The Haines School. (Emily Files)

Last week, Governor Mike Dunleavy released a proposed state budget for 2020. His plan included a reduction in state spending on education among other budget cuts.

The proposed budget calls for a more than 300 million dollar cut to education. Most of that can be attributed to a 23 percent reduction in the state’s per-student funding allocation.

But Getchell says he is not just worried about a decrease in direct school funding from the state.

“There’s also the indirect things with early childhood education, cuts to the ferry system and cuts to the borough with their debt bond reimbursement program that they have. Those are all things that could wind up costing us in the long run,” Getchell says.

Governor Dunleavy’s proposed budget would eliminate grants for pre-kindergarten education and programs such as Head Start. In addition, the governor aims to repeal Alaska’s school bond debt reimbursement program, which provides state money to offset the cost of building new schools.

When Haines built a new school in 2005, the borough took out more than $17 million in bonds to pay for its construction. If the governor’s budget were adopted, the borough would stop receiving annual payments of $900,000 from the state to help pay off those bonds.

When asked how the school would respond to a significant budget cut at the state level, Getchell says it would be a matter of prioritizing funds.

“When you have to make hard decisions you look at what’s not a priority and make hard choices about those sometimes,” Getchell says. “It would be my hope that we can work through this so that even if there is a long term change in how we do this, we can soft land so that it’s not all done at once so we’re able to work through a process of change without devastating a system.”

At this point, Getchell says it is too early to tell what the actual impact will be for the Haines School.

“From what I’ve seen it’s going to be fairly substantial, but I think what we have to remember is that this is proposed and there’s going to be a lot of things that change between now and then,” Getchell says.

The Senate Finance Committee is holding hearings on the budget this week. The spending plan will have to pass the state legislature before heading back to the governor, who can either sign off on the budget or veto it.