Wasilla pastor appointed to task force

WASILLA -- A local pastor has been appointed to serve on a task force to help find ways to merge faith-based organizations and state services.

With the legislative session complete, Lt. Gov. Loren Leman said at the Wasilla Rotary meeting Wednesday that he's pleased about the working relationship between the governor's office and the Legislature, and about the direction of the state.

Leman cited education, public safety and transportation as the state's three main priorities, and noted the need for providing basic services and growing the state's resources.

"Our resources are the envy of the nation," Leman said. "And our most important resource is still our people."

Leman said that's where the state's duties lie -- in providing for the needs of the people of the state and protecting those people in the future. Part of that equation, he said, is individual responsibility -- the need for the people of the state to pitch in and help provide the services they believe are important. And one way of doing that, he said, is to solicit help from faith-based and nonprofit organizations.

In the interest of making state government more efficient, Leman said, Murkowski asked him to lend a hand with a few items, including the faith-based community initiative. Leman said the state would reach out to people in faith communities and other volunteer organizations that are able to provide services at the state efficiently. A task force, he said, has been created to identify areas within the state government where the partnership may work.

Stan Tucker, pastor of the Pilgrim's Baptist Church in Wasilla, was selected by Leman to serve on the task force. Repeated phone calls to Tucker's home Friday and Monday were met with busy signals.

When later asked about the partnership, Leman said it's something that's already in place within the state's Department of Corrections in its chaplaincy programs. In state correctional facilities, he said, chaplains serve as volunteers who visit and provide Christian teaching to inmates. Along similar lines, he said, is a "faith pod" program in the Arizona prison system in which inmates apply to live in areas where other Christian inmates live. Inmates in those areas, Leman said, are required to abide by certain rules or be removed from the area. The program, Leman said, has lowered the rate of disciplinary action within those areas.

But the task force will be looking beyond the Department of Corrections for ways to incorporate the efforts of volunteer and faith-based groups.

"Every department is looking at it, every commissioner," Leman said.