NEA-Alaska president speaks about potential loss of federal education funds

FAIRBANKS, Alaska (KTVF) – After the U.S. Dept. of Education reached out to the State of Alaska about the potential withholding of tens of millions of dollars, Tom Klaameyer, the president of NEA-Alaska spoke on the issue and the impacts it will have if it is made final.

In 2021, the federal government passed the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), part of which provided funds to schools as a form of relief to aid schools recuperating from the Covid-19 pandemic. States were able to take advantage of these funds as long as they followed as set of terms that required funds to be distributed a certain way.

Earlier this week, the U.S. department of education notified the State of Alaska that it would withhold tens of millions of dollars in education funds if the state did not work to fall into compliance with regulations outlined in the ARPA.

According to the U.S. Dept. of Education, Alaska failed to do just that. Now there’s $17.5 million on the line. “In order to receive the additional covid funding from the federal government, [The Alaska Dept. of Education and Early Development] agreed to the terms of that including the maintenance of equity requirement so from the beginning the state was aware of those requirements in accepting those funds,” said Klaameyer.

The maintenance of equity requirement being the issue at question. This term required the state to provide a certain amount of funding and they say that four school districts including Fairbanks North Star Fairbanks School District did not receive the funds to meet that term.

The U.S. Dept. of Education notified the state of their non-compliance multiple times but has yet to hear back from the state on the matter. Currently, the state has until Oct. 15, to appeal or resolve the issue .

If no action is taken by that time — schools in the Kenai, Fairbanks, Anchorage and Juneau areas will pay the price, each losing millions of dollars.

“That’s not an insignificant amount of money, so we’re talking about schools closures here in Fairbanks, we’re talking about potential school closures elsewhere, we’re talking about higher class sizes, we’re talking about reducing positions, fewer educators in the building,” Klaameyer said.

Fairbanks in particular would lose about $2.8 million which is close to the price of operating a school for one year.

This comes at a time when the school district already faces a large deficit and has had to close Ben Eielson Jr./Sr. High School to balance the budget.

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