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House committee assignments announced

Suzanne Downing
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House committee assignments announced

(3-minute read) BIPARTISAN ORGANIZATION DOMINATED BY DEMOCRATS

The House bipartisan majority announced committee assignments today and the Democrats won hands down.

Republicans who joined the bipartisan caucus seem to have traded all other positions of influence for control of the Rules and Finance committees.

Democrats control all other committees, which means that the governor’s requested statutory changes will run into a lot of hurdles in this House organization. Most of the governor’s bills will likely die in committee.

The Rules Committee includes Republican Minority members Lance Pruitt and David Eastman. Breakaway Republicans that joined the Democrats give it a 5-to-2 Republican control. But if bills aren’t moved out of committees, the control of the Rules Committee is less of a concern.

The Judiciary Committee is controlled by Senate Bill 91 defender Rep. Matt Claman. The governor has a suite of bills to roll back some of the leniency of that controversial crime bill that Claman has supported.

The Resources Committee chairmanship is split between Rep. John Lincoln, who is generally for common-sense development, and Rep. Geran Tarr, who is solidly anti-development and who has tried to ram through various taxes on oil companies. Her efforts may be stopped before they ever get to the floor by Republicans in Rules and Finance.

But five of the nine members of the Resources are anti-development, including Tarr, Reps. Sara Hannon, Grier Hopkins, Ivy Spohnholz and Chris Tuck.

Rep. Gary Knopp of Kenai, who led a breakaway group of Republicans joining the Democrats to take control of the House, won a seat on Finance, as did Rep. Bart LeBon of Fairbanks, who joined the bipartisan group. Finance now has eight Republicans and three Democrats. That committee is the one bright spot for conservatives.

A surprising number of freshmen are on this committee: Kelly Merrick, Ben Carpenter, and LeBon, but all three offer a lot of experience.

Community and Regional Affairs, where the governor’s SB 57 (oil tax authority of local governments) will likely be heard first, is dominated by legislators who will make sure that bill is dead on arrival: Democrats Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins is chair, with Zack Fields as vice chair; Gabrielle LeDoux, Andi Story, and Adam Wool creating a voting bloc on that committee that can advance or stop legislation.

Health and Social Services is co-chaired by far-left Democrats Ivy Spohnholz and Tiffany Zulkosky, with Matt Claman, Harriet Drummond and Grier Hopkins sure to kill any measure that rolls back Medicaid spending.

All committees except Rules and Finance are co-chaired or chaired by Democrats, and dominated by Democrats, which for the purposes of this article includes Reps. Louise Stutes and Gabrielle LeDoux, who have caucused with Democrats historically. Stutes managed to get on six committees, with two chairmanships.

Here’s the chart:

Spending more on schools is not the answer either

Suzanne Downing
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5
Spending more on schools is not the answer either

FROM OUR FRIENDS AT THE ANCHORAGE DAILY PLANET:

Interesting things come to light in legislative committee hearings. Take, for example, the Senate Finance Committee hearing on Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s education budget, which aims to help close the state’s $1.6 billion spending gap.

There was the usual ho-hah, snuffling and chest pounding about the size of the proposed state cuts to education, which amount to about 25 percent, something Sen. Lyman Hoffman, D-Bethel, said was “completely unacceptable.”

But, then, there was this: Sen. Natasha von Imhof pointed out overall enrollment in Alaska’s schools has dropped from 131,000 in 2006 to 129,000 in 2018. Despite that, state funding for schools in 2006 was $805 million. It climbed to $1.2 billion in fiscal year 2018. Fiscal year 2019? It is $1.34 billion. She said employee benefits are the driving force behind increased expenditures in the face of falling enrollment. They went up from $302 million in 2006 to nearly $600 million in 2017, the latest figure she said she had.

“That is a $294 million increase in 11 years, or 97 percent,” Must Read Alaska reported Von Imhof as saying. “So districts are spending less on books and curriculum and more on health care for their teachers.”

Read on at:

http://www.anchoragedailyplanet.com/148650/education-costs/

 

Valdez mayor unhappy with Dunleavy, calls for resignation

Suzanne Downing
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30

(3-minute read) ‘FISCAL TYRANNY, MALPRACTICE AND FOLLY’

The Mayor of Valdez is distraught with Gov. Michael Dunleavy’s budget proposal, believing the State’s $1.6 billion fiscal gap can be fixed if the governor would simply resign.

