Early learning bill, to enhance children's reading, stumbles as Legislature races toward adjournment

Things moved fast in the state capitol Monday and Tuesday as the Legislature raced toward a required adjournment Wednesday night, May 18. A budget conference committee worked to reconcile differences between the spending plan approved by the House and one passed by the Senate.

Among major differences was a large Permanent Fund Dividend in the Senate plan against a more modest dividend in the House budget. The budget passed by the Senate also included major capital project appropriations that are normally handled in a separate capital bill, as well as projects taken from a general obligation bond proposed earlier in the spring.

By including those in the budget bill the projects are funded with cash rather than borrowing. It is assumed that many of the capital projects in the Senate’s budget bill will be approved by the conference committee but that won’t be known for certain until the work is done and the Legislature adjourns Wednesday night.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy will have the final say on things with his “line item” veto authority, in which the governor can red-line individual appropriations for projects or programs, either by eliminating the money or reducing it. The governor is also concerned with the total amount of money proposed to be spent and the effect of this on billion dollar-plus budget surpluses estimated earlier this year.

Meanwhile, there are developments with major legislation worked on this spring. Senate Bill 111, a bill expanding pre-kindergarten and intensive reading instruction four young children, is now considered dead in the House Education Committee, which will be a disappointment to educator and parents who had hoped to move Alaska out of last place among states in 4th grade reading skills.

The bill failed to move out of the education committee last Wednesday when Rep. Tiffany Zulkosky, D-Bethel, joined Republican legislators to block the bill’s advance. Even had SB 111 moved it was likely doomed in the Senate because the House Majority members of the education committee had added several controversial provisions to the Senate-passed bill from other legislation.

Those included the inflation adjustments to the school Base Student Allocation, the formula that distributes state aid, that are also in HB 272 and HB 273, two bills pending in the House Finance Committee. Also, an option for a defined benefits retirement program for school workers and certain other public employees, in addition to the “defined contribution” retirement plan now in effect, was added. This is also in other legislation.

As worthyas some may see these they are also major policy changes that are usually handled in stand-alone legislation and not loaded into another bill in the final days of the session.

Zulkosky’s opposition to the bill was deep-seated, and her vote was decisive in stopping the bill from moving. She had opposed SB 111 all along because she feels it would perpetuate a western cultural bias in rural education when more radical changes are needed, although she did not spell out what changes she believes are needed to solve problems.

The House Majority, in deference to her, caused the original House version of the bill, HB 165, to be slow-rolled in the House Education through the 2021 session and until the Senate version came over in April. The heavily-changed committee substitute for the Senate bill emerged last week, after which the vote to move the bill from committee was help, which failed.

The Senate had made significant changes in its SB 111 in deference to Zulkosky’s concerns including adding new language enhancing Indigenous culture and language in schools and giving districts more authority to use alternative culturally-appropriate screening tools for reading that were also suited to language differences.

The House Education Committee went further, adding a new “indigenous instruction” division in the Department of Education and Early Development along with other changes. These weren’t enough, however, and Zulkosky still opposed the bill.

In remarks before the House committee voted on moving the bill she explained that while she supported the changed SB 111 she feared it would be changed again in House Finance, or on the House floor, back toward the Senate version that she strongly opposes. Also, she expressed a lack of trust in the state education department, even if the House version were enacted, to implement the bill consistent with an intent to strengthen indigenous education.

Meanwhile, the failure of the “reading” bill, a priority for the governor, also made it unlikely that the Base Student Allocation inflation adjustment would be approved. The governor had said that without the reading bill he will not approve new funding for schools including the BSA increase.