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Dear friends and
neighbors,
Historic Successful
Override of Two Items: Education Funding at $700/student ($50 M), and
Audit Transparency for Oil Taxes.
The last time a Governor
budget appropriation veto was overridden was 1987 (Governor
Cooper). This historic accomplishment was because of the
partnership of two bipartisan coalitions who listened to Alaskans
(House and Senate bipartisan majorities) and the people of Alaska
who made their support of education clearly known. See details in
the section below.
The Special Session has
not adjourned sine die (as the end). The next potential convening
will be at 10AM on August 19, if there is business to conduct. The
30-day Special Session will end on August 31.
The Education Task Force
will hold a meeting on August 25 to review and discuss the 3 new
bills (SB
1001, 1002, 1003 offered by the Governor.
(see details about the bills below)
The Governor also
introduced another Executive Order to create a Department of
Agriculture. This topic is in a Senate bill in the Resources
Committee right now. Food security is critical in our Arctic state,
where the growing season is short. I am not going to move anything
on this topic until our regular session. Alaska farmers, dairy and
livestock folks are all busy this summer season producing food.
Their input is needed and will be available next January. If the
Governor wanted to act right now, he could call up the corporate
grocery store chains and require them to sell Alaska Grown in their
stores.
More Good News about Alaska Public School
Students
We
Graduated from Alaska's Public Schools and We are Proud of That
System ADN
Thomas Krasnican is an officer on a
nuclear submarine, U.S. Navy. He was valedictorian of the Robert
Service High School class of 2014, graduated from the U.S. Naval
Academy, and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in public
policy at the University of Chicago.
Kiera O’Brien was valedictorian of the
Ketchikan High School class of 2016 and is a junior studying
government at Harvard College, where she served as president of the
Republican Club.
See what these amazing,
productive, quality adults had to say about the education they
received in an Alaska public school.
Our public school system
is not "failing".
Do we need to continue to
see the needs of all students and improve services? Yes! But that
doesn't happen by berating and cutting funding.
Correction: Last week in my
newsletter, I talked about Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) and
about a bill that would require them to make their profits
transparent, their reimbursements to our pharmacies fair, and their
costs to you minimal. The bill is SB
142, not SB 134.
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