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Alaska senators hear_resolution urging permanent Secure Rural Schools funding
Summary
Senate committee heard House Joint Resolution 5 urging Congress to reinstate and make permanent Secure Rural Schools funding; testimony outlined the program’s outsized role in small Alaska boroughs and warned of fiscal cliffs if federal payments stop.
The Senate Community and Regional Affairs Committee on April 1 heard House Joint Resolution 5, which urges the U.S. Congress and the president to reinstate the Secure Rural Schools and Communities Self Determination Act and to make its funding mechanism permanent.
Trevor Shaw, district chief for Representative Jeremy Bynum, told the committee that the Secure Rural Schools program, known as SRS, was created to help rural communities and school districts that lost timber-sale revenue on federal lands. Shaw said that in fiscal year 2023 SRS payments nationwide totaled $252,600,000 and that Alaska received $12,600,000 of that funding.
Shaw said those payments have disproportionate effects on smaller Alaska communities. “In the city and borough of Wrangell, SRS payments accounted for approximately 55 percent of their total local contribution to their school district,” he said. He listed other boroughs where SRS checks equaled a large share — for example, he said payments for Petersburg were about 38 percent of its local school contribution, and in Yakutat SRS payments were “roughly equal to their total amount in local contribution to their school districts in FY ’23.”
The presentation traced the program’s origin to federal legislation and noted that stopgap reauthorizations have repeatedly renewed SRS for limited periods. Shaw told the committee that the most recent reauthorization included in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act covered payments through Sept. 30, 2023, and that a Secure Rural Schools Reauthorization Act introduced in 2023 passed the U.S. Senate but was not taken up in the House before that Congress adjourned.
Sen. Grama Jackson, who identified herself as a Senate cosponsor of the resolution, said she worried about the program’s prospects given federal budget pressures and asked about the chance of successful reauthorization. Shaw declined to predict congressional action but urged a unified Alaska message to members of the congressional delegation and said some bipartisan reauthorization bills had been introduced in both chambers earlier in 2024. “Removing the uncertainty of the stopgap reauthorizations…would provide stability and predictability to these affected communities,” he said.
Chair Senator Merrick thanked presenters and said the committee would set House Joint Resolution 5 aside for a future hearing.
Why it matters: Committee testimony emphasized that SRS payments can represent a major share of local school funding and municipal revenue in small, timber-impacted communities, and that the lapse of federal payments would force difficult local trade-offs in services and staffing. No committee vote was taken; the resolution was set aside for further consideration.
