School funding was a top concern at a town hall meeting held Thursday by two members of Juneau’s legislative delegation. This week, Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed half of the $175 million one-time public school funding increase approved by the Alaska Legislature.
That veto brought Chris Niemi, one of about 25 attendees, to the town hall at Yadaa.at Kalé Juneau-Douglas High School. Niemi is a former teacher and has three grandkids who will attend Juneau schools. She hopes Alaskans reach out to their legislators, especially those in the House, and ask them to support an override.
“This affects families. It affects the children who are our future in this state,” Niemi said afterward. “If they really care about children and families, then they can’t not pass it.”
The veto leaves the Juneau School District with a $758,000 shortfall, and there isn’t enough in the district’s savings to cover that deficit.
Rep. Andi Story acknowledged during the town hall that an override requires a lot of support – 45 out of the 60 votes in the Alaska Legislature.
“It’s a high bar,” Story said. “But I know as we speak, people are burning up the phone lines and working on that.”
Even if an override doesn’t happen, Story said, the veto has kept education funding in the spotlight. Both the Alaska House and Senate bills that would permanently increase per-student state funding through the base student allocation, or BSA, ended the session in the House Finance Committee.
“That means, when we start in January, House Finance will be taking up the BSA bills, and they will be looking at them, getting updates from our districts, hearing from people,” she said. “We are very hopeful that we should get, in statute, a BSA increase.”
Story and Sen. Jesse Kiehl, both Democrats, also celebrated several items in this year’s budget. Kiehl said he’s “extremely proud of” $7.5 million in grant funding for child care centers.
“That is a breakthrough,” he said. “After COVID, we saw with federal supports going away, child care wages dropping in an industry where you cannot attract enough people to do the work. This isn’t a parent issue – this is a workforce issue, it’s an economy issue.”
The budget also funds inmate transportation to and from Juneau as construction continues at Lemon Creek Correctional Center, which Kiehl said will help ensure that people arrested in Juneau can appear in court there. There’s also $175,000 for a study on how the Department of Corrections can reduce suicides among incarcerated people.
“The Department of Corrections is the largest provider of behavioral health services and mental health services in the state of Alaska,” Kiehl said. “We have a serious problem with suicide inside our correctional institutions.”
Along with education funding, Kiehl and Story said giving public service workers the option to pay into a pension is an ongoing priority.
Juneau’s third legislator, Rep. Sara Hannan, was unable to attend Thursday’s town hall.