In a caustic missive posted on Mayor Jeremy O’Neil’s Facebook page on Saturday, the official from Valdez called the Dunleavy budget a “lesson in fiscal tyranny, malpractice and folly.”

Alaska’s most recent governor was from Valdez, and was popular in the wealthy oil terminal town, where the average household income is more than $90,000.

O’Neil, who was a big Bill Walker supporter over the years, is still nursing a wound from Walker’s devastating loss in 2018, when he only got 2 percent of the vote statewide, and fewer than 50 votes from his hometown in Prince William Sound, which was one of his strongholds.

O’Neil’s letter is a cannon shot from Valdez over Gov. Dunleavy’s bow, yet it’s unclear if he’s speaking in his official capacity on behalf of the whole city, or as an unelected Alaskan.

“Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined a more paternalistic, uninspired or destructive response, from our State’s highest official,” O’Neil wrote.

“My own family has weathered the economic ups and downs in this State over several generations, and it goes without saying that stewardship at the State level has brought us to the crossroads we find ourselves today. I appreciate and sympathize with the difficult fiscal road ahead of us. Nevertheless, your proposal turns Alaskans against each other, picks massive winners and losers, and turns the hard-fought gains of over 50 years of statehood into an ash heap of lost time and opportunities. Yours is a lesson in fiscal tyranny, malpractice and folly.

“You campaigned on a platform of little details and massive promises. A child’s story speaks of a village with a huge rat problem. One day a “savior” came to town with a solution to solve their infestation. We know, as that story goes, when the Pied Piper was dissatisfied with his compensation, he ran off with the village’s most precious asset, their children. I’m struggling to see how your vision of the future is not paralleled by the moral of the Pied Piper’s story. In legal circles we call this fraud in the inducement. Many of my close friends and family chose to, “vote you in, to figure out what you’re all about,” and now that we know, it’s time for you to go.

“The nightmare proposal of SB 57 is a State power grab, wrapped in a malignant cost shift, wrapped in the age old government fallacy of “we know what’s good for you, better than you do.” You would expect such tactics from extremists who ultimately turn their citizens into beggars. Mr. Dunleavy, never in the history of our state has this worked. Creating a structure of massive losers to fill budget gaps, creates division, implants fear, and hurts everyone,” O’Neil wrote.

SB 57 would repeal the authority of Valdez to keep its municipal tax on the pipeline property that goes through the community. It’s doubtful that O’Neil would be so vigorous in his wrath if not for this piece of legislation.

Currently, the town of 3,862 people gets $38.4 million from taxing the Trans Alaska Pipeline, which goes through the community. That’s a tax on oil property that gives the city nearly $10,000 of services per resident.

The Valdez total revenue is $54,551,110, or more than $14,000 per resident. Because it is so rich, it has an enviable quality of life with many good-paying public jobs.

For comparison, the City and Borough of Juneau’s budget is about $10,500 per resident.

No city wants to give up its local oil tax and share it with other communities, so this will be a battle royale for communities such as Valdez and the North Slope Borough, which will fight back against SB 57, as they seek to keep taxes on pipeline properties for local uses.

O’Neil’s letter shows the passion with which communities will fight:

“Mr. Dunleavy, make no mistake, your vision hits the poor & vulnerable the hardest. I am open to change my opinion, but as of right now, I can’t bear to see anymore destruction. Please resign. Good day,” he concluded.

O’Neil is open to changing his opinion.

Bishop: ‘With all due respect, ma’am, that’s the wrong answer’

Suzanne Downing
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Bishop: ‘With all due respect, ma’am, that’s the wrong answer’

(4-minute read) ‘SHOOT THE MESSENGER’ DAY IN SENATE FINANCE

Senate Finance members didn’t like the Education Department budget rollout, and Republicans and Democrats alike told the Office of Management and Budget Director their opinions, in no uncertain terms, during a hearing that was at times a bit of an inquisition.

