Alaska will more than triple funding for school construction and maintenance projects next year under a budget approved by the state Legislature this month. The funding, which is awaiting signature by Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy, follows reports from KYUK, ProPublica and NPR last year documenting serious health and safety crises inside buildings used daily for public education.
The bill would allocate more than $148 million for construction and maintenance in fiscal year 2027, up from $40 million in fiscal year 2026, which ends June 30. The new budget line is an effort to help schools across the state with major maintenance needs that are holding up millions of dollars. Years of underinvestment in Alaska’s public schools have resulted in leaky roofs, broken water pipes, and damaged foundations. If approved by the governor, it would be the largest allocation in more than a decade. The money could pay for more than 30 projects, but it would still only cover a portion of the requested repairs.
Some of the worst conditions exist within rural public schools, which primarily serve Indigenous students and are often used as emergency shelters. In December, former students and concerned parents informed the State Board of Education about poor conditions at Alaska’s only state-run boarding school. Their testimony further boosted efforts by lawmakers to ease the burden on cash-strapped rural school districts in areas where residents don’t pay taxes to fund education.
As Alaska lawmakers grapple with a statewide budget shortfall, state Sen. Lyman Hoffman, an Alaska Native Democrat who represents the state’s largest rural school district, said education funding, including school construction and maintenance costs, “has gone through the roof.” “Despite the fact that the entire state is having trouble balancing checkbooks, education is at the top of the list,” he said in March, when lawmakers questioned the leadership of the state Education Department before the Alaska Senate Finance Committee.
Each year, school districts follow an application process and submit applications for construction and maintenance funding to the Alaska Department of Education. Since 1998, Congress has funded only a portion of proposed projects. Last year, lawmakers were able to secure about 5% of the roughly $800 million that rural and urban school districts said they needed to keep their buildings safe and operational. This year, school districts requested more than $1.12 billion for infrastructure improvements, the second-highest request statewide since 1998. Despite the legislation’s funding infusion, the 2027 school infrastructure budget will only cover about 13% of what districts requested.
“We’re so grateful,” said Kuspuku School District Superintendent Madeline Aguillard. “But the hole that the state is in is so deep and so big that it’s going to take a long time for us to say, ‘Enough is enough.'”
The Agilard School District includes schools in nine roadless communities along the Middle Kuskokwim River in the heart of interior Alaska. The district first requested funding from the state in 2007 to repair a leaking roof at the school in Threetemute. The leaks continued for nearly 20 years, resulting in other problems with the building. Architects inspected the building in 2021 and found severe structural damage. Further reporting by ProPublica, KYUK, and NPR revealed bat infestations and other serious health and safety issues at Three Mute schools.
At least one lawmaker has publicly called the school a “masterpiece” when it comes to problems with Alaska’s public school infrastructure. Aguillard said a 2024 report about serious structural deficiencies within Jack Egnaty Senior School, a K-12 school in Threetmute, “really lit a fire” in the state Legislature.
2024 Damage to the interior of the school’s woodworks in Sleetmute. The district first asked the state for money in 2007 to repair a leaking roof. Emily Schwing/KYUK
For years, lawmakers and state education department officials have blamed each other for annual school infrastructure deficiencies. Last year, school board member Deena Bishop told ProPublica, KYUK and NPR that she could do nothing more than advocate on behalf of the district. “The power of the purse rests with the Legislature,” said Bishop, who served as state education commissioner for three years.
But when the Senate Finance Committee met with Education Department leaders in March, Republican Co-Chairman Bart Stedman suggested the committee was not receiving enough information from school districts and bishops. “She has a responsibility. The responsibility is on her,” Steadman, who is from the coastal-based community of Sitka in southeast Alaska, told colleagues. (In response, Education Department officials said they rely on information provided by school districts about conditions inside buildings; school districts have the opportunity once a year to request funding for maintenance and construction.) Stedman, Hoffman, and one of the other leading co-chairs have served on the finance committee for more than 15 years. None of the co-chairs agreed to comment for this story.
Previous reporting by news outlets also revealed several issues with the system school districts must use to request funding and the process the state Department of Education relies on to rank these projects. “Personally, I think this system and rankings are flawed and we are trying to fix them,” Bishop said at a hearing in March.
Bishop explained how wealthy urban school districts with more staff fared better than districts in remote areas. These urban areas have more resources to hire professional grant writers and pay for building inspections, which can help increase application volume. More than half of the projects approved for funding this year are in urban school districts, where local tax revenue is also used to pay for education. Alaska’s rural school districts rely almost entirely on state funding because they serve communities whose residents do not pay taxes to fund education.
“There are winners and there are losers,” Bishop said.
Without a permanent solution to pay for major maintenance projects that have been stalled for decades, Congress has resorted to several stopgap measures. For example, the incorporated Galena City School District proposed a major $36.5 million renovation project that included the removal of hazardous materials and major upgrades to outdated critical systems such as heating and ventilation, plumbing, and electrical. In its first year on the state list, the project ranked second in funding priority, surpassing several other projects in local school districts that waited years, even decades, for approval. So lawmakers cut funding for Garena in order to fund more of the project overall.
In recent months, lawmakers have taken steps to help schools cope with rising heating fuel prices. Heating fuel is transported by barge or plane during ice-free seasons to areas not accessible by road. Rep. Loki Tobin, a Democrat from Anchorage who chairs the Senate Education Committee and was consulted by Aguillard on the issue, led an effort to create a one-time grant program to help cover rising energy costs. “It’s hard to argue against keeping facilities warm and the lights on,” Tobin said, acknowledging that the funding just scratches the surface.
“Our state has a lot of competing priorities,” she said. “I think we’re all kind of competing for a piece of the pie.”
Three days before the end of the session, the Alaska Senate voted to make Tobin’s program permanent starting in 2028. Dunleavy has until early June to sign the budget sent to his desk. According to Tobin, there is no sign that he will be released from his contract this year. During his eight years as governor, Dunleavy has used his veto power to reduce state investment in public school infrastructure, even as he acknowledges budget shortfalls.
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