Districts could cushion funding drops after school consolidations

A district may use earlier enrollment figures to calculate basic need after a school consolidation. This applies when schools in the same community and district close and consolidate. The adjustment applies only if the consolidation lowers basic need calculated from the schools' adjusted enrollment. A district cannot use it if it builds a new facility for the consolidation or uses the separate enrollment-decrease adjustment in the same year. The adjustment cannot lower basic need below the amount calculated without it. A district using the adjustment cannot reopen a closed school until at least four years have passed and it gives the department satisfactory evidence that the affected schools are over capacity. A school cannot be reopened and reconsolidated more than once every four years for these calculations. The adjustment may apply during the first four fiscal years after consolidation; the reopening wait runs from the school closure.

A city or borough district's required local contribution may not exceed the stated limits. This applies to required local contributions by Alaska city and borough school districts. The contribution is based on the equivalent of a 2.65 mill tax levy on the district's taxable property value as of January 1 of the second preceding fiscal year. It may not exceed 45 percent of the district's basic need for the preceding fiscal year. Until the later provision takes effect, it also may not exceed the prior year's required contribution by more than five percent. Section 1 takes effect July 1, 2026. Section 2 takes effect July 1, 2029, when the five-percent limit is removed from the text.