A proposed ballot measure seeks $58 million for Mat-Su charter school buildings

What you need to know:

• A ballot measure slated for consideration by the Assembly this week seeks up to $58 million for the construction and expansion of facilities at three local charter schools: Academy Charter School, Birchtree Charter School, and American Charter Academy. If approved by the Assembly, the measure will go before voters in November.
• If approved by the Assembly and voters, the proposal could result in a property tax increase of up to $31.40 per $100,000 of assessed value. The proposal also requires the schools to contribute 12.5% of their annual budgets to bond repayments, a step that would likely reduce the tax increase to about $21.50 per $100,000, according to a memo with the proposal.
• The schools currently serve a total of about 900 students. The proposed expansions are intended to allow the schools to accommodate more students and improve educational facilities.

A proposed Mat-Su ballot measure would ask voters to fund up to $58 million to build or expand facilities for three area charter schools.

The three charter schools need new construction or major building additions so they can adequately serve students, according to the proposal.

The schools included in the measure are Academy Charter School in downtown Palmer, Birchtree Charter School between Palmer and Wasilla, and American Charter Academy in Meadow Lakes.

The measure is scheduled for a vote by the Matanuska-Susitna Borough Assembly on Tuesday. If approved, it would go before voters in November. It is sponsored by Assembly member Robert Yundt, whose district includes Wasilla.

Charter schools are independently run district schools funded by state and local funds and often have an enrollment waiting list. Students are typically selected through a lottery. The Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District has eight charter schools.

The proposed ballot measure asks voters to approve a bond sale that would result in a tax increase as high as 0.314 mills, or $31.40 per $100,000 of assessed property value. The actual cost to taxpayers could be lower, however, because the measure also requires schools to contribute part of their annual budgets to bond repayments, a step that would lower the new debt passed on to property owners, the proposal says.

Under the proposal, each school would be required to contribute 12.5% of their annual budgets to the borough for debt repayment. Assuming the schools both meet that obligation and never lower their budgets below their current levels, property owners would see a tax increase of about $21.50 per $100,000, the proposal states.

In all, the schools included in the measure currently serve about 900 borough students, according to a memo accompanying the proposal, with additional students looking to enroll. Birchtree and Academy have combined waitlists of 358 students, the memo says, while waitlist information for American is not included.

The proposed ballot measure represents a significant change to a charter school construction and deferred maintenance bond request originally floated by the school district earlier this year. That measure asked for $70 million for construction at five charter schools, plus $15 million for major maintenance projects at schools districtwide.

The request was pared down due to borough worries that it was too high to win voter approval when combined with a separate ballot measure to fund $33 million in road projects across the region, officials said.

“If we take on so much education debt and we can’t do roads, what problem are we really going to solve?” Borough Manager Mike Brown said in an interview last month. 

Rather than look to fully fund both requests through bonds, borough officials opted to pare down the construction measure while adding some of the maintenance projects to the district's annual operating budget, Brown said.

The goal, he said, is to cap the cost of all bond packages sent to voters this year at about $100 million.

Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District administrators said they worked with the borough to coordinate the final proposal.

“The draft ballot propositions introduced in July was not a surprise,” district spokesman John Notestine said in a statement. “The administration recognizes that the Assembly has discretion to determine what if any items are sent to the voters for consideration.”

What's funded in the school construction bond proposal

While all three schools included in the bond proposal face facility woes, their specific problems and proposed solutions vary.

American Charter Academy currently has about 190 students in kindergarten through high school and is housed in a strip mall in Meadow Lakes with limited parking and usable outdoor school grounds, according to the proposal.

A new school site near the intersection of Seldon and Church roads has already been approved by borough officials, but the school lacks the funds to pay the estimated $15.1 million construction bill, according to the proposal. The proposed building would be more than 29,000 square feet and large enough for about 290 students plus staff.

Birchtree Charter School serves students in kindergarten through eighth grade in a leased building on the Palmer-Wasilla Highway several miles outside Palmer. The school faces a number of facility issues, including the sale of its building to a new owner, which will eventually force it to move, and a long waiting list of students who can't be enrolled because there isn't enough space, the proposal states.

Borough officials approved a new school site for Birchtree near Shaw Elementary School on Wasilla-Fishhook Road in 2021, according to school district officials. The new 49,000-square-foot, two-story building would cost an estimated $27 million and be large enough to accommodate 530 students plus staff.

Academy Charter School, one of the area's oldest charter schools, is seeking about $16 million to add a new 29,000-square-foot building to its existing borough-owned campus in Palmer.

The school currently accepts students only through eighth grade but last year received school board approval to add high school grades to its program. In order to do so while also increasing the size of its current program to meet its steady waiting list, the school needs to expand its facilities, the proposal states. Academy's expansion would cost an estimated $16.3 million.

-- Amy Bushatz can be contacted at abushatz@matsusentinel.com.

This story was updated Aug. 5 to reflect the correct spelled of district spokesman John Notestine's name.