After years of pulling rabbits out of the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District’s budget hat, there are no rabbits left. That was the message delivered by Melody Douglas, the district’s chief financial officer, at a meeting in Homer Tuesday night.

“We’ve prepared a preliminary budget and it’s $2 million out of balance,” Douglas said.

What that means is the loss of 15 teachers due to a projected decline in enrollment and another 60 due to staffing formula chang-es because of a projected decline in revenue, Douglas said.

“Because of the financial issues that have to do with the area of the cost differential and increased fixed costs like electricity and fuel oil, it’s going to cause us the loss in the neighborhood of 75 teachers,” said Ron Keffer, HHS principal. “Everybody’s trying to specify what that means. For Homer High School, it means five teachers. That’s remarkable.”

At McNeil Canyon Elementary School, the impact would be the loss of one full-time teaching position.

“This year we had the ability to have single-grade classrooms except for a combination five-six, but next year there would be more combinations. We’d be down a teacher, so we’d have less flexibility in terms of how to schedule things,” said Pete Swanson, McNeil principal.

According to information supplied by the district, the loss of teachers currently being considered is the result of administrative adjustments, declining enrollment and a change to the PTR, pupil-teacher ratio. Following is the proposed teacher loss per school on the southern Kenai Peninsula:

• Chapman School: 1 teacher;

• Homer High School: 5 teachers;

• Homer Middle School: 2.5 teachers;

• Kachemak Selo School: 1 teacher;

• McNeil Canyon Elementary School: 1 teacher;

• Nanwalek School: 1 teacher;

• Nikolaevsk School: 2 teachers;

• Ninilchik School: 1.5 teachers;

• Paul Banks Elementary School: 1.5 teachers;

• Port Graham School: no impact;

• Razdolna School: no impact;

• Susan B. English School: 1 teacher;

• Voznesenka School: 1.5 teachers;

• West Homer Elementary School: 2 teachers.

Although the district has a reputation for successfully figuring out its financial woes, Douglas said the current situation puts the burden on the Legislature.

“Any financial assistance we have to have has to come through the legislative process,” she said.

Although the likelihood is slim that will happen before Douglas has to present a balanced budget to the school board at its March 5 meeting in Homer, the public is being urged to contact their legislators.

“You can moan to the district and the school board forever and they really don’t have the ability to make a change in the situation until they have some funding that would provide the flexibility to do that,” said Swanson, who will be urging parents to contact legislators.

“We have a monthly newsletter and I’ll be addressing this in my article and making (parents) aware of the place where they can make a difference: contacting their legislators.”

The message to legislators is for full funding of the area cost differential, the amount for school districts to do business based on their area in the state as identified in a 2003 report done for the Legislative Budget and Audit Committee. The report was completed by the Institute of Social and Economic Research of the University of Alaska and is commonly known as the ISER study. For KPBSD, it would mean an additional $1.7 million.

“Write to legislators and ask for full funding of the ISER cost differential,” said Liz Downing, who represents Homer on the school board.

The other point to make with the Legislature, according to Downing, is a re-evaluation of the state’s formula for funding education.

In the meantime, Douglas remains hopeful as she prepares a balanced budget for the school board’s approval at the upcoming March meeting.

“We have to (stay hopeful),” she said. “If we start hanging it up, we’re dead.”

McKibben Jackinsky can be reached at mckibben.jackinsky@homernews.com.