By ALEX GIMARC
On Saturday, the Alaska Legislature met in special session and overrode two of Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s vetoes. The first and most important of these was upholding the unaffordable, unsustainable increase in the foundation formula for public education next year: 45 votes to override were needed and 45 was what the majority caucuses got.
Two excellent pieces of reaction to this were penned by Suzanne Downing on Saturday, and Seward’s Folly on Monday. Glen Biegel and Ed Martin both penned heartfelt comments decrying the override to another Suzanne piece on Saturday.
Analysis of the vote showed every single democrat voted for the unsustainable increase in public education funding. Every single Republican that chose to caucus with them also voted to override.
The 21-member House majority caucus (2 Republicans – Chuck Kopp and Louise Stutes) managed to pick up 7 additional Republicans for the override vote. These included Jeremy Bynum, Julie Coulombe, Bill Elam, David Nelson, Justin Ruffridge, Dan Saddler, and Will Stapp.
In the Senate, the 14-member Majority coalition (5 Republicans – Jesse Bjorkman, Cathy Giessel, Kelly Merrick, Bert Stedman, Gary Stevens) managed to pick up three additional Republicans for the override vote. These included Mike Cronk, James Kaufman and Rob Yundt.
Any single member of the newly formed Republican Override Caucus of 10 votes against the override and it fails to pass.
None of the members of the Republican Override Caucus demanded any accountability from public education for the additional money. Not a single one.
None of them demanded improvements from what is currently the 49th best performing school system in the entire nation. Not a single one.
All of them agreed to shovel more money into a failing system.
Congratulations, guys. You must be very proud.
If it were up to me, I would target all 10 of these putative Republicans for removal from office in the next election (2026 for all House members and few senators, 2028 for the rest). I would do the same thing for the seven Republicans that crossed over to caucus with democrats, handing them legislative power on a silver platter.
Finally, I would target every single democrat possible.
There are opportunities in 2026. First of these are openings in House District 5 (Louise Stutes, who is going to run to replace Gary Stevens (Senate District C). Much easier to pick up an open seat than to bounce an incumbent.
It is not all bad news, as legislative politics on the political left have scoped down to two related issues. The first is destruction of the Permanent Fund dividend. Second, is the growth of the foundation formula. Make that large enough, and there is no way it will ever be rolled back, gobbling up every penny of the PFD to pay for it now and in the future, not unlike like JB Pritzker at a pizza bar. A return to defined benefit pension retirements for government union members is the same idea. If they lock the new spending in, the PFD is gone forever.
Other legislatures in the Lower 48, particularly those in red states, are doing amazing, creative things for their citizens. Not here in Alaska, where the only two ideas are how to destroy the PFD and lock in additional spending to benefit public employee unions.
Oh joy.
Other than that, Alaska Democrats are much the same as Democrats in the Lower 48 — out of airspeed and ideas. You would think the rank-and-file union members with children would want something other for their kids than the current garbage masquerading as public education. Perhaps not, but I am forever hopeful.
Somewhere along the line, we are going to have to get off the dime in this state and our Legislature needs to do something other than figure out how to destroy the PFD.
In case you hadn’t noticed, the political world has changed for Alaska. Resource development is back. ANWR, NPR-A, Cook Inlet are all going to be drilling and producing. Offshore in the Chukchi and Beaufort Sea may not be far behind. Pebble is going to be dug. We may see a natural gas pipeline. The growth of fish farming internationally will continue to grind commfish into so much economic dust. Finally, the Trump administration is coming for the Homeless Industrial Complex so lovingly constructed here in Anchorage over the last decade.
We ought to be in position to take advantage of those changes and start growing the economy of this state rather than participating in increasingly bitter fights over a static to shrinking pie.
The combined Majority Caucuses in both the House and the Senate and the newly formed Republican Override Caucus have told us who and what they are.
It is up to us to listen to them, believe them, and do something about it. Should be a fun ride.
Alex Gimarc lives in Anchorage since retiring from the military in 1997. His interests include science and technology, environment, energy, economics, military affairs, fishing and disabilities policies. His weekly column “Interesting Items” is a summary of news stories with substantive Alaska-themed topics. He was a small business owner and Information Technology professional.
The author promotes a very common misperception. He talks about the giving education more money and an “unsustainable increase” but the reality is, funding now is about .03% higher than last year. The legislature voted to override a significant cut to funding.
I realize plenty of people are against the current funding level, but let’s be honest in our discussion and call it what it is….flat funding.
You peddle n.e.a. prop. We see you.
Education spending for government schools in Alaska is out of control. The unions and the politicians they own would have more of an argument then the weak sauce they peddle (such as yourself) if the schools actually functioned and educated. But they do not. They are a union grift that uses children as “hostage puppies” and shields against accountability and extracts as much wealth from the taxpayers as possible. It is disgusting.
Also, excellent article.
When you factor in declining enrollment, the funding is no longer flat.