“The question was asked why we’re doing what we’re doing. We’re doing this because the State is out of money, and we need to balance our budget,” OMB Director Donna Arduin had said to the committee.

“We’re draining reserves to do it, and we’ve run out of reserves to drain. We’re proposing this so we can get our budget balanced and our fiscal house in order,” she said.

Sen. Click Bishop

“With all due respect, ma’am, that’s the wrong answer,” said Sen. Click Bishop of Fairbanks, who had asked the question: How does less money lead to better outcomes?

Sen. Lyman Hoffman of Bethel called the 25 percent cut to the state’s portion of education funding “completely unacceptable.”

But Sen. Natasha von Imhof had a different perspective. She acknowledged that overall enrollment in Alaska’s schools has declined from 131,000 in 2006 to 129,000 in 2018, but that funding has gone up and up.

In 2006, state funding for schools was $805 million, but rose to $1.2 billion in Fiscal Year 18, and $1.34 billion in FY 19.

“So student count is going down, money is going up. What is going on? I’m not really hearing that from you. What I’m hearing is, we’re just going to cut it.”

von Imhof then explained that employee benefits had gone up from $302 million in 2006 to nearly $600 million in 2017, the latest figure available to her.

“That is a $294 million increase in 11 years, or 97 percent,” von Imhof said. “So districts are spending less on books and curriculum and more on health care for their teachers.”

Rather than making an across the board cut that leaves all 53 districts to figure it out on their own, a better approach might have been to help districts with their highest cost driver, and see if the State can come up with a solution that makes sense.

“And I’m not really hearing that,” she said. “And I think that’s a problem because Education is dealing with it, all the departments are dealing with it.”

“Why didn’t you address the largest cost driver in Education?”  von Imhof asked.

Arduin was ready: “The first part is that we don’t control school districts and we don’t control how they spend their money. We have data that is similar to that, that shows that money is being spent elsewhere rather than for instruction.”

Only 54 percent of State dollars that go to districts is used in the classrooms, she said. They also receive local funds, referring to those school districts in organized boroughs.

Arduin said that the Education Department would be open to proposals to help drive down the cost of employee benefits, which have exploded.

But Hoffman piled on testily: “It’s all about the checkbook. It should not always be all about the checkbook. It can’t be only about the checkbook. It has to be about our obligations to educate students.”

Sen. Lyman Hoffman addresses OMB Director Donna Arduin.

The Education budget proposed by Gov. Michael Dunleavy cuts the State’s $1.34 billion contribution to education down to $1.03 billion. This doesn’t count the local contribution.

Included in the plan is a 50 percent travel reduction for Department of Education employees, $269 million in reduction to the per-student funding known as the base student allocation, and clawing back $30 million that last year’s Legislature had promised to schools for FY 20. The proposal also plans to end the WWAMI medical school exchange program for a $3 million savings,

At one point committee Chairman Sen. Bert Stedman reminded the members who were getting agitated as the hour went on, that it is not the OMB director’s budget but the governor’s budget.

Dept. of Numbers: Job losses persist, people moving south

Suzanne Downing
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Dept. of Numbers: Job losses persist, people moving south

Thirty-nine months is a long time for a state to have a job losing streak.

Alaska is creeping up on the Big 4-0 loss streak, and already has set a new record for the longest string of job losses since the economy nosedived in the late 1980s.

The cumulative number of jobs that vanished during the present recession is 12,700, putting the job count back to 2011 levels, according to the Alaska Department of Labor. Alaska has been losing jobs since October, 2015.

As go jobs trends, so go the workers. Since 2013, more people have left Alaska than have moved here. While births made up for some of the outmigration, the cumulative net migration loss was 35,000, larger than the city of Juneau.

Anchorage shed 6,084 jobs between 2015 and 2018, a drop of 3.9 percent. The majority of those jobs were professional class jobs,  including attorneys, engineers, and architects.

The Matanuska-Susitna Borough bucked the employment trend, and actually grew jobs between 2015 and 2018, adding 769 workers, according to the State Department of Labor. But those jobs were largely in health care and social services, not in the private for-profit sector. The Mat-Su Borough added 10,000 residents from 2015 to 2018.

