Declining enrollment means declining revenue

While enrollment is down throughout the district, TMHS has more students this fall than JDHS. Photo by Heather Bryant/KTOO.

The Juneau School District expects a million-dollar hit to this year’s budget, due to lower enrollment than projected.

Enrollment is more than 100 students below the forecast used to build the current district budget.

School operating dollars in Alaska come from the state through what’s called the Base Student Allocation, an amount for each student enrolled.  Districts must forecast that enrollment months in advance and it’s not known how many actual students are attending until the next fall.

David Means is District Administrative Services Director.

“Our enrollment as of last Friday was down 106 students and we were down two intensive students.  That translates into a lesser revenue for this year of a million, 20-thousand dollars,” Means told board of education members Tuesday night.

He said a $754,000 dollar carry over from last year will soften the blow of losing students.   The fund balance is a combination of additional revenues and areas of last year’s budget that were not fully expended.

Meanwhile, where have all the students gone?  Superintendent Glenn Gelbrich has been asking that question.

“What we know, and this is all anecdotal, is that we’ll have a family move out for job opportunities and the people who come in don’t happen to have families. It’s a bit of a perfect storm,” Gelbrich said.

The final student enrollment count will be taken October 25th.

 

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