Out of business?

By
Anchorage Daily Planet
-
37
280

ANCHORAGE DAILY PLANET

We wonder, as surely you have, why the Legislature is sitting on its thumbs in getting out to cash-strapped cities and businesses and nonprofits the $1.25 billion in federal COVID-19 relief funding sent Alaska’s way.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s was ready with a plan for the dough within two days of its arrival in the state treasury, but the Legislature? Well, lawmakers do not seem in much of a hurry. The Legislative Budget and Audit Committee last week approved only $125 million for state programs, leaving cities, businesses and non-profits hanging.

Dunleavy wanted $586 million for communities; $290 million for small business loans; $50 million for nonprofits, $10 million for homeless interventions, and $337 million for public health-related COVID-19 costs. He wanted $29 million to go to public transit; $32 million for Anchorage and Fairbanks airports, and $100 million in fisheries aid.

Lawmakers approved only six of Dunleavy’s requests:

  • $45 million for K-12 public education;
  • $42 million for child nutrition programs;
  • $29 million for rural transportation, including $10 million the Alaska Marine Highway System;
  • $5 million for UA;
  • $3.6 million for law enforcement; and,
  • $442,000 for Alaska State Council on the Arts.

It is up to the Legislature – the same Legislature that refused early Permanent Fund dividends or a $1,000 state relief check to help struggling Alaskans – to make the needed appropriations. Beneath the surface there is a simmering feud over who should control the expenditures, Dunleavy or the Legislature.

Meanwhile, Rome burns. Businesses are shutting their doors. Cities are choking. Nonprofits are out of money. Oil field layoffs are accelerating and Alaska’s situation only is getting worse.

Alaska not only is not open for business, it is close to going out of business.

37 COMMENTS

  1. Wait, wait. You mean some people are trying to impeach the only guy that tried to get them the money 2 days after it arrived?
    Now weeks later, it’s actually the impeachment folks who are sitting on the money, still blaming Dunleavy for, wait for it, sitting on the money?
    When the hate for one person is greater than the love for many, my faith in that kind of person declines quickly.
    Thank you for just the facts, Suzanne. They speak volumes, if only the folks would recognize their implications.

    • Because he wants to spend the money where it’s needed, unlike the scum in the legislature, that wants to reward their base instead of taking care of Alaskans and Alaska businesses.

  2. The Govenor needs to man up and govern. We did not elect the Legislature to govern. Man up to the task.

    • That’s it, John. It’s Dunleavy’s fault! Why can’t he be a dictator like we elected?! He needs to tell those elected legislators to do what he says or else!
      That, or we need to place the checks and balances blame game square on where it belongs: On those legislators who refuse to move on 90% of that money sent to Alaska, for Alaskans, rumor has it.
      But it is easier to just blame one man. So have at it if you will.

  3. Let me guess Democrats/Liberals at it again !! Folks please learn that these haters are out to destroy this State !!

  6. Alaska’s Legislators Lead by Giessel and Edgmon along with Berkowitz and the Municipality of Anchorage Assembly are looking for lots of Bailout dollars to support their Big Government Spending. Jennifer Johnston speaks like she may be a Racist.

  7. Call your legislator, email your legislator, tell them to do the jobs they ran for and were elected to do. They wanted to be a legislator, now they need to do their job.

  8. Disgusting. While we are losing our life’s blood they are playing chess with our lives. How can these people sleep at night? I will be voting against all of them.

  10. I can’t square a few things here:

    • why is any one potential loss of life more important than another? Why have we choked the life out of 10’s of thousands of Alaskans for fear of losing, what is to date and holding steady, 9?

    • where is the need for the K-12 education to warrant $45M when taxes are as certain as death despite the increasing inability of Alaskans to pay them?

    I’m sure many of you are much more knowledgeable than I and thus I await your answers.

  11. No Alaskan can be in doubt that the elected “representatives” in Juneau are not representing the citizens that live and work here. Ti,e for a purge in Juneau.

    • How else do nonprofits pay their lobbyists? In my lifetime I have seen nonprofits employ lobbyists in order to obtain government money so that the nonprofits can and have displaced churches in many areas of Alaska society.

    • Because a lot of them are doing the same social welfare work that the government is attempting to do. They just do it better, for a lot less money and with far more effectiveness than the government is capable of doing.!!

  14. ART; ART, REAL GENUINE ART Does not need to be financed by the government. It’s a ripoff. Art comes from passion unleashed without financial restrictions and limitations dictated by ‘politically correctness’ i.e. Communist values.
    Or have the “artists’ fallen into the same swamp as “journalists”?
    Nutrition for children at home? and money to liberal ‘educators’ doing nothing?
    Wait! Where are parents? They (parents) should get that money, rather than ‘nutrition programs’ clueless about nutrition…. pass the mac and cheese please!

  18. Teachers getting money, heard from a ASD First Grade Teacher that K-6 is not being taught. Nope nothing. Why because some kids do not have WIFI, ASD refuses to leave those unfortunate kids behind. One has to ask what about the vast majority of kids who do have WIFI, those kids get to experience being left out also.
    So you ask what are all the teachers doing while still on the payroll, you will love this, teachers are educating themselves. That s right we are paying teachers to further their credentials so that they qualify for higher pay. No wonder ASD ranks as one of the highest paying and lowest kid scoring School Districts in the USA. Where there is a will there is a way and apparently ASD does not want to let a crisis go to waste. Teachers, Please save your back slapping atta boys about how bad you got it for the relatives I have that have lost their six figure North Slope jobs.

    • We are teaching students by distant learning. We are sending homework home. We are grading. We are practicing social distancing because the state mandates we do so. We aren’t set up for it but doing the best we can. We are providing breakfast and lunch meals. Maybe you should have gotten a teaching degree so in times like this, you could have gotten paid for your signed contract. Maybe, just maybe, you should shut up. District have always paid teachers for taking classes. This is nothing new. The students are the benefactors of it. Call it…..trickle down education. I think I just invented that.

  19. Earlier this year I wrote several members of the House Majority to express my displeasure with their budget and apparent disdain for getting sums to the people during Covid 19. I was told that the State could not afford to dispense any monies to the citizens of Alaska, but Federal funds would be forthcoming and quickly distributed to the citizens of Alaska…

    Who votes for these folks?

  20. Keep in mind that those who have shut us down are still collecting their paychecks. They are not the ones looking to lose their businesses, or their livelihood, and so don’t seem to notice or care that the rest of us are suffering.

  21. Ahh, the ‘Tree of Life’ for the leftists. That would be ‘other peoples’ money. One would see them scuttle like cockroaches if their own and their minions’ livelihood and freedom happened to be in danger. Not so for us ‘commoners’.

  22. Why 5 million to UA and $442,000 to Alaska Art Council of the Arts?
    Seem like state Legislature is following the Washington Democrats’ lead.
    This $5.4 million could go to help Alaska-owned and operated business. Alaska first, not outsiders

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