Gov. Mike Dunleavy erased more than $150 million in general fund spending from the state budget on Thursday, including more than a quarter of a boost to public school funding lawmakers approved in the closing days of the legislative session.
Dunleavy cited low oil prices as the reason for the veto, but local leaders — from superintendents to mayors to state lawmakers — say it’s a threat to the state’s future, as Alaska Public Media’s state Capitol correspondent, Eric Stone, told Alaska News Nightly host Casey Grove.
The following transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Casey Grove: Lawmakers passed what was supposed to be a long-term boost to school funding this year. They even overrode a veto from Dunleavy in the last couple days of the session. What exactly did Dunleavy do?
Eric Stone: OK, so you’re right there, Casey. Just before adjourning for the year, lawmakers overrode Dunleavy to pass something they’ve been trying to pass for years: a substantial increase to the formula that dictates how much schools get from the state.
They increased the base of it, fittingly called the base student allocation, by $700 per student. Schools and community members had been pleading for years as local schools faced severe cutbacks.
They changed the number in state law that says how much schools should get, but actually approving the money to fund the increase, that’s another thing. That’s how Dunleavy was able to veto the money despite the override vote.
So — Dunleavy, using his line-item budget veto power, cut $51 million in formula funding that lawmakers approved. That’s equivalent to a $200 per-student reduction in the base student allocation, about 30% of the increase lawmakers voted for. He didn’t hold a press conference to take questions, and he declined an interview request, but here’s what he said in a video his office posted to social media.
Gov. Mike Dunleavy: “The oil situation has deteriorated. The price of oil has gone down, therefore our revenue is going down, and basically we don’t have enough money to pay for all of our obligations.”
ES: And the rub here is that lawmakers actually approved more money for schools last year on a one-time basis. So that’s a year-over-year cut.
CG: So, less money for schools, thanks to the veto. How are people taking the news?
ES: A lot of folks are upset. I’ve got a lot of angry statements in my inbox — lawmakers vowing to try and override the governor when they get back in January, but also tribes, community mayors, and — especially — school leaders. The Anchorage superintendent calls the veto “outrageous.” Clayton Holland, the superintendent on the Kenai Peninsula and head of a statewide superintendents’ association, says his district assumed they’d get at least as much money as they got last year. Now, they’re looking at even deeper cuts than they already were. Take a listen.
Clayton Holland: “It’s just devastating to our communities. We’ve already been, over the years, cutting and cutting away … It’s across the board. … And I just worry what that’s going to do to everyone — what that does for our students, what that does for the future of Alaska as people look to choose to have options elsewhere.”
ES: Fairbanks Mayor Grier Hopkins says he’s frustrated — the audio here comes from a press conference broadcast live on Friday on social media by Alaska’s News Source. He’s standing outside Pearl River Elementary School.
Grier Hopkins: “The school was closed this year because of funding cuts from the state — cuts that have happened year after year, when bipartisan legislatures from across the state have come together to support bills that permanently increase the base student allocation.”
Hopkins was a Democrat in the Legislature before running for mayor, a nominally nonpartisan office.
But conservative leaders are worried, too. Take Kenai Peninsula Borough Mayor Peter Micciche, who was once a Republican state Senate president. He says Dunleavy’s veto — and declining education funding on an inflation-adjusted basis more broadly — are threats to the state’s future.
Peter Micciche: “In my community, and I see the numbers throughout the state, our population seems to be stabilizing after 15 years of out migration — except two to 17 year olds are leaving in droves, and they’re taking their parents with them. That demonstrates a sense of hopelessness for the future, because Alaska is not, we’re not solving our problems.”
ES: That’s a lot of what I’m hearing — folks are worried about the state’s future.
And there’s a lot more related to education he vetoed as well — $25 million in school maintenance funds is one big thing that stands out.
That’s money that would have gone to school repairs in Soldotna, mechanical and electrical work in North Pole, heating and ventilation upgrades on St. Paul Island and fire suppression systems at four schools in the Lake and Peninsula Borough in Southwest Alaska.
CG: We saw the Legislature override a Dunleavy veto already. Can lawmakers do another override of this veto?
ES: They can, but it’s unlikely a vote on that would come before January. State Senate President Gary Stevens, a Kodiak Republican, says it would be hard to get enough lawmakers together to meet the three-quarters vote necessary to override Dunleavy. If the same number of folks vote to restore the funding as voted for it in the first place, they would only have one vote to spare.
And the Alaska Beacon reports that one Senate Democrat is out of the country this summer — Anchorage Sen. Forrest Dunbar is in Poland as part of his National Guard.
But legislative leaders are pledging to override Dunleavy when they return in January. Oil prices actually spiked in the wake of Israel’s attack on Iran, and in any case, Senate President Stevens says lawmakers carefully crafted the budget in order to pay for the education funding increase despite the oil price downturn.
Here’s Stevens:
Sen. Gary Stevens: “It’s not as if we don’t have the money. We planned for it. We have the funds. And you know, the governor’s talking about the reduction in oil monies. And the price of oil is down. We know that. But I think we came up with a good budget that could afford to … increase $700, and I’m sorry the governor has vetoed it down.”
ES: But whether the 46 legislators who voted to override Dunleavy last month will hang together and vote next January to restore the funding — that’s an open question.
Some others are talking about the possibility of a lawsuit. The theory being, the Constitution mandates that the state provide and maintain a public school system.
But in the meantime, schools are left, once again, waiting to see how much money they’ll get.