testify on behalf of full funding for the school district’s 2016 operating budget.
Annika Schwartz, who attends Gastineau Elementary School, said she experienced overcrowding in her second grade classroom and worried about the future.
“If we don’t get a good education, then who will be sitting where you are right now when you leave? And who will take care of our world?” she asked Assembly members. “I know that we are on a tight budget that we’re trying to handle. But on your list of things you could cut, education should be the very last.”
The proposed budget would appropriate more than $86 million dollars to fund the Juneau School District next year. Both general operations and student activities would receive an increase over fiscal year 2015.
Joan Pardes, a parent, said maximizing the funding could fix a blight that’s weakened the school system for years.
“I know families that are leaving Juneau because of education. I know five families in the past three years that have left because of education,” said Pardes, a former volunteer host of KTOO’s “A Juneau Afternoon.”
The Assembly voted to send the school district budget back to the Finance Committee for further consideration. Members also held onto the city and borough’s overall operating budget of more than $319 million dollars. Property taxes would remain unchanged from the current year. No one from the public testified on the proposed city budget or the property tax mill levy.
The new fiscal year starts July 1. The full Assembly has until May 31 to appropriate the school district budget and until June 15 to adopt the city’s operating budget.