By DAVID BOYLE
The House Rules Committee passed House Bill 69, which will increase the K-12 budget by more than $250 million this year for a total of $807 million by Fiscal Year 2031.
Now the bill is to be heard on the House floor on March 6 at 10 a.m.
Here is the fiscal note:
That K12 funding comes with no accountability for results.
When minority committee members asked where the funding would come from the majority responded that the finance committee would determine that. Funny thing, that committee has already passed HB69 out of its committee with no source of funding!
Rep. Sarah Vance of Homer offered an amendment that would require the districts to post their budgets and audits on-line so citizens could determine where the funding goes, classroom or other functions. Representative Kopp (R, Anchorage) was concerned with the administrative burden it would put on districts. Apparently, the public’s need to know is not as important as bureaucrats’ workload. The amendment failed 4-3.
Rep. Cathy Tilton of Wasilla wanted to amend the bill to fund correspondence students at a full 1.0 factor vice the current 0.9 factor. Why should a correspondence student count less than a brick & mortar student?
Rep. Chuck Kopp then said, “I firmly believe in school choice and competition. But school choice does not require equal funding.” Does that mean you can have school choice even within the public K-12 system, but you have to pay for it?
Kopp went even further when he stated, “I’m going to err on the side of fiscal conservatism.” Yet he wants to spend a quarter of a billion dollars next fiscal year with absolutely no accountability for results. And that quarter billion dollars grows to $807 million by 2031.
Rep. Vance stated that our correspondence students are very cost-effective because they reduce the financial burden on school districts requiring no infrastructure as brick & mortar students do.
The amendment to equitably fund correspondence students failed with Representatives Louise Stutes, Chuck Kopp, Bryce Edgmon and Cal Schrage voting “no.”
Vance then offered a lengthy amendment which would increase the BSA by $300, increase the career/technical education factor from 1.015 to 1.04, reward schools for increasing reading achievement, provide teacher bonuses, and allow the State Board of Education to authorize charter schools.
More importantly, the amendment would provide funding to correspondence students for career/technical education and special needs. It also funds correspondence students at a factor of 1.0.
Rep. Edgmon objected that Vance’s amendment basically mirrored the governor’s current K-12 bill.
Vance’s amendment failed.
Rep. Mia Costello of Anchorage offered an amendment that would provide incentive grants to schools whose students showed an increase in reading proficiency. The grant would give $450 for each student that showed progress. It would also include students from grades K-6 versus the current K-3.
Costello’s amendment passed with Reps. Vance, Tilton, Costello and Kopp voting “yes.”
The entire $808 million bill passed out of the Rules Committee with Reps. Stutes, Kopp, Schrage, and Edgmon voting “yes”.
And still there was no funding source.
Here is a link to the House Floor session: https://akleg.gov/index.php#tab3. You can watch here: https://www.ktoo.org/video/gavel/house-floor-session-2025031063/?eventID=2025031063
The funding is the remaining 25% of the PFD. Then, hello state income tax.
This Johnson agrees with your observation and was the thinking as I too read the article. And! any State income tax will require a department of State Income tax, meaning the cost, based on the “Working” population’s income, gross tax collected, will not or will prove worthless, in funding the department created. Bet Me!!
Cheers, Johnson-Ketchikan
So who exactly will be paying the income tax when the legislature makes Alaska to expensive to inhabit?
Which is, no doubt, their goal to begin with..
This ?
*That’s* the actual plan. Kudos to Vance, Costello, Tilton for trying. It’s noticed.
The real knee-slapper was this little gem:
{Kopp went even further when he stated, “I’m going to err on the side of fiscal conservatism.”}
I LOL’d.
PS. Nice use of GROK, David!
Kenaimike, I don’t use any AI, including Grok. I actually listen to school board meetings (yawn), legislature committee meetings (double yawn), and even legislature floor meetings. It takes lots of time to listen and get exact quotes from individuals. But, like you, I almost laughed my a** off for member Kopp’s “I”m going to err on the side of fiscal conservatism”.
The illustration on the column was accomplished with Grok AI by the editor. – sd
Aha!
Nice use of GROK Suzanne!
?
I was referring to the editorial picture (as noted below) and certainly did not mean to imply your essay was AI’d.
Still, good article.
Thanks, Kenaimike. I truly appreciate your comment.
WILL SOMEONE PLEASE TAKE THESE IDIOTs’ CREDIT CARD AWAY !!! We need to send these fools back to school to learn basic math. The only entity that can spend money without having it and not call it FRAUD is GOVERNMENT.
