Kenai Peninsula Borough School District

Nikiski Middle/High School’s Bulldog Theater opens ‘Anything Goes’ on May 1. The show features romance and humor on a cruise ship crossing the Atlantic Ocean, and marks the final performance for some of the school’s seniors.

City Manager Terry Eubank says he’s met with other city managers and the borough mayor to talk through possible solutions, and that Kenai’s all-age nonprofit swim team has been proactive. Starting July 1, the school district will stop funding the pool.

The school board budget closes four schools and cuts millions of dollars in programs and employees. But board members said they’d reverse certain cuts if the assembly funded the school district at the same level as last year.

The school district wants an inflationary bump to what it got from the borough last year. That still comes with millions in cuts to programs and staff. That’s why others are asking the borough for the maximum funding allowable under state law, also called the ‘cap.’

Representatives of the Soldotna Silver Salmon Swim Team have ideas for making the pool profitable, and say Soldotna has a vibrant enough base of swimmers to keep the schedule busy.

The budget now heads to the Kenai Peninsula Borough. Assembly members still haven’t decided how much money the borough should give the district. Board members hope to get more money than they budgeted around, which would let them undo some of the cuts.

The event was held by the Kenai Peninsula Borough and Soldotna Republican Rep. Justin Ruffridge, and capped a trio of similar public outreach meetings hosted by the borough.

In its latest offers, the district proposed a three-year contract with a 3-2-2 raise structure to both unions. Staff would get a 3% raise for the current school year, then 2% and 2% raises through the 2027-2028 school year.

School district officials spoke to attendees at the school for the third of four public meetings the district is holding at schools the board is proposing to close to save money.

Earlier this month, the board built three budget scenarios that assume different levels of funding from the Kenai Peninsula Borough. The borough is consistently the district’s second largest source of income, behind the state.