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Emil Mackey and Deedie Sorensen recall, Juneau Borough School District, Alaska (2024)
| Juneau Borough School District recall |
|---|
 |
| Officeholders |
Deedie Sorensen |
| Recall status |
| Recall election date |
| October 1, 2024 |
| Signature requirement |
| See also |
| Recall overview Political recall efforts, 2024 Recalls in Alaska Alaska recall laws School board recalls Recall reports |
Recall elections against two of the seven members of the Juneau Borough School District school board in Alaska were held on October 1, 2024. Emil Mackey and Deedie Sorensen retained their seats on the board after a majority of voters cast ballots against the recall effort.[1][2][3]
The recall effort started after a $9.5 million budget shortfall for the school district was discovered in December 2023. In the spring of 2023, the board unanimously approved the district's budget through June 30, 2024. The board approved a modified budget after the budget shortfall was discovered. The modified budget included a $4 million interest-free loan from the city of Juneau.[4]
Both board members were elected to the board in 2019 and re-elected to three-year terms in 2022.[4] At the time the recall effort started, Sorensen was serving as president of the board, and Mackey was serving as vice president.[2] They were the only two members of the board who could be included in the recall effort. The others had either been too recently elected or their terms were due to end too soon.[5]
Recall vote
Emil Mackey recall, 2024
Emil Mackey won the Juneau School District, At-large recall election on October 1, 2024.
Recall Vote |
% |
Votes |
|||
Yes |
36.7
|
3,753 | |||
| ✔ | No |
63.3
|
6,482 | ||
Total Votes |
10,235 | ||||
|
|
Deedie Sorensen recall, 2024
Deedie Sorensen won the Juneau School District, At-large recall election on October 1, 2024.
Recall Vote |
% |
Votes |
|||
Yes |
34.8
|
3,562 | |||
| ✔ | No |
65.2
|
6,665 | ||
Total Votes |
10,227 | ||||
|
|
Recall supporters
The recall petitions included the following reason for recall that was approved for circulation by the city attorney: "failure to understand the FY24 budget and accounting errors resulting in $7.9M deficit and taxpayer loan from CBJ."[4]
Jenny Thomas, one of the 11 individuals who made up the recall committee, said Sorensen and Mackey were named in the recall petitions because "for a long period of time they’ve made mentions in comments that they were aware of the budget crisis…and they’ve made no attempts to do anything about it."[4]
Thomas said the board should have detected the budget issues before it got to a crisis state. She said the recall effort was meant "to hold them accountable for their prior actions and how they’ve handled this whole thing."[4]
Recall opponents
In response to the recall effort, Sorensen said she felt attacked. "I don’t feel like this is really about the FY24 budget. I feel like particularly the names (of sponsors) that are on that petition are all about being opposed to the consolidation of the high schools," Sorensen said.[4]
"The people that are pursuing this are people in pain and people in shock," Mackey said. "And their anger and being in this situation is justified. I just disagree with them going after the people who have been trying to avoid this for the last three years."[4]
Both board members said they voted to approve a budget in the spring of 2023 that appeared to be balanced based on information they were given by the district's administration and financial staff. "While people keep acting as though maybe we should have hired someone to do a deep dive into our budget, that’s exactly what we did," Sorensen said. "We gave the superintendent in, I believe it was November, the authority to find someone who could basically forensically crawl through our budget after the audit and figure out what was going on."[4]
Path to the ballot
- See also: Laws governing recall in Alaska
Alaska allows the following grounds for recall: "misconduct in office, incompetence, or failure to perform prescribed duties." To start the recall process, supporters must file an application for a recall petition containing the signatures of 10 voters who are sponsoring the petition. If a municipal clerk determines the application meets the requisite requirements, the petition will be approved to circulate. To get the recall on the ballot, supporters must collect signatures within 60 days of the recall petition getting approved. For an at-large officeholder, the petition must be signed by a number of voters equal to 25% of the votes cast for that office at the last regular election. For an officeholder who represents a specific district, the petition must be signed by a number of the voters residing in the district equal to 25% of the votes cast in the district for that office at the last regular election.[6]
To get the recalls against Mackey and Sorensen on the ballot, supporters had to collect 2,359 signatures from qualified voters in Juneau in 60 days.[7] Recall supporters said they submitted 2,408 signatures against Mackey and 2,396 signatures against Sorensen. The municipal clerk for the City and Borough of Juneau had 10 days to verify the signatures.[8] The municipal clerk did not verify enough signatures to advance the recalls to the ballot. Recall supporters had until July 10, 2024, to collect 371 additional signatures against Sorensen and 347 additional signatures against Mackey.[9] They submitted additional signatures on July 1, 2024.[10] The municipal clerk for the City and Borough of Juneau on July 11, 2024, verified enough signatures to put the recall on the ballot. The recall elections were held on October 1, 2024.[1]
The Juneau City Attorney rejected the following reasons for recall:[4]
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” |
2024 recall efforts
- See also: School board recalls
Ballotpedia tracked 40 school board recall efforts against 83 board members in 2024. Recall elections in 2024 removed 14 members from office, including three who resigned before the election, and retained seven members in office. The school board recall success rate was 13.4%.
The chart below details the status of 2024 recall efforts by individual school board member.
Recall context
- See also: Ballotpedia's Recall Report
Ballotpedia covers recall efforts across the country for all state and local elected offices. A recall effort is considered official if the petitioning party has filed an official form, such as a notice of intent to recall, with the relevant election agency.
The chart below shows how many officials were included in recall efforts from 2012 to 2024 as well as how many of them defeated recall elections to stay in office and how many were removed from office in recall elections.
See also
- Ballotpedia's Recall Report
- Juneau Borough School District, Alaska
- Juneau Borough School District, Alaska, elections
- Recall campaigns in Alaska
- Political recall efforts, 2024
- School board recalls
- States that allow school board recalls
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 KTOO, "Effort to recall Juneau’s school board president, vice president secures spot on local ballot," July 11, 2024
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Juneau School District, "Board of Education Members," accessed April 26, 2024
- ↑ Local First Media Group, "Preliminary CBJ Election Results are in," October 2, 2024
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 Juneau Empire, "Recall effort targets school board president, vice president due to district’s budget crisis," April 8, 2024
- ↑ KTOO, "Parents petition to recall school board president, vice president in response to district’s consolidation plan," May 1, 2024
- ↑ Alaska State Statutes, "Title 29. Municipal Government; Chapter 26. Elections; Article 3. Recall." accessed October 16, 2023
- ↑ City and Borough of Juneau, "Election Officials Approve Recall Petition Applications for School Board Members Deedie Sorensen and Emil Mackey," April 8, 2024
- ↑ Juneau Empire, "School board recall petitions submitted; supporters of Saturday cruise ship ban need more signatures," June 11, 2024
- ↑ City and Bureau of Juneau, "Citizen Petitions: Initiative, Referendum, and Recall Petition News (6/21/2024)," June 21, 2024
- ↑ City and Bureau of Juneau, "Citizen Petitions: Initiative and Recall Petition News (7/2/2024)," July 2, 2024
- ↑ Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
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