Welcome to the Alaska Association of School Business Officials e-newsletter!
ALASBO Mission: To promote the highest standards in school business practices.
|
|
Karen Morrison Awarded School Business Official of the Year Award
Congratulations to Karen Morrison, Business Manager at Petersburg School District, who was named the Alaska School Business Official of the Year at ALASBO’s December 2020 Annual Conference. Candidates for this prestigious award are nominated by their colleagues within the Alaska school business profession. Annually, a panel of previous recipients selects a deserving individual from the nominees submitted based upon their recognized outstanding service, innovative plan design and implementation, and the use of exemplary business practices within school business management.
The award is sponsored by GCI and ALASBO. The recipient receives a trip to ASBO International Annual Conference, recognition at the ALASBO Annual Conference and an engraved plaque. Last year's winner, Luke Fulp, presented the award to Karen.
|
|
|
Message from
ALASBO President, Jimmy Love
|
|
I would like to start by wishing everyone a Happy New Year. I know I am looking for a much better 2021 than 2020! This past year was one to remember, or maybe not, but certainly not something we will ever forget. A HUGE shout out to our Executive Director, Darcy Carter and Associate Executive Director, Melody Douglas for their countless hours of work and keeping ALASBO moving in the right direction. I would like to thank the board for their tireless efforts on putting together an excellent and our first virtual conference. Although many would have preferred an in-person conference, I thought the virtual conference went very well.
I would like to share with you a little bit about ALASBO and what it provides. This is a community of educational leaders that work together to provide opportunities for our entire membership. This is not just geared towards CFO’s, Director of Finance, or Supervisors, but also Accounts Payable, Payroll, Human Resource, IT, Maintenance, and Student Nutrition personnel. This is exactly where I started, as an Accounts Payable Clerk about 20 years ago. Click to read the rest of this message.
|
|
ALASBO’s 2021 Board of Directors
President – Jimmy Love, Kenai Peninsula Borough SD
President Elect – Andy Ratliff, Anchorage SD
Past President – Karen Morrison, Petersburg SD
Secretary – Yodean Armour, Klawock City SD
Treasurer – (Ex-Officio) Kim Johnson, Delta/Greely SD
Executive Director – (Ex-Officio) Darcy Carter
Seat A – Phil Huelett, Dillingham City SD
Seat B – Megan Williams, Northwest Arctic SD
Seat C – Alenita Danner, Alaska Dept. of Education and Early Development
Seat D – Heather Heineken, Yukon-Koyukuk SD
Seat E – Sandy Daws, Kodiak Island Borough SD
Seat F – Andrew Leavitt, Lower Yukon SD
Thank you for serving ALASBO and your colleagues!
|
|
|
|
Executive Director's Message-
Darcy Carter
President Jimmy Love’s Theme for 2021 is:
Together Towards Tomorrow
On Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, a friend of mine sent me this picture of Dr. King and Thich Nhat Hanh. Something about this picture grabbed me and has stayed with me. I kept returning to it and revisited a poem by Thich Nhat Hahn titled Please, Call Me by My True Names. More on that poem later.
If you are not familiar with him, Thich Nhat Hanh is a global spiritual leader, poet and peace activist from Vietnam, known worldwide for his teachings on global ethics and peace. In 1967, Dr. King nominated Thich Nhat Hahn for the Nobel Peace Prize.
To me, it is striking that these two human rights leaders from opposite sides of the world became friends and supported each other’s work for a better future for all. Together Towards Tomorrow.
Around the same time my friend sent me the picture, I was updating our ALASBO website and added our Mission, Vision, and Values to the slider on the home page. While our Mission and Vision are shared in many places, I had not read our Values in a while. They are the perfect ingredients for a recipe of Together Towards Tomorrow. Let’s keep cooking! Here are ALASBO's Values:
-
Ethical standards
-
Sharing knowledge and expertise
-
Advancing the interests of all members
-
Accurate, objective, consistent information
-
Collegiality
-
Efficiency
-
Collaboration
|
|
Member Spotlight:
Megan Williams
|
Our member spotlight shines on Megan Williams. Megan is the Director of Administrative Services at Northwest Arctic Borough School District.
|
|
|
GASB 84: Is the Student Activity Fund a Special Revenue Fund or a Fiduciary Fund? by Altman, Rogers & Co
The implementation of GASB 84 establishes changes to the identification and reporting of fiduciary funds. For many school districts, this change will affect the student activity fund. If an activity is not identified to be a fiduciary fund, it will be reported as a special revenue fund. Below, we have listed questions to consider when determining how to report the student activity fund in accordance with GASB 84.