Alaska’s overall unemployment rate in December was steady at 6.3 percent, or about 22,390 Alaskans unemployed, while the overall unemployment rate in the United States was 3.9 percent.

[Read all about it at this month’s Alaska Trends magazine, from the Alaska Department of Labor.]

Black History Month: The indomitable spirit of Rep. Sharon Jackson

Suzanne Downing
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Black History Month: The indomitable spirit of Rep. Sharon Jackson

(3-minute read) THE LAWMAKER OVERCAME A HUGE CHALLENGE

African-American history was made in January when the first African-American Republican woman lawmaker was sworn in as a legislator in the Alaska House of Representatives.

Rep. Jackson has got style, that much is obvious. But she also has more grit and determination than most Alaskans. Maybe that comes from her six-year stint in the U.S. Army. Or maybe it’s her deep faith in God.

Few Alaskans know that in 2015, Jackson suffered a stroke and was hospitalized. The stroke affected her speech, and she had to retrain herself how to form words again. The stroke also took away her stamina for several months, requiring a lot of bed rest. For a couple of years, she needed plenty of naps and made few public commitments.

But this Army veteran was not giving up. She continued to work for Sen. Dan Sullivan as a constituent liaison with a focus on the needs of veterans. She started a diverse Republican women’s club in Anchorage. She ran for lieutenant governor. All this, while fighting to regain her full power of speaking.

Rep. Sharon Jackson

It wasn’t until after the November election that she had her chance again: Gov. Michael Dunleavy appointed her to fill the District 13 spot left vacant in Eagle River when Dunleavy tapped Nancy Dahlstrom to run Alaska’s Corrections Department.

Jackson got caught in between Democrats and Republicans at the beginning of session when Democrats refused to seat her, because she would have been a critical vote for a Republican Speaker. That matter was finally settled after Republicans caved in and allowed Democrat Neal Foster to become Speaker Pro Tem.

You’ll see Rep. Jackson on the floor of the House — speaking with the conviction of someone who has not only served her nation in uniform but one who has fought her way back to full health — if you watch House floor sessions on 360North.org. She is making history in the Alaska Legislature, representing one of the most conservative areas of the state.

Surprise: University budget is not being cut by 50 percent

Suzanne Downing
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43
Surprise: University budget is not being cut by 50 percent

STATE SUPPORT IS ONLY 42 PERCENT OF UNIVERSITY SYSTEM BUDGET

The numbers are astonishing: “The University of Alaska budget is being cut by 41 percent!” Or 42 percent! Or, as Rep. Gary Knopp told a crowd in Kenai on Friday, it’s being cut by 50 percent and the Kenai campus and all other regional campuses will have to close!!!

The Anchorage Daily News reported the university “faces a $134 million cut, or about 40 percent of its total budget. The cut is the largest ever proposed in the university’s 100-year history, University of Alaska President Jim Johnsen said in a news conference Wednesday after the cuts were announced. For scale, that cut exceeds the total operating budget for the University of Alaska Anchorage.”

100-year history? Are we really going to compare the budget of 1919, when it was established as the Alaska Agricultural College and School of Mines, when it had a student body of six? Today, the UAF alone has six rural and urban campuses: Bristol Bay Campus in Dillingham; Chukchi Campus in Kotzebue; the Fairbanks-based Interior Alaska Campus, which serves the state’s rural Interior; Kuskokwim Campus in Bethel; Northwest Campus in Nome; and the UAF Community and Technical College, with headquarters in downtown Fairbanks.

40 percent of its total budget? This sounds serious. But what is the Dunleavy budget actually proposing?

The correct answer is 17 percent of the university system’s total budget. It’s a good haircut, but it’s not 40-50 percent.

This is because the State of Alaska only funds about 42 percent of the university budget, and the proposal is to reduce that contribution to the University of Alaska by 40 percent. The University of Alaska needs to look elsewhere for the funds or restructure to adapt.

$135 million is proposed to be reduced from the 2019 management plan — that is the budget of the current year.

The university system is also being given $149 million in designated general fund receipt authority, which means it can raise its funds from tuition, federal land grants, alumni efforts or other funding sources.

