At a forum hosted Thursday by the Juneau Chamber of Commerce, candidates for the school board and Assembly shared their views on education funding, staff retention and whether to build a new city hall.
Three candidates are vying for two open school board seats: Britteny Cioni-Haywood, David Noon and Paige Sipniewski. They discussed state funding, student enrollment and teacher retention.
For the last several years, district leaders throughout the state have called for an increase to the base student allocation, part of a formula that determines how much money per student districts get from the state. It hasn’t increased substantially since 2017, and inflation has driven costs up. This year, the Alaska Legislature approved a one-time funding increase, but Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed half of it. And most recently, the state education department went after the school district for the supplemental funding it received from the city.
School board candidate Paige Sipniewski said a funding increase should be tied to academic improvement.
“If we have decreased enrollment, we can’t just keep throwing money at the problem,” she said. “We can’t advocate for a $1,000 increase to the BSA with no improvement to our kids’ test scores and education.”
But candidate David Noon said improving academic performance requires hiring and keeping teachers so class sizes can stay small, which can’t improve without more funding.
“Without increased school funding, we’re going to continue having problems recruiting and retaining teachers,” Noon said.
When asked how the district should decide which books should be available in libraries, Noon and Britteny Cioni-Haywood said they were happy with the board’s current policies.
“I think that there should be a vast range of options for children,” Cioni-Haywood said. “One of the things about reading is you really need to connect with it, so having those options for all children is important.”
Sipniewski said she thinks parents should be able to have a say in what books are available in school libraries.
“I am completely against anything regarding gender, sex, religion, profanity, drug use, race — as far as literature for kids in school,” she said. “We have public libraries. They can go check out books there or their parents can if they want their children reading that.”
Candidates for Assembly Districts 1 and 2 were also at the forum.
Two candidates are running for each district Assembly seat. Joe Geldhof is running against incumbent Alicia Hughes-Skandijs for District 1, and David Morris is running against incumbent Christine Woll for District 2. Juneau voters can vote in all races on the ballot – the districts depend on where the candidates live.
The city is asking voters to fund a new city hall through a $27 million bond. Voters rejected a $35 million bond proposal for the project last year. This time, the city put $10 million toward the project to bring the size of the bond down. They’re also spending $50,000 to advocate for the project.
District 1 candidate Joe Geldhof said building a new city hall would be a misuse of public funds.
“There’s a lot of talk here among the Assembly and in the community about housing, housing, housing – so what are we going to do? We’re going to build a new city hall,” he said.
But incumbent Alicia Hughes-Skandijs said repairing a building that doesn’t fit all city workers and continuing to rent other office space doesn’t make financial sense.
“And speaking of housing, some of the space we’re renting could be returned to residential apartments,” she said. “We’re going to spend public money either way.”
Assembly candidates also discussed turnover among Bartlett Regional Hospital leadership. Last month, Bartlett CEO David Keith announced his retirement and CFO Sam Wise announced his resignation.
Incumbent Christine Woll said the Assembly needs to support the city-owned hospital’s board.
“We’re lucky to have a strong and stable board for Bartlett right now, but we always have challenges recruiting members to serve on public boards in the city,” she said. “We need to keep making sure that we have engaged citizens willing to serve on that board.”
Woll’s opponent, David Morris, agreed that the Assembly should work closely with the hospital’s board. But more broadly, he said, he doesn’t think the city should be running a hospital.
“I think the city should not have a hospital,” he said. “I think it should be privatized.”
Other communities in Southeast Alaska have debated whether to continue running city-owned hospitals or allow the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium to build and operate one instead.
Thursday’s forum was the latest in a series of public events featuring municipal candidates. The Juneau League of Women Voters, KTOO, the Juneau Empire and KINY will co-host forums on Sept. 12 and 13. The Chamber will host candidates for the areawide Assembly seat at a forum on Sept. 14.