Who controls the assets?
To determine how the student activity fund should be reported, it is important to know who has control of the assets. If the school district maintains the activity funds in its own bank account, the school district has control of the assets. If the school district controls the assets, the student activity fund is not a fiduciary fund.
Where is the money coming from?
To be considered a fiduciary fund, the revenue cannot be derived from only source revenues from the school district or from government mandated or voluntary nonexchange transactions.
|
|
 |
2021 ALASBO COMMITTEES
Thank you to all past and current members of an ALASBO committee! Here is a list of members serving on 2021 ALASBO committees: 2021 Committee Members
|
|
|
|
Thank you to our Power Lunch presenters!
January 12: Google Tools presented by Kristy Andrew, Business Manager, Cordova SD
January 26: Staffing as it Pertains to the District Budget Open Forum
February 9: ESSER II / Covid-19 Relief Funding presented by DEED
Coming Up:
February 16: Legislative Matters as they Pertain to the District Budget, Open Forum
March 9: CIP presented by the Facilities Team at DEED
|
|
Leaving the Dark Days Behind Us-
by Dr. Lisa Parady, Executive Director, ACSA
Recently, nine of our superintendents fielded questions from the Senate Education Committee regarding their perspectives on educating during the COVID-19 pandemic. As the leaders they are, they did a phenomenal job representing the diverse strengths and challenges that each of their unique districts and districts across Alaska have faced through the ongoing crisis. These nine participated virtually in the first panel-style testimony brought before a legislative committee and were outstanding. None of them missed a beat answering tough questions about enrollment projections, cost saving and fiscal planning measures, mitigation and student assessments.
That could not have been possible without the data and hard numbers that our school business officials did for them and do for public schools every day. Testimony from different districts illustrate different aspects of public education for our legislators, but the illustrations are affirmed by the numbers and the fiscal expertise that ALASBO provides to back them up.
Simply stated, the whole story couldn’t be told without the dedicated work of Alaska school business officials. Many thanks for the hard work you do every day to support a collective message for school districts and most importantly for the students in Alaska!
|
|
|
|
|
|
2020 Virtual Annual Conference
Thank you to all the presenters, attendees and sponsors who made our Annual Conference a success!
Bonnie James of Yupiit School District won the Annual Ugly Sweater Contest. We had several great entries from across the state. Thank you to everyone who participated.
|
|
|
|
And we thought the last few sessions were tough!
by Amy Lujan, ALASBO Legislative Liaison
The Alaska Legislature is facing the ninth straight year of budget deficits, and the state savings accounts that can be most easily accessed by the legislature are severely depleted. Particularly since oil prices took a nosedive in FY15, the fiscal picture has been bleak. And now, the pandemic is layered on top, as we’re all well aware!
Could we have seen this coming? As you may know, ALASBO has been advocating for a state fiscal plan for several decades. We’ve recently had attention to legislators with charts showing the decrease in inflation-adjusted BSA over time. Click here to view It’s no surprise that districts feel a crunch of funding decreases in real-dollar terms, against rising costs. As we’ve long pointed out, the state cannot slash spending to reach prosperity. In order to fund constitutionally-mandated needs, such as education, as well as other services the public expects, additional revenues are needed. (Scientists say they’ve been predicting a global pandemic for decades too, but I’ll leave that to them…)
|
|
1st Quarter Application Deadlines for Professional Development Opportunities
Lowell Thomas Freeman Professional Development Grant for $2,000 sponsored by CORE, Inc. This grant is open to all ALASBO members interested in attending the ASBO Annual Conference. Application deadline is March 31 2021. – click here for application
|
|
Pinnacle Awards: Creative Solutions
Novel problems require innovative thinking. Have you developed an original solution that other school business professionals could apply in their own districts? Submit your project for a Pinnacle Award by May 1 and share the progress. This award is sponsored by Virco.
|
|
ACSA Legislative
Fly-In
February 23 - 24, 2021
|
|
|
Thank You!
Gold Level Sponsor
American
Fidelity
|
|
American Fidelity offers Section 125 Administration, HSA, HRA, Dependent Verification Reviews, 403b Administration and voluntary/supplemental insurance benefits for school districts throughout Alaska. Our salaried Account Managers assist with the communication, education and implementations of benefits to increase awareness and satisfaction.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
