By WILLY KEPPEL

I know this won’t be a popular take, but I’ve got to disagree with both friends and foes when it comes to the idea of returning to a Defined Benefits retirement system for public employees. Two of my friends are teachers, and they’ve made their case for what they call the “golden parachute.” I still can’t get on board.

I’m a supporter of the Defined Contributions system — and for good reason. We’ve been down the Defined Benefits road before. When oil money was flowing and the state was flush with cash, bureaucrats and union leaders teamed up to create overly generous pensions, promising the world without a plan to pay for it. It became a spiral slide to financial ruin, and by 2006, common sense finally prevailed in Juneau. Defined Benefits were scrapped in favor of a more sustainable system: Defined Contributions.

Now, the unions want to drag us back, telling lawmakers it’s affordable, it boosts employee loyalty, and it’s necessary to attract workers. But none of those claims are backed by evidence. In fact, data from other states show they’re simply not true. What we’re hearing now is smoke and mirrors: magical math and political pressure campaigns dressed up as policy arguments.

Meanwhile, the education system itself is bleeding students and families are voting with their feet. Alaska now has 22% of students in homeschooling or charter school programs. In Anchorage, more than 6,000 students have left the school district, and instead of closing all six schools they considered in 2022, they only closed two, then turned another into a Native charter school, which drew even more families out of the system.

This isn’t a funding issue. It’s a failure to adapt. The public education model is becoming a dinosaur, too slow to evolve while parents seek better options. The bureaucracy, DEI-focused curricula, and declining performance have pushed people away. The formula isn’t broken because of inflation — it’s broken because families no longer trust the product.

And while all this happens, state leaders are still raiding the Permanent Fund Dividend, the last vestige of wealth Alaskans actually see, to prop up a failing system. According to a UAA ISER study by economist Matt Berman, using PFD cuts to fund government is the most regressive tax imaginable. It hurts poor and working-class families the most and drives people out of Alaska. That’s not just a theory; it’s $20,000 per child lost when a family leaves the district. That’s not inflation. That’s a government-created death spiral.

We need to do what any business would do when the customer base shrinks: cut costs. That starts with school closures where enrollment no longer justifies the cost. It also means reducing administrative bloat by consolidating Alaska’s 53 school districts down to 10 or fewer. And let’s get real about those so-called “vacant” positions in Anchorage. Over 200 “ghost” teaching jobs still get pink slips each year. If they’re unfilled, they’re unfunded positions, and they should be cut.

Yet every time we turn around, the unions are demanding more — more money, more benefits, more staff — while performance declines and enrollment collapses. And the Legislature? They’ll slash the PFD in a heartbeat but won’t touch the bloated education budget

Just this week, legislators who say they support the 75/25 PFD split, like Senators Lyman Hoffman and Bert Stedman, turned around and backed an 83/17 split instead. That’s nearly $180 million taken from each of their Senate districts. That’s money ripped out of the hands of every man, woman, and child in favor of a top-down “we know best” approach that keeps failed systems on life support.

And don’t get me started on campaign finance “reform.” Every proposal limits how much you and I can donate, while leaving union and PAC money untouched. No wonder Alaska’s collapsing. No wonder families are leaving for more affordable states.

See Spot run. See Spot run away. 

That old first-grade reader rings painfully true today: Families are running, and it’s the system that refuses to change that’s chasing them away.

So no — I won’t support going back to Defined Benefits. I won’t support more empty promises from unions. And I won’t support a school funding model that punishes families, fails students, and protects bureaucrats.

We need reform. Not regression.

Willy Keppel is a longtime trapper and fur trader in Western Alaska.