|
Governor Dunleavy signed the budget over the weekend and released the list of line-item vetoes yesterday. Unfortunately, Dunleavy vetoed half of the education funding increase we appropriated in May—effectively reducing next year’s BSA increase from $680 to $340—and targeted a number of other pro-family and pro-education programs with his cuts. Increasing education funding was a top priority for our Senate Majority, and the governor’s veto will leave school districts struggling and with fewer resources to operate at the level Alaskan kids need.
In addition to the education funding, Dunleavy’s vetoes included the following:
• $1 million for Rural Public Radio funding
• $140k to the Alaska Legal Services which provides legal services to low-income Alaskans, and is the state’s largest provider of civil legal services to survivors of domestic violence
• $750k for Re-entry housing, despite the proven impacts on recidivism
• $5 million for the Alaska Native Science and Education Program
• $3.5 million for Head Start, a program with many kids in my district
• $500k for Crisis Now Continuum of Care Grants, a program desperately needed to reduce mental health and homelessness impacts in Anchorage
• $550k to produce a State of Alaska Police Policy Manual
• $1.2 million for workforce development
• $35 million in University of Alaska capital projects
The full list of vetoes are available here.
These vetoes are incredibly disappointing. They fail to invest in Alaska’s future and address ongoing issues many of us heard about throughout session. We cannot reverse Alaska’s population decline, particularly in our working-age residents and those with young children, if we are cutting funding for education, child care, and critical programs for improving our economy and quality of life. Personally, I am in support of overriding many of the vetoes and hope enough of my colleagues feel the same.
If you are frustrated with the governor’s cuts, there are several avenues to speak out: you can write your legislators. You can press your community councils to do resolutions. You can write letters to the editor in your local paper. Even a social media post is likely to be seen by other members of our community.
Thank you for staying involved, and I hope we can continue to invest in programs that will stop the exodus of young families from Anchorage and from Alaska.
|