You want to be honest? Let’s be honest and discuss what the actual elephant in the room is. Who cares if the funding is de facto flat. Who cares if public education is underfunded. Or overfunded. Regardless of the funding there needs to be accountability and a path forward to improvement of this state’s abysmal PUBLIC educational outcomes. Private schools aren’t churning out abysmal performance numbers. Homeschooling is not churning out abysmal performance numbers. Charter schools aren’t churning out abysmal performance numbers. Not only are these other options successful, but they are successful with a FRACTION of the cost of regular public education funding.
Groan. Fallacies and illogic Mr. Holleman. Enjoy your earthly riches and prestige while you have it.
let’s be honest and call it a failed school system and never has “MO MONEY” produced better educational results in the past 20 years.
Give me a break, stop with the crap. Anyone who looks at total ASD spending can clearly see growth even in light of students fleeing. The temporary Covid money was gobbled up and put into salaries. Grant funding is everywhere, budgets were not flat. The extra BSA money the last 2 years was one-time money because it was financially doable. Now a higher BSA is locked in. Alaska will flounder paying this bill. It will hurt Alaskans, but like the Senate devastating the Higher Ed Fund cutting it in half to cover last year’s budget overage. Our kids are getting hosed, and parents are being gaslit. Do better as a district, stop blaming others.
My paycheck comes from that funding and I believe there most definitely should be accountability. The Reads Act has been a good thing.
Up is down, war is peace,freedom is slavery, right , Andy??
I’ve managed to smoke out a member of the Anchorage School Board to demonstrate his fiscal brilliance. My work here is complete.
Speaking of fallacies, Andy: An increase in the foundation formula is hardly flat funding. No wonder your charges (the children in the ASD schools) can’t do math, as apparently neither can members of the Anchorage School Board. Cheers –
Don’t be mean.
.
A school board with the chutzpah to tell you they’re gonna push (pad?) contracts over a million to their union buddies must be able to add stuff pretty good.
(‘https://mustreadalaska.com/anchorage-school-board-votes-for-construction-monopoly-by-labor-unions/)
Andy Holleman, you might try to read the ASD FY26 budget line-by-line just like I did. Here you go: https://mustreadalaska.com/david-boyle-i-doged-the-anchorage-school-district-and-uncovered-savings-to-fill-its-budget-hole/
Our representatives are so disappointing. Our voters, at large, really need to get it together and remove these bad actors. Removing Ranked Choice would be a get boon to helping this happen. All RCV has done is allowed fake Republicans to avoid primaries and fool low-information voters + democrat “cross overs” to push them over. RCV has really been painful for Alaska and should be our primary target.
For example, as a Eagle River resident, Kelly Merrick would not have survived a Republican primary here. But RCV allowed her to go “head to head” with the real Republican. All Democrats voted for her and just enough new/military/uninformed voters gave her their vote to push her over.
100% disagree. You honestly think RCV is the point at which crap went downhill? AK schools have been poor for decades. The old system of voting benefits the parties not the people.
RCV’s open primary allows any Alaskan to run not just the party darlings. Even you.
There’s the rub. A number of you all have great ideas and strong desires but lack faith and courage to step up. Meanwhile the lesser of two evils promoted by the repub and dem gatekeepers continue to take advantage of us.
This is why the open primary is important because one of you is tired of being a Pam of AK. You are fed up with another Click or Kelly.
The open primary is your vehicle to serve the prople of Alaska… however you have to be Courageous. You have to step out in faith.
Yes, Chris, RCV’s open primary allows any Alaskan to run, but anyone could run before RCV.
.
Closed primaries filter out the least popular candidate.
.
The RCV open primary makes it possible for the least popular candidate to win, and do so with much less than 50 percent support. The least popular candidates can also split the vote which discourages third-party, independent candidates from running.
.
Closed primaries didn’t stop anyone from running as a third-party candidate.
.
First-preference RCV votes are counted on machines running on proprietary software, into which anyone can stick thumb drives of unknown provenance.
.
If no candidate has a majority, the candidate with fewest votes is eliminated. The proprietary software reassigns the losing candidate’s votes to the second preference on the ballot.
.
A machine operating on proprietary software supposedly reassigns our vote to someone we never wanted in the first place but had to choose so our ballot doesn’t get thrown out. How’s that okay? Yes, supposedly, because the software’s proprietary, voters and election observers don’t know how it works. Yes, officials might cross-check machine counts with hand-counted ballots, but that’s done only for five percent of the ballots.
.
So, if there’s no second preference, the ballot’s discarded, your vote’s thrown out, it’s not like you voted for or against someone, your government just threw your vote out..
.
At this point, the ballot audit trail is lost.Votes are counted again, until someone has a majority of the software-reassigned votes on the remaining ballots.
.
Remember the 2022 Oakland, California, school board election? How can Alaskan voters be confident that similar undetected mistakes, which can only happen with RCV, can’t happen here?
