The Nome Nugget

Legislation Introduced Creating a
Public School Foundation Program

JUNEAU (P) -- Legislation creating a Public School Foundation program, as recommended by the State Board of Education, was introduced by the House Rules Committee Tuesday at the request of Gov. Wm. Egan.
The comprehensive measure, Egan said, "should be a considerable aid to school districts, the Commissioner of Education, the Governor's Budget Committee and the Legislature in computing and allocating state aid to local districts.
"More important," Egan advised the Legislature in a letter of transmittal, "the bill is designed to equalize the tax support required of residents in the various city independent and incorporated school districts."
The bill provides that the "basic need" for financing schools in each district shall be the sum of a teachers' salary allotment, an average daily membership allotment and an attendance center allotment.
The teachers' salary allotment would be, essentially, the product of the number of teachers allowed each district by state law times the average of the teachers' salaries in the two years prior to the year for which the Public School Foundation is being computed.
The average daily membership allotment would be $140 times the average daily membership of a school district in the Southeast Senate District, $150 in the Southcentral Senate District and $160 in the Central and Northwest Districts and that portion of the Southcentral District west of the 152nd Meridian.
The attendance center allotment would be the product of $1,000 times the number of attendance centers in each district.
As a first step in determining how much state aid would be required by each district, the districts would have to furnish themselves an amount equal to a tax of four mills on the full and true values of all taxable real and personal property within the district.
The difference between this local tax effort and the "basic need" as computed from the three allotments would be made up by the State.
The Governor said the proposed statute would replace the present complex system of State aid which requires the Department of Education to review closely many individual items of school district budgets and make decision approving or disapproving individual expenditures.
"The formula provides a greater degree of freedom to districts in planning their budgets," Egan said. "They will be able to compute in advance the amount of State aid they will receive, and will no longer have to justify each item of their budgets to the Alaska Department of Education.
"It would also serve to underwrite a part of the basic needs of every district's educational program and still leave it free to enrich the level of education by using its own tax resources."
Egan noted that the bill would make additional State monies available to those districts which make an effort beyond the minimum required, "although this phase of the bill would not become effective until fiscal 1966."