The state spends hundreds of millions each year on cash subsidies for oil companies in Cook Inlet, more than the University of Alaska receives in its annual general fund appropriation.
Yet a Legislature that is wary of curbing the Cook Inlet cash flow bonanza is ready to slice $25 million or more from the university, cutting educational programs and eliminating hundreds of jobs across the state.
The prospect of a major decline in university programs ought to be generating the most passionate debate among those who care about the future of higher education in Alaska this spring, but it is not.
That's because of the diversion created by Sen. Pete Kelly's bill to allow almost anyone who succeeds in reaching the age of 21 to carry a concealed gun on university campuses without a permit.
The measure, Senate Bill 174, is likely to win passage and become law unless Gov. Bill Walker vetoes it, which is what I hope he does.
Kelly and many other legislators fall all over themselves trying to be seen as pro-gun, especially when they portray a nonexistent problem as a priority. The bill is co-sponsored by Sens. Mike Dunleavy, Lesil McGuire, Cathy Giessel and Bill Stoltze.
I don't object to responsible gun owners carrying concealed guns in urban settings, but to the attitude promoted by the Senate leaders — that the way to increase campus safety in Alaska is to get a lot more guns in classrooms and offices.
When Kelly recites the litany of mass murderers from around the world, it's easy to imagine how the right person carrying a gun in the right place at the right time could have prevented a tragedy. It's also easy to imagine an unlucky person getting hit by a meteorite.
"We just saw in Brussels the attack that happened there. It's becoming a more and more dangerous world and bad guys realize where the soft targets are," Kelly said. "And the soft targets are where risk managers and employers have put up signs that say 'no concealed carry here.'"
To listen to Kelly, the only thing standing between the soft targets of the University of Alaska and a massacre by a bad guy is a random person who buys a gun.
Bad guys and good guys. Just like in the movies.
But the bigger public safety