With the second regular session of the 34th Alaska Legislature under way, it’s a good time to check in with members of Juneau’s delegation.
Morning Host Mike Lane recently sat down with Representative Andi Story to learn what’s on her agenda for this session.
The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
Mike Lane: The second regular session of the 34th Alaska legislature has just begun. What are your top priorities for this session?
Rep. Story: My top priorities for this session have to do with keeping our young people here, cost of living, housing is really important. And of course, education and ferries, ferries, ferries.
Mike Lane: Speaking of education, you pre-filed a bill on education funding, House Bill 261. Can you give us a brief explanation of what the bill would do if passed?
Rep. Story: Well, if you’ve been living in Juneau for a long time, you know that our education funding is backwards, that we do not get our numbers to our school districts till, like, June after the session is over. And so they are not being able to give contracts to their teaching staff, to staff at all. And so they’re living in limbo, and they leave us or we can’t maintain them. And so this bill has us do our funding a year early, where they get the number. It takes the average of the last three years student count or your last prior year student count, so whichever is greater, so we will give more stability to school districts. So that’s just critically important. And this came about because I’m on the task force for education funding. We’ve been reviewing. If you are an independent school district, you have your own taxing authority. They usually take the current year and the prior two years. But we cannot raise our own revenue. We are dependent upon what the state does and our municipalities. It allows us to focus on student achievement and not redoing budgets, and not put our community in chaos because we have to predict all this out. We don’t know our number, so I want to give confidence to our school funding budget process.
Mike Lane: So what is your plan for getting this bill passed?
Rep. Story: I co-chair education. I’m starting to talk to people about it. I have an advantage that I’m on the task force, and so people have read that report, they’re, they’re aware of that, but just have a lot of talking to do. But people have been living this roller coaster of instability for funding for school districts, so it’s not going to be a surprise for them that we’re trying to stabilize this.
Mike Lane: What other bills have you sponsored or co-sponsored that you think could get traction or succeed this session?
Rep. Story: Well, I’m really hoping my bill, which is in house rules, on housing investments, where [Alaska Industrial Development Economic Association]will be allowed to do workforce housing, give developers loans for workforce housing of five dwelling units or more. This has been critical. We have to move on housing. There are a few things that [Alaska Housing Finance Corporation] does, but this is something AIDEA could do that would really help developers.
Mike Lane: How can Alaskans inside and outside of Juneau get a hold of you?
Rep. Story: 907-465-3744, of course. I’m on the website, but calling is really good. And I very frequently do Zoom meetings, you know, phone calls. And I do that with Alaska residents too. Juneau residents who do not want to drive and try and find parking downtown, they just call and we set up a meeting. So please call, please email. That is probably the number one thing we have to do is bring the community, the state in on our policies, and get their voices heard. And so I like to hear what people really want me to be working on
Mike Lane: To wrap up: As one of Juneau’s representatives, what do you see as your ultimate duties and responsibilities to the people of Juneau and all of Alaska?
Rep. Story: Really, to meet our constitutional obligations because it is so important — the people of the state. We have a lot of resources in the state. The biggest resource we have is each of us, is the people. So we want to try and bring that voice up to the the capitol that it’s important our human resources and how are we making sure we have quality of life here.
