Ketchikan school board approves 2025–26 budget after public hearing on cuts and accounting errors

The Ketchikan Gateway Borough School District Board of Education approved the district's proposed fiscal year 2025'26 budget in a 6'1 vote Thursday after a public hearing during which residents raised questions about program cuts, apparent calculation errors and missing fund breakdowns.

The budget passed on a second-reading motion, with Board Member Steve Thomas moving the measure and Paul Robbins Jr. seconding. The roll call vote recorded six yes votes and one no, with Board Member Ali Ginter opposed.

At the public hearing, Sherry Montgomery urged the board to hold staff accountable and questioned whether the district's actions matched the commitments listed on its website. Montgomery told the board: "Accountability is when you accept responsibility for the consequences of your actions, your words, decisions, good or bad." She argued the board should "raise the bar and make your decisions and your employees meet the extra expectations of your greatest resource the people."

A second resident who identified several line-item and program concerns told the board the second draft differed substantially from the earlier draft and alleged multiple calculation errors. That speaker said positions described in earlier restructuring discussions ' including physical education and music at Howling and five secondary positions ' appeared to be removed in the latest draft and questioned the accuracy of pay increases shown for some district office staff.

Board and staff members responded with clarifications during the meeting. The superintendent, Superintendent Daniel Schuler, told the board that delaying approval past the borough deadline would "break statute" and explained that adopting the budget now sets the total; the district routinely makes budget amendments later in the summer and after the state finalizes funding. "What you can do is ' and you're going to do this ' is that you're going to do a budget amendment," Schuler said, noting the July amendment the district typically files and additional amendments once student counts and final state allocations are known.

Staff gave several item-specific responses: a district official said some listings in the online Hotlink/spreadsheet had "linking errors" and that the FTEs shown for Howling include two RTI positions, one music position and one PE position, and that those positions were not removed. The district also said an RTI 0.5 position shown at Ravilla moved to 1.0 FTE because its cost was previously split across two grants; for fiscal year 2025'26 the absence of one grant will increase the amount charged to the operating fund.

Residents raised concerns about transparency in special revenue funds. One speaker said pages showing detailed breakdowns for the transportation and food services funds in the earlier draft were removed from the second draft. The district said the business manager's salary is allocated across operating, transportation and food-service funds based on time-study and that those allocations are applied consistently.

Participants also discussed local and state funding. The board's budget request to the borough asked for roughly $12.2 million in local contributions; borough action this spring set local funding at 90% of full funding and increased an in-kind contribution tied to a note receivable, staff said. Board members and staff noted that if HB 57 (a pending state measure discussed at the meeting) changes per-pupil funding from $6.80 to about $7.00, the district would realize approximately $100,000 more in revenue, which would increase fund balance.

Board members asked for additional documentation and for the district to provide corrected spreadsheets and class schedules as schools finalize staffing. Several members pressed the administration for line-item corrections, page references and teacher/FTE details; staff said principals are still finalizing school schedules and that some positions remain posted and unfilled.

The board voted on the motion to approve the fiscal year 2025'26 budget in the second reading; the motion passed 6'1 (Ali Ginter voted no). Board members and staff emphasized the expectation of subsequent budget amendments when state and student-count data are final.

Next steps identified during the meeting: staff will provide corrected budget pages and summaries requested by board members; principals will finalize FTE allocations and schedules and share them with the board; and the board will adopt amendments in July and later if state funding or student counts change.