Legislature off to a lively start with heated debate over education funding

The 2024 legislative session is off to a lively start. Last Tuesday, the day lawmakers “gaveled in.” The House quickly took up a controversial education funding issue and split 20-20 on a question of whether to call a joint session of the Legislature to consider overriding Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s vetoes of school funding made last year.

The motion failed 20-20 along partisan lines in the House. Then, on Thursday, the Legislature convened a joint session anyway after concluding that the state Constitution requires a vote on veto overrides after all.

There was support for an override from the Senate, which has a bipartisan organization, but the effort stalled in the House, which is controlled by Republican conservatives, despite intense lobbying by education groups.

Gov. Dunleavy had vetoed half of a $175 million one-time appropriation for school districts that was offered up by the Legislature in lieu of an increase in the Base Student Allocation, the formula which guides state funding for schools.

The BSA adjustment would have been ongoing, unlike the one-time appropriation outside the formula. Dunleavy cut that in half, however, so schools got only $87 million that educators said was inadequate to cover the effects of inflation as well as increases in fuel and insurance costs.

The dust had hardly settled on Thursday’s vote to leave the education vetoes intact when House Republicans introduced a new education program bill that would fund “strategic,” or targeted, school programs rather than making a large increase in general funding though the BSA formula.

The new bill includes funding for a variety of programs popular with House Republicans including new money for charter schools and $23 million for correspondence and home-school studies as well as $58 million for retention bonuses for teachers proposed in separate legislation introduced last year by the governor.

The new bill also includes a $300-per-student increase to the BSA formula, although that is far less than what school districts and state Senate leaders had asked for. The original Senate Bill 52, for example, proposed a $1,000-per-student increase to the formula.

Hearings were held last Saturday in the House Rules Committee, where the new bill was launched as a revised version of SB 140, a bill dealing with fund for internet service to schools that had passed the Senate earlier.

Later in the day on Saturday the committee voted the revised SB 149 out committee. It now goes to the full 40-member state House where it faces an uncertain future with a large number of possible amendments. If it passes the House, a skeptical state Senate awaits.

Although the bill is full of program changes there could also be a possible change to the $300 increase in the BSA, which itself would add $77 million to the budget. Rep. Craig Johnson, R-Anch., who chairs the House Rules Committee, said he sees the $300 “as just a starting point” for negotiations, although he said he hopes the number will stay in that range.

At the heart of this debate is a certain distrust of a public education system where decisions are made by school boards and administrators. In making targeted appropriations decisions are largely taken out of the hands of administrators.

This plays into the debate over the amount of the BSA, too. A larger BSA puts more general funds into school finances. A smaller one ties the hands of school boards and administrators in allocating funds.

When this is done in tandem with funding allocated directly to favored programs like charter schools or correspondence study it undercuts basic education programs, many educators argue.

Education wasn’t the only matter causing sparks last week. In energy policy, a taste of things to come was foretold when Sen. Jesse Bjorkman, R-Sodotna, made remarks that he would not allow a bill setting requirements for utilities to use renewable energy from the Senate Labor and Commerce committee, which Bjorkman chairs.

The remark started Sen. Loki Tobin, D-Anchorage, who is sponsor of the bill Bjorkman dislikes. Tobin’s bill requires utilities to meet certain benchmarks for tapping renewable energy or face penalties.

Major utilities operating the Southcentral-Interior Alaska “railbelt” feel the goals in Tobin’s proposal are too rigid and unrealistic, and that imposing fines on the nonprofit electric cooperatives in Alaska would just require to pass these costs to their members, it’s argued by Rep. George Rauscher, R-Palmer, who chairs the House Energy Committee.

But the so-called renewable energy portfolio standard in Tobin’s bill, which sets benchmarks for the utilities to meet, is modeled on those now used in many states and also has bipartisan support in the Legislature. For example, Rep. Jesse Sumner, R-Soldotna, is a cosponsor with Tobin on her bill.

Tobin’s bill is likely to undergo changes. The thresholds may be reduced to approach renewable energy goals set internally by the utilities, and the term “renewable” may itself be changed to “clean” energy.

To some, “renewable” energy appears too focused on wind and solar while “clean” energy shifts the focus to energy free of carbon. This would open the door to other energy sources including nuclear.