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My office has returned to our Anchorage location! We are ready to assist you. Please contact us at (907) 269-0246, sen.forrest.dunbar@akleg.gov, visit in person at 1500 W Benson Blvd office 427, or simply reply to this email.
It is an honor to serve as your Senator, and I am looking forward to joining you in East Anchorage this summer and fall. Please reach out if you have any questions, concerns, or would like my attendance at a community event.
As you probably saw on the news, the 33rd Legislature ended with intense, bipartisan work to pass bills supporting families, housing, education, energy security, and economic development in Alaska. Here are some of the highlights.
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Energy stability for Alaska has been a major topic this session due to the dwindling supply of Cook Inlet gas. Hilcorp has reported that they cannot guarantee gas production after 2027, and our power and heat utilities are rightly concerned. As a member of both the Senate Labor and Commerce Committee and the Senate Resources Committee, I have heard and discussed many bills related to energy in Alaska.
These bills have ranged from reducing royalties on Cook Inlet oil and gas to integrating more renewable energy on the Railbelt. Several of these measures became law, including a landmark transmission bill that will accompany more than $206 million in federal funding to upgrade our grid.
Unfortunately, several bills did not pass, in part due to the House Majority and Governor’s office not supplying our Senate Finance Committee with sufficient data to have them vetted in time. Energy reliability and affordability remains a first-order priority for my office, and I intend to keep working on solutions next session.
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As I have stated in these messages before, I support a durable, inflation-proofed increase to our Base Student Allocation. Unfortunately, we fell one vote short of overriding the Governor’s veto and seeing that increase to the BSA become law.
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Nevertheless, there were some successes on education this session. We successfully put funding into the budget for improved pupil transportation and for major renovations to a number of schools, particularly roof projects. We also increased the one-time funding for education by $680, which the Governor has committed to not vetoing, in return for the Legislature quickly passing a one-year “fix” to the correspondence school issue. I suspect that we will be back next year working on that unconstitutional law from 2014, when the Alaska Supreme Court upholds all or most of the Superior Court decision handed down in the late days of the session. You will surely be hearing more on that this summer.
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Pension Reform and State Agencies
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Over the last two years, the committees I sit on – particularly Labor and Commerce – have heard extensive testimony on the vacancy crisis ongoing at our state and local agencies. We simply cannot recruit or retain teachers, snow plow drivers, mechanics, law enforcement officers, firefighters, public health officials, and many more, at a rate sufficient to deliver public services effectively.
I cosponsored SB 88 to return to a defined benefit pension because the evidence shows that doing so will help us retain more of these employees. Despite last-second attempts on the Senate floor to amend the pension into another bill – given that we had already passed it in the Senate with a strong majority – the measure ultimately did not pass. Indeed, it never even got a hearing in the State House.
When roads go unplowed this winter; when thefts go uninvestigated; when you call a state agency and realize that the wait time is hours or even days to get services, know that one of the solutions to our staffing crisis could not even get a fair hearing on the House Floor. I very much hope that the Legislature next session will tackle this challenge again and at the very least allow every legislator to vote “yes” or “no.” I believe the votes are there to return Alaska to a reasonable pension that provides basic dignity to our retirees, and which we know is an effective tool to recruit and retain personnel.
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These bills made it into law, either on their own or via inclusion in another bill, a tactic used by legislators to advance policy when time is dwindling at the end of session.
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SB 56/HB 148 AK PERFORMANCE SCHOLARSHIP; ELIGIBILITY will increase access to post-secondary education in Alaska by updating the Alaska Performance Scholarship. Specifically, the bill increases the scholarship along with inflation, expands the eligibility criteria to include more Career and Technical Education, moves forward the time period that high school students are informed if they have won the scholarship, and removes several other barriers to access. This bill was a top priority of mine this session, given that both UAA and APU are in the heart of my district, and I believe that we must take steps to reverse the outmigration of our young people and working age population.
SB 77 MUNI PROP TAX EXEMPTION/TAX BLIGHTED PROP passed with the blight tax portion removed, and will assist in building our economy and encouraging investors to develop properties and to bring more affordable housing options to our communities. I am very supportive of building more housing in Alaska, and also championed $6 million being inserted in the Capital Budget for the Housing Alaskans Public Private Partnership.
SB 103 PEER SUPPORT COUNSELING PROGRAM establishes the ability for law enforcement officers and first responders to seek mental health counseling from trained peer counselors while protecting the privacy of their sessions. This measure was strongly supported by our LEO and first responder communities.
SB 166 MENTAL HEALTH/PSYCHEDELIC MED. TASK FORCE establishes the Alaska Mental Health and Psychedelic Medicine Task Force. The goal of this legislation is to be ready should the federal government approve psychedelics for medicinal use, given their potential to treat PTSD and depression, particularly in our veteran community.
SB 159 ALASKA VETERANS' POPPY DAY designates the Friday before Memorial Day as “Alaska Veterans’ Poppy Day.” Alaskans will be encouraged to wear poppies on this day to symbolize our gratitude for those who have served and died in war.
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There were many more amendments and resolutions that I led the effort to pass this session, some of which will be detailed further in our June physical newsletter, but I will close here before the newsletter gets too long. Again, if you have a specific question on a policy, please reach out to my office.
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Thank you for your interest and support these past two years– I am looking forward to seeing you in the community this summer!
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