A revised fiscal year 2012 Kodiak Island School District budget approved at Monday’s school board meeting asks for $163,591 more from the borough general fund to make up cost increases since a January version of the budget.

KIBSD board president Norm Wooten presented the modified recommended budget for the 2011-2012 school year. The $45,584,836 million total includes a maximum allowable local contribution of $11,185,883.

Board members passed the budget on second reading.

In January the preliminary budget stood at $45,421,245. Among factors leading to the higher revision, Wooten cited an increase in property and liability insurance of about $85,000. Also, the district will pay an additional $20,000 for rentals to house staff in the villages.

That preliminary budget assumed the district will cut one administrative position and seven full-time teacher equivalents to meet rising costs for salaries, insurance and fuel. The latest version calls for meeting the additional $163,591 out of the borough’s general fund.

Wooten reviewed key dates in the budgeting cycle, noting the district must finalize its figures — including teachers’ contracts — in July. However, the number of students cannot be known until October, and that number affects the size of state and federal contributions.

“That's the life that we live and that’s the way it is,” Wooten said.

The projected number of students in the district for 2011-2012 is 2,556, continuing a gradual decline since the late 1990s.

Kodiak’s local contribution to the school budget has remained fairly stable for three years, at a little more than 60 percent of the total borough budget.

In presenting the school budget, Wooten cited the district’s mission statement, which calls for developing students’ “full potential.” He said that goal commits Kodiak to exceed the state’s constitutional requirement to provide free and appropriate education.

“This term ‘full potential’ has a lot of ramifications,” he said.

Wooten had a positive take on a source of higher expenses for the district.

“We’re sort of a victim of our own success,” he said. “Our teachers do not leave here.”

Kodiak has a high proportion of teachers at the high end of the pay scale due to their seniority, Wooten said, and their skill and experience uphold the standards that make Kodiak a desirable community.