The AFL-CIO wants the public to get activated and encourage their lawmakers to override the governor’s anticipated veto of the $1,000 increase to the Base Student Allocation, or basic funding formula for schools. On Facebook, the union put out a notice to rally the troops to support the extra $253 million annually for the per-student funding component.
But the Alaska public on Facebook was having none of it. The majority of commenters said “veto it,” which is what is expected to happen on Thursday, when Gov. Mike Dunleavy fulfills his promise to axe House Bill 69, which would permanently raise the BSA from current $5,960 per student. It’s a 22% increase for the school districts, where students now hover at the bottom of the 50 states in terms of actual learning, even though the districts are better funded than most in the country.
Alaska spends approximately $22,000 per pupil annually on K-12 public schools, ranking 6th in the nation for total per-pupil spending, according to 2025 data from the Education Data Initiative. Education is the second-largest category in Alaska’s budget, with $1.67 billion budgeted for the Department of Education and Early Development in FY2023
The House and Senate Democrat-led majorities supported HB 69, even though the governor had already called it a “blank check” for school districts with no expectation from them to spend it intelligently and improve how they fulfill their duties to education Alaska’s children.
On the AFL-CIO’s own Facebook post, the public is having none of it, with dozens of responses telling the union that it’s just not reading the room anymore. Here are just a few:
Year after year, the school districts have been getting one-time increases, but without a locked-in formula amount that ties the hands of future legislatures. That’s because the State has drained its reserve accounts and because conservative legislators understand that tying the hands of future lawmakers is wrong.
The union, on the other hand, knows that once the money is released to the districts, the members can then go fight to make sure they get it. HB 69 has no strings — districts are free to use their funds the way they want to, whether or not it goes to teachers, building maintenance, or more administrators. The union can then stage a strike to get the money for its members.
All of the policy pieces of HB 69 that the governor wanted, which would increase school district accountability, were stripped out by Democrat legislators and thus, on Thursday, Dunleavy is likely to make good on his veto promise.
Gov. Dunleavy has already indicated he will support a smaller BSA or another one-time increase if legislators will approve even a few of his policy measures, such as increasing fairness for homeschools and charter schools.