(‘https://abc7news.com/post/ranked-choice-voting-oakland-school-board-director-district-4-race-mike-hutchinson-alameda-county-registrar-of-voters/12626221/)
.
RCV creates new ways to make mistakes, new questions about how to count ballots, is over-reliant on proprietary technology, reduces transparency, accountability, and the ability of election observers to know what they’re seeing.
.
Shouldn’t elections be conducted so voters can understand the process and trust results? RCV fails this test. RCV pushes elections into a technological black hole where mistakes or vote-count fraud can go undetected and delay election results for weeks. Remember same-day election results? That doesn’t happen with RCV.
.
Bottom line: Are the unnecessary risks RCV poses to election integrity worth taking?
Mr. Gimarc, I used to read your letters in the ADN and enjoyed them very much. Glad to see you here in a much better venue. I was on the Wasilla City Council for many years but before I started, someone said to me, “You do know that politics is a very dirty business, don’t you?” After my election, I made the comment that it was certainly a true question. It was a very eye opening experience even at that low level. Thanks again!
Thank you for your kind words. Suzanne is kind enough to put up with me contributing the occasional article.
Your experience reminds me of the Churchill quote from 1947: “… democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time…”
Cheers –
If you run as a Republican, the Party needs to have you sign A BINDING CONTRACT, that you will RESIGN your Office IMMEDIATELY if you CAUCUS with DEMOCRATS. Problem Solved.
Great.
Make it so.
We should all be proud of our public education system ranking in the 49th position of all the states. That’s what the Democraps want, stupid kids that grow up to be stupid voters as we sink into oblivion keeping them in office.
I’m really disappointed in the republicans who went along with this and agree that they need to be voted out
Alaskan corruption makes the California or Louisiana variety look like elementary school.
Perhaps “Profiles in Courage” is more appropriate comment!
Since the founding of America every generation has worked and supported a stronger and better education for new generations. When members of different parties work together to assure a more robust education for children they should be praised, not attacked. Hurting our children’s education, our future leaders, is not only a sad commentary on those opposing funding education, but also a blight on those Republican legislators who would sacrifice our children for the sake of party posturing!
Shame? YES on those who see no value in education!
ALL who voted to support our children are true Alaska heroes!
Please demonstrate the connection between more spending and better performance by students. I’ll wait.
If you want to have a real discussion rather than cheerleading for mo money, you might want to explain why the Charter Schools get better performance out of their students spending less than the rank and file public schools, the private schools that spend less than public and charter, and the homeschoolers who spend but a pittance in comparison turn out students who do the best of all.
Here in Alaska, spending seems to be a negative indicator, with most spending correlating with worst performance. That ought to bother you. It does me. You use “The Children” as a magical incantation expecting every one else in this state to be completely unconcerned with their actual education. Cheers –
Alaskas school are geographically diverse and require higher funding by default. Also Charter, correspondence(home) and private ALL. Benefit from the BSA increase.
Charter Schools
• Charter schools in Alaska are considered public schools, fully funded by the state via the Base Student Allocation (BSA). They receive per-student money in the same way as conventional public schools  .
• Local school boards are required to allocate charter schools an annual program budget at least equal to the amount generated per student (with only up to a 4% indirect administrative cost deduction)  .
• Charter schools must remain non-religious, cannot charge tuition, must accept special needs students, and mostly go through district-level approval before state-level oversight .
⸻
Private Schools
• Direct funding from the state to private schools is not allowed. The Alaska Constitution explicitly states: “No money shall be paid from public funds for the direct benefit of any religious or other private educational institution.”  .
• Despite this, Alaska’s state-run correspondence/homeschool program assigns an allotment per student (public money intended for education-related expenses). Some families use those funds to reimburse for private school tuition or classes—whether for religious or nonsectarian schools
Interesting focus on religious schools. That little difficulty was settled by SCOTUS in Espinoza v Montana Department of Revenue (2020). MT has a similar constitutional prohibition to the use of public funds in religious schools that the AK Constitution has. SCOTUS tossed it, which means our prohibition is dead.
You wrote a lot about what the rules are but ignored the very clear (and in my mind predictable) differences in performance among the different schools. Bottom line here is not spending, but rather control of the $$$. Generally, the closer the control of education $$$ is to the student (say in the hands of their parents), the better the outcome. And yes, that means vouchers are in our future, perhaps nearer than anyone believes today. Cheers –
Dunleavy is no coward. But there sure are a lot of girly-men in the legislature.
What? If Dunleavy was on the Titanic, he’d put on a dress.
He’d have to borrow one from you, first
Brilliant work, Alex.
.
Suppose the Republican Override Caucus betrays voters because Caucus members know they don’t have to worry about consequences like being voted out of office.
.
Maybe fixing the problem starts with understanding exactly what makes ROC members believe they can betray voters and not be voted out of office.
.
Could the ROC exist if Alaska’s election system was open, honest, and transparent?