Ralliers rejoice after override restores education funding increase
- Natalie Buttner
- Aug 2
- 6 min read
Updated: Aug 5
Protesters, legislators and governor agree: an increase to the Basic Student Allocation is not enough for Alaska education
By Natalie Buttner and Jasz Garrett
Juneau Independent
Demonstrators greeted lawmakers leaving the House Chamber on Saturday with applause for their decision to override cuts to increased education funding. The celebration came after a tense wait, during which more than 100 people rallied outside the Alaska State Capitol in support of the override.
However, educators and community members also acknowledged the need for more funding.
Gov. Mike Dunleavy called for changes in education policy rather than a further increase in the education budget.
The special session was originally scheduled to start at 10 a.m., with the joint session to consider overrides at 10:15 a.m.. But the joint session was postponed to after 1 p.m. due to Rep. Robyn Niayuq Burke, D-Utqiagvik, missing her flight to Juneau.
After she arrived, legislators overrode Dunleavy’s line-item veto in the state budget, which cut $200 of a $700 increase to the Base Student Allocation. The Alaska Legislature also overrode the governor’s veto of Senate Bill 183, which aims to make oil tax settlements available to lawmakers in the format they request.
Gwenna Corvez, a parent and teacher at Harborview Elementary School, stood outside the House Chambers after she found out the vote had been rescheduled. She said that she has witnessed the impacts of a smaller education budget in the classroom.
“I think the biggest impact is large class sizes,” she said. “They've increased a lot over the past 16 years that I’ve been teaching, to the point where now we talk about 30 students in a class as if that's normal — in elementary school.”
The BSA largely controls the salary and benefits package the Juneau School District can offer employees. Contract negotiations between the Juneau School District and the Juneau Education Association have been stalled due to uncertainty about state funding.
“I know that in the midst of negotiations, it's also important to have the funds so that we can back up what everyone needs,” Corvez said.
This spring, Carol May retired from the Juneau School District after 28 years of teaching.
“I’d say about 50% of my reasoning for retiring was due to budget cuts, not only for this year, but for prior years,” she said.
May said in the district, she mainly saw the impacts of budget cuts in IT support. Teachers’ laptops were also taken and replaced with Chromebooks, and the number of photocopies she and other teachers could make for students annually was limited.
“I was not able to teach the way I needed to teach,” she said, noting it may have worked for some teachers, but for many, switching to Chromebooks meant no access to files she had used for years.
During a press conference, the governor acknowledged challenges with teacher turnover and retention, and spoke on the advantages of proposed lump sum retention bonuses for teachers to combat this issue, rather than raising the BSA.
Pat Race also waited outside the House Chambers, advocating for overriding both vetoes. He drew a connection between them, hoping that increased legislative oversight of the Department of Revenue and oil tax settlements would increase funding to the state.
“My hope is that will be clarified, and that veto will be overridden, and that we'll get to learn whether or not they've been mismanaging our money to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars,” Race said. “We wouldn't necessarily even be having this discussion about education if we had an extra few hundred million dollars in our pockets.”
At 11 a.m., many of those waiting in the Capitol moved outside to join about a hundred others in a demonstration outside the Capitol building. The demonstration was part of a nationwide protest titled “Rage Against the Regime.”
Though speakers and protesters focused on education funding, there were also more general themes of anger about local and nationwide issues.
“I have been an educator for 22 years,” cultural educator Lyle James said in his address to the crowd. “I've never felt this press more than I have today, the fear of our educators wondering, ‘Will we have a job tomorrow?’”
Rep. Alyse Galvin, I-Anchorage, and Rep. Sara Hannan, D-Juneau, were briefly in attendance.
Speakers also addressed frustration around authoritarianism, defunding of public media, homelessness, glacial lake outburst flooding, and a recent incident in Juneau in which a man was hospitalized after being injured during an arrest.
As recommended by some speakers at the protest, about 10 supporters of the override returned to the hallways outside the House Chambers. The vote in the chambers coincided with a protest regarding police violence.
Some protesters who had arrived Saturday morning returned after the outside protest to watch the veto override proceedings from within the Capitol.
“That's the first time in my gallery, and just very exciting to see all that green show up on the screens and just a lot of smiles,” Corvez said. “We're not allowed to make much noise, so we just smiled wide.”
However, while those in favor of the overrides see this as a victory, others said there is more to be done.
Terra Stark, a former elementary school teacher who taught for 20 years, attended the override vote with her mother.
“The amount of money that's been allotted to support them through our legislator is not nearly enough,” Stark said. “Even with this override, it still isn't enough. There's so much more need in education right now.”
Rep. Rebecca Himschoot, I-Sitka, said while she is grateful, the $700 increase to the Base Student Allocation is still not enough due to the corrosive effects of inflation since 2011.
Before the veto override on Saturday, the current statutory BSA was $5,960, $30 higher than in 2017 and $280 higher than in 2011. Lawmakers have approved one-time increases after attempts at permanent increases failed.
“This is a really important and positive step forward, but it’s still remarkable to me that in this state, we have to work this hard to provide the schools with less than half the funding that they actually need,” Himschoot said.
She said outcomes of school performance are directly tied to funding, which she believes is a policy in itself.
In a press conference immediately after, Dunleavy disagreed.
“Money seems to be the go-to default to fix problems,” he said. “We believe it’s a policy to fix problems.”
Like numerous times earlier this year, he referenced Alaska being 51st in the nation in reading and math scores, according to the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP).
He said, “we should be moving through the ranks” now that the full $700 BSA hike has been restored. But he doubts that will be the case without further work on reforming policy. No meetings to discuss education policy have been scheduled for the special session as of Saturday, but a recently formed education task force will meet Aug. 25.
Dunleavy said if the $700 increase is not enough, “the Legislature better work pretty quick on this fiscal approach that we’re going to introduce to grow new industries and grow new opportunities for new revenue.”
When he vetoed the increase to the BSA in June, Dunleavy cited lower-than-expected oil prices for the line-item vetoes. The same deciding factor influenced legislators when they passed a budget with a $1,000 Permanent Fund dividend, the lowest in state history when adjusted for inflation.
He said there is plenty of time to work on a plan to grow the economy, producing more tax revenue through new industries in Alaska, such as resource development.
“If it’s not enough, I don’t know where you're gonna get it,” Dunleavy said.
• Contact Natalie Buttner at natalieb@juneauindependent.com. Contact Jasz Garrett at jasz@juneauindependent.com or (907) 723-9356.
