The Juneau Assembly offered lukewarm support Monday to prep a fall ballot question asking local voters to authorize debt for school maintenance.
The $1.3 million ask is a lot less than school officials were considering in April, when they wanted $21 million for major renovations of the Marie Drake Building.
The Marie Drake project went on hold indefinitely, after the Alaska Legislature this year imposed a 5-year freeze on the state program that had covered up to 70 percent of the debt local governments took out to pay for school capital projects.
“That changes, I think, the landscape for floating school bonds for fixing up schools or renovating schools,” Juneau School District Superintendent Mark Miller told the Assembly.
Not only for big projects, but also for major maintenance that leftover bond money had historically covered. Tighter state restrictions on repurposing that money means major school maintenance falls entirely to Juneau taxpayers.
Or, as Assemblyman Jesse Kiehl put it, “We have an unexpected need for this cash because the legislature changed the rules.”
Miller said bleachers and shot clocks at Juneau-Douglas High School that could fail during Gold Medal, and a 5,000-gallon underground storage tank that he knows is close to failing keep him up at night. They’re a few of the items on a short list school officials would consider spending the $1.3 million on. Roof repairs at Dzantik’i Heeni Middle School is another.
Mayor Merill Sanford was critical of city staff efforts at building a comprehensive system for managing all city assets and maintenance needs, something he said was identified as a priority a few years ago. It could have brought more clarity to the discussion about the school district’s request.
Sanford alluded to an early attempt at such a system that listed city-owned assets.
“It was a piece of garbage. It didn’t do justice to our assets that we have to figure out what we needed to do in the next 2 years, 5 years, 10 years,” Sanford said.
The instruction to prep the ballot question for taking out debt wasn’t a clear endorsement of that funding mechanism. Sanford and several other Assembly members said they’d like to keep exploring the conversation and other funding options at a future meeting.