Trump shut down the DOE so the crooks will use the Democraps “Bank of PFD” And all of us that don’t have kids will pay
We can always increase taxes on success to meet the ever-growing demands of failure. At least we can for a spell, and then the illusion becomes a scarred landscape of people weeping and gnashing their teeth. At least we won’t have success to blame.
I thought these people had a freaking education. It definitely seems like they didn’t even pass fundamental math in elementary school. Kopp is a complete fool. Isn’t he the one that introduced a .24 cent state increase in gas tax saying it needs to equal that of the average in lower 48. Then tried raising it another .20 cents the following session but then covid hit and Dunleavy asked for it to be put on hold ?????
I’m seriously thinking about moving in next couple yrs. And I hate to do it at 55 to 58 yrs old these are supposed to be our easier yrs as we age. But these legislators are really making it impossible as is my assembly in anchorage.
VETO!
Vance has it right.
Dunleavy?
He vetoed the bloated education bill last year.
Naysayers never give credit when credit is due.
You’re saying the same Vance who attempted to further bloat the bill by loading it with an additional $300 in BSA has it right, Manda? You been hanging out with Forkner?
It will establish a justification to take the entire PFD and then a state sales tax soon followed by a state income tax.
Spending money like basement Crackheads! They need to cut the budget! They are out of control and Our Republican party has failed us. They have done nothing and will do nothing to these leftist Cowards pretending to be Republicans! They ignore the party platform they caucus with the Democrats and the party does nothing! The governor is as bad, he could make them come to hear with the party, he only uses his power to push UN climate change grift. We are not being represented. The Alaska GOP could not even help get rid of rank choice voting! PATHTIC
Bryce Edgmon is playing the populist liberal crowd for past and future campaign donations. Liberal school boards, lobbiests and UNIONS are clawing for their turn to lick the last of the ice cream from the bowl… Nothing more than theater.
Senator Hoffman says this Bill is dead on arrival….. I suspect that even Hoffman’s Finance Committee has plans for spending the last of the PFD in their Capital Projects…
Democrats got this out of Finace Committee, because they had not just the Binding Caucus members, but they have Nellie Jimmie, freshman and totally unqualified to be on the committee.
If she was doing her job instead of bobbing her head up and down like a dashboard wobbly, she would of been demanding an accounting for the funding of a Bill that single handedly WIPES OUT THE REMAINDER OF THE PFD‼️
But by being Bryces hand puppet, she’s making $133,000 plus perks, like travel and free shipping… Which by estimation is 5-6 TIMES THE AVERAGE INCOME OF HER NEIGHBORS IN TOOKSOOK BAY OR ANY OF THE OTHER VILLAGES ON THE YK DELTA ??, so much for “being a strong voice for rural Alaska”… ? SHE’S GOT HERS ‼️
So these goofs masquerading as “conservatives” can’t find it within themselves to demand cuts to wasteful spending programs and agendas which in no way prepares students for careers in the real world (I’m looking right at you, arts, sports, and critical theory / social studies proponents) and instead, they offer increases of their own which STILL manage to get shot down:
“Rep. Cathy Tilton of Wasilla wanted to amend the bill to fund correspondence students at a full 1.0 factor vice the current 0.9 factor.” That’s not exactly conservative, Cathy. That’s sadly and weakly looking for a spending increase rather than seeking essential cuts across the board.
“Vance then offered a lengthy amendment which would increase the BSA by $300…” You’ve been hanging out with the hippies down there in Homer too much, Sarah, and you’ve lost your mind. You still fell on your face and now you look like a buffoon to everyone.
Straighten yourselves out and get back to work, ladies. This reaching-across-the-aisle to hand out public money is more than tiresome.
Unions and teachers have been targeting the PFD relentlessly since Walker vetoed full PFD payments and broke the law.
Look at this collection of corruption and secrecy at the Permanent fund
‘https://x.com/MlogicGr8Again/status/1897298354532651166/video/1
We should be discussing the $20 Billion the fund could have made in a passive index last year instead of
the possibility of $250 million needed for education this year,
Management fees alone were $800 million last year and they failed to meet any benchmarks.
The CEO took a raise and they plan to increase fees to over 1% of our fund every year
No problem, they will just steal it from OUR PFD. And they keep getting elected. Anyone ever heard the statement,”Elections have Consequences”.
“will steal it??” they already have and will continue… if someone doesn’t stop it!! and laughing to the bank with it.
The good Representative Kopp said “I’m going to err on the side of fiscal conservatism.” It’s clear that the good Representative Kopp has zero understanding of what fiscal conservatism is.
The PF corpus is just sitting there
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