Politics

Alaska House adds money for education while issuing dire warnings about the future

JUNEAU -- After hours of debate, Alaska state representatives grudgingly voted for more money for Alaska schools, but also issued dire warnings about the future.

In a session that ended Monday after midnight, the Alaska House voted 29-11 to pass House Bill 278, Gov. Sean Parnell's omnibus education bill. But now it bears only a passing resemblance to the bill he proposed at the session's start, when he dubbed 2014 the "education session."

But the bill could have been even more radical -- before passage, the full House stripped two last-minute additions from the House Finance Committee out of the bill -- but other controversial provisions remain.

The first deleted provision would have slashed state spending on pension costs now, but shift huge costs to uncertain later years. The other would have given extra funding to big city schools with well-placed legislators.

The hours of floor debate showed divisions within the Republican-led House Majority Caucus, where two of the caucus' most powerful members, Finance Committee co-chairs Rep. Bill Stoltze, R-Chugiak, and Rep. Alan Austerman, R-Kodiak, complained about the entire House overturning some of the Finance Committee's work.

That included the dramatic change to the Teachers' Retirement System, promoted by Stoltze and Legislative Finance Director David Teal. It would have switched Alaska to a pay-as-you-go plan and used the teachers' retirement trust fund to subsidize those payments while it lasted. Then it would leave future legislators the task of finding the money to make billions in retiree pension and health care payments.

Rep. Cathy Munoz, R-Juneau, led the charge against that plan last week in committee, where it failed on a 5-5 vote. On Monday, she took it up again before the full House.

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"The risk to continue to balloon the unfunded liability is real," Munoz said.

But Rep. Tammie Wilson, R-North Pole, said that the Stoltze/Teal plan would reduce annual payments to manageable levels, something that's going to soon become unmanageable. The House already stripped out of the operating budget the money Parnell had included to make this year's unfunded liability payment, she said.

"You're not even making it this year, how are you going to make it next year and the following year," Wilson said.

But representatives Monday had something they didn't have last week: an actuarial analysis of the Stoltze/Teal plan commissioned by the Legislature's Budget & Audit Committee.

Rep. Mike Hawker, R-Anchorage read the consulting actuary's conclusions of billions in increased costs and huge risk to the state, and urged his fellow legislators to do away with that plan, but said the state's unfunded liability does need to be addressed.

"I want to do it with the surety it is supported by sound actuarial science," he said.

Eventually, only Austerman, Wilson and Rep. Mark Neuman, R-Big Lake voted to keep the retirement change.

Stoltze and Reps. Mia Costello and Lindsey Holmes, both Anchorage Republicans, reversed their votes from last week. Munoz' motion passed 37 to 3.

The full House also rejected a Finance Committee change that had provided the state's largest school districts with extra money. It changed a long-standing school funding formula to provide special benefit to districts with the most big schools.

But Rep. Bryce Edgmon, D-Dillingham, a Democrat who is a member of the Republican-led Majority, won passage of an amendment removing the big-city favoritism.

"Although the bigger schools have a very justifiable need for more money, as established in the Finance Committee, I argue that so do the smaller schools," he said. That amendment was adopted 27-13.

The education bill now includes an increase in the base student allocation (now at $5,680) of $185, about halfway to the $400 Democrats said was needed.

But that BSA increase also came with the elimination of an existing $25 million extra in the budget, equivalent to about $100 in the BSA, reducing the actual increase to about the $85 proposed by Parnell.

While Democrats said that was not enough to repair years of cuts and stave off new ones, Austerman said he'd been pressured by many in the Majority to not go above a $75 increase.

Wilson said that amount was more than the state could afford, and was one of only two Republicans to vote with Minority Democrats against the bill as it passed 29-11.

She warned of difficult times to come.

"We've just put more money in, but we know in the next few years we are not going to have it," she said.

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Alaska is already in deficit spending this year, and projects dipping into reserves for years to come.

Others complained about the quality of current schools, and said then wanted to see improvements before they got more money.

"I think we gave up too easy on accountability," said Rep. Craig Johnson, R-Anchorage.

And Rep. Eric Feige, R-Chickaloon, continued the criticism, saying Alaska was already spending too much.

"We should be asking what we are getting for our money," he said.

But Democrats said schools need to stop recent years' cuts if they are to improve, but the education bill doesn't do enough.

"It's a great start, but I don't think it's enough," said Rep Chris Tuck, D-Anchorage, House Minority leader, as Democrats expressed hope that more money would be added in the Senate.

In final bill debate, Democrats also cited additional flaws in the bill, often in areas where their amendments were voted down by Republicans.

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The bill includes a provision extending the time it takes to get tenure for teachers in larger cities, something sponsors said would improve teacher quality but which Democrats said would make hiring teachers more difficult.

But Rep. Peggy Wilson, R-Wrangell, said competent teachers didn't need tenure at all.

"If you are good at what you do, you don't need to worry about that," she said.

House Bill 278 now also includes a new ranking system of school quality, which will come with A to F letter grades for each school.

And a provision to allow companies to get tax credits for contributions to private or religious schools that some legislators called "likely unconstitutional" was retained after an attempt at removal faltered.

The bill also bars Alaska from adopting educational standard based on the national Common Core standards, recently a target of tea party activists.

Rep. Sam Kito, D-Juneau, said the bill didn't include a definition of "based on" and would be difficult to determine how much Alaska's new educational standards might be based on national standards.

"I'm thinking the language is vague enough that it might be in our best interest for this to come out," he said.

But Stoltze said that Gov. Parnell and Education Commissioner Mark Hanley have both stated publicly that they didn't support Common Core. All the Legislature is doing is holding them to their public statements, he said.

Maybe Alaska should take an even tougher stand against Common Core, Stoltze said.

"I'm almost embarrassed that it's not stronger," he said.

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