AN OVER-RELIANCE ON STATE FUNDING

In a study of land grant universities, the University of Alaska Fairbanks ranked third for schools that received the most state funding. It’s only exceeded by the University of Puerto Rico and and University of the District of Columbia.

While the Alaska university system receives more than 40 percent of its funding from the State of Alaska, the average among land grant universities across the United States is 25 percent.

Oregon State University, where some Alaskans get their higher education, receives less than 17 percent from the State of Oregon. OSU gets $182 million in state funds to support the teaching of its 29,000 students.

Washington State University gets 20 percent of its funding from that state’s budget. And UC Berkeley gets only 14 percent of its funding from California taxpayers.

UAF gets $164 million from the State of Alaska, according to an analysis by the National Center for Education Statistics at the U.S. Department of Education. That supports 9,330 students, and comes out to a state subsidy of $17,577 per student per year, more than the state is spending for K-12 students’ education.

The University of Alaska’s over-reliance on state funding has been noted in the past by Moody’s.  In 2017, Moody’s downgraded UA as a result:  “The downgrade to A1 reflects the university’s material reliance on the State of Alaska with the resulting exposure to the fiscal and economic challenges of the state caused by low oil prices.  With about half of UA’s operating budget, including on-behalf payments for pension and other post-retirement benefits, derived from state funding, we expect increased operating pressure at the university as the state addresses its significant structural imbalance.”

The top performing land grant universities intentionally diversify their funding sources by building endowments and developing substantial sources of non-state support from the private sector and federal government. They also develop educational programs of true national excellence, attracting students who will pay tuition and stay for more than two years. In so doing, these universities ensure organizational resilience.

At the same time the State of Alaska is underwriting the learning of students, the University of Alaska system is having to offer “zero level” classes to more than 61 percent of its incoming students, who are simply not ready for college coursework.

In a study by the university, freshmen are not coming into college prepared for four-year university work. Instead, they are having to retake high school classes once they enroll.

A RETURN TO THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE MODEL

As the governor suggests, now is an opportunity for the Board of Regents to restructure and return some of its satellite campuses to community colleges, where that remedial coursework is more appropriate. He is challenging the University system to meet the needs of students where they are, which, for more than half of them, means extended high school education.

The proposed UGF budget is based on $11,000 per full time equivalent student and is allocated into two components based on the current population of students: University Campus and Community Campus.

By refocusing funding toward student instruction on community campuses, the Dunleavy budget suggests that the University system can substantially reduce tuition for the first two years, and help finish the high school education that students didn’t get in their local school districts, so they’re prepared to complete either a four-year college degree or vocational training.

UNIVERSITY HAS QUALITY TROUBLES

The recent loss of accreditation of the University of Alaska Anchorage teaching programs is a red flag that stretches well beyond students who are unprepared for higher education. Higher education itself is struggling to come up to standard.

The programs that lost accreditation include the Early Childhood Education Bachelor of Arts and post-baccalaureate programs, Elementary Education Bachelor of Arts and post-baccalaureate programs, Secondary Education Master of Arts in teaching, and initial licensure programs in special education and early childhood special education. (University of Alaska Fairbanks and University of Alaska Southeast were not affected.)

Some 250 students who have invested months or years into their future profession can’t be sure they’ll have legitimate degrees when they graduate.

The university’s answer to this is ask the State Board of Education to allow the graduating seniors to be able to get a state license without accreditation, and to have the other students transfer to University of Alaska Southeast or Fairbanks to complete their degrees. It will take UAA’s Education program three years to get its accreditation back.

The Dunleavy Administration wants to encourage the university to transition the lowest-priority services to a self-sustaining funding model, suggests that research should seek private and federal funding, duplicated schools should be eliminated, and that a major fundraising campaign with the private sector is long overdue.

Amazing photographer documents life in Bethel

Suzanne Downing
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2
Amazing photographer documents life in Bethel

In Bethel, Alaska, photographer and writer Greg Lincoln has his fingers on the pulse of the mostly Native Alaska hub community on the Kuskokwim River, and has his lens on the extraordinary beauty of the land and its people.

Check out his work at DeltaDiscovery.com, with this link going to a collection of the best photos that he has taken over the past year.

Enjoy the efforts of this community scribe and photographer!

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