September 30, 2022
Friday

Editor Sitnews

The School Board designs an educational program and the Borough Assembly decides if the community can afford it. That’s the American Check and Balance that is designed to prevent the most egregious excesses since our country’s inception.

The Borough’s largest expense is the Ketchikan School District, but it also has community responsibilities such as the Ketchikan International Airport, the Parks and Rec programs, the Rec Center, Animal Control, Planning and Zoning, and tax collection. All of these things help make Ketchikan a desirable place to live. Demand is always high for better ball fields, more basket-ball courts, track repair, as well as bus service, and library support. Less fun, but necessary is fire protection, emergency services, and solid waste issues.

Katie Parrot announced her run for Borough Mayor by declaring she was a ‘Progressive Liberal’ and she thought Ketchikan should give more money to the school district - that doesn’t sound diverse to me - sounds like a woman advocating for her employer. By the way, Katie is the Business Manager for the Ketchikan School District. There is a reason that there is a separation of government – keeps us more honest about what we want. 100% of Borough property taxes go to the schools, 20% of sales tax goes to capital improvement bonds ( $2,345,000.00 for schools), 1.3 million tobacco tax to schools, Borough pays for school insurance, $1,070,363.00 Secure Rural School funds to schools, etc. Meanwhile, during the past many years the school district has added elementary vice-principals ($100,000 salary per each), Dean of Students at two schools, Assistant Superintendent (cost over $150,000), elementary counselors, and other non-classroom expenditures, knowing they were adding hundreds of thousands to their budget. (This with a steady decline in school population over the past twenty years).

The citizens of the City of Ketchikan are carrying $105,000,000 in bond debt and the Borough has over $30,000,000 in bond debt. So, a hundred and thirty million for the city residents of 8,000+ and thirty million for the 6,000 + Borough residents. Our community’s homes and businesses are the security for those bonds. We are so in debt that the city can not get anymore bonding. Should we have a serious need for water purification or infrastructure failures, we are lost. It is reasonable that the School District may have to find a way to live within its means, unless we plan to give up the other Borough services mentioned above. Ketchikan needs a reality check.

I will vote to keep the Borough and the School District separate with a check and balance. I will vote to re-elect Rodney Dial to keep the budgets clean and honest.

Hannah Ramiskey
45 year Ketchikan resident

Ketchikan, Alaska

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Editor's Note:

The text of this letter was NOT edited by the SitNews Editor.

Opinions expressed are solely those of the writers and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Sitnews.

Received September 29, 2022 - Published September 30, 2022

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