NPS doesn’t have the funds to meet teacher demands

Superintendent Jamie Burgess delivered her annual State of the Schools address to the Nome Common Council last Monday, November 25. The presentation aims to bring the Council up to speed on the issues at Nome Public Schools, one of them being the ongoing teacher contract negotiations, which have not been resolved.
What seemed to catch the most attention of the Council was the district’s continued challenge of building a balanced budget, leading to potential for cuts in workforce. The budget difficulties are a consequence of a few things, including a trend over the past few years of declining enrollment. District numbers have fluctuated since the pandemic and are down to 671 students this year from 696 the previous year.
Within the district, there has been an increase in students in the Extensions Correspondence homeschool program, where schools receive less money per student from the state when enrolled with that program versus a brick-and-mortar school. In a district of Nome’s size even a few students can make a large difference funding wise, Burgess explained.
A large portion of state funding comes from the Base Student Allocation, or BSA, which is the amount given to each student in a district and makes up much of NPS’s budget. The BSA has been flat funded for many years, meaning it hasn’t been increasing to match the rate of inflation.
Last year, the legislature voted to increase the BSA, but it was vetoed by Governor Mike Dunleavy and the legislature failed to override the veto by one vote.
“What this means is we’re going to have to have that difficult conversation again, which is the potential reduction in force,” Burgess said. There were warnings of this last spring as the legislature was formulating a budget that would potentially leave NPS in a deficit, but the district was able to avoid staffing cuts after receiving a one-time amount of $1.1 million from the state and cutting elsewhere.
The lack of assured funding makes it difficult for the district to recruit and retain teachers. The turnover in teachers from last year to this one was 19, Assistant Superintendent Elizabeth Korenek-Johnson said during the meeting.
At this point Burgess brought up the current bargaining with teachers who have been working for this school year without updated negotiated contracts, which cover pay raises and benefits.
“Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that we’ve been having some challenges when it comes to negotiations with our teachers,” Burgess said, referring to the picket held in front of Nome Elementary School October 31 and the sit in demonstration during the November 12 school board meeting.
“The challenge is we simply don’t have the funding that’s adequate to meet their demands,” Burgess said.
Recognizing that this contributes to the high turnover and struggle to fill positions, the district has been looking to international hires, which is no cheaper than finding a teacher in Alaska or the Lower 48, Burgess said. It can also be complicated and time-consuming to navigate the immigration policies required to get teachers to the U.S.
Also contributing to staff turnover is the lack of available and affordable housing. Burgess said she’s been working with Interim City Manager Brooks Chandler to get the ball rolling again for the teacher/public safety worker housing unit that has been in the planning for many years.
Burgess said the district has done everything they can to move the project forward but with inflation the originally $9 million 18-plex is now estimated to cost around $16 million, which is beyond the savings they’ve built up to cover the portion not paid for by grants. “We don’t have the statutory authority to take on debt on our own behalf. The debt has to be taken on by the city on behalf of the school district,” Burgess said.
Councilmember Scot Henderson pointed out that the housing project has been on the City’s state legislative priority list since its inception. For the 2024 list it was priority 10 of 10 with an $8 million grant ask.
Burgess said that once the unit is built it will likely pay for itself like the apartment complex does, while also providing subsidized rent so teachers can live there affordably.
Henderson asked how the district is working to increase enrollment to increase funding. Burgess said it’s like “putting the cart before the horse” or getting ahead of things, when the district is struggling to retain teachers to maintain status as a well performing school to appeal to families. So really it begins with adequate state funding, Burgess said.
The city is inching closer to the limit of how much they can annually contribute to the school district, last year increasing by $200,000 for a total of $3.4 million. They’re almost at 90 percent of their state allotted contribution. School board member Jon Gregg was in the audience for the presentation and made the ask for the full amount, stating people would be shocked that the school isn’t funded at 100 percent and education should be a priority.  
Henderson agreed with Gregg that education should be a primary concern for the city, and said that it is, with the contribution to the district always being one of the first things to pass when making the city budget, but other factors impact how they can fund schools.
“We’ve got over a $2 million deficit, according to our last city manager, we got about a year to two more years that we can do that without really starting to run into some problems,” Henderson said.
Councilmember Adam Martinson said it hadn’t been previously brought to their attention that they could aid the district in a debt service.
One question from the board was how the district’s compensation compares to others in the state. Burgess said Nome is unique because it has a single school district with a small correspondence program and reliant on a city, not a borough, for support.

“We try to see if our salaries are comparable to other districts that kind of similar to us, and we’re not bad,” Burgess said. The Bering Strait School District for example has a completely different funding model which allows them to pay teachers more and provide low rent and assured housing, still 60 percent of their staff comes from out of the country, Burgess said, so they also struggle with acquiring teachers.   
The presentation closed just before the Council began their regular meeting at 7 p.m., Burgess promised to return when the Council began working through their annual budget to provide updates on their funding needs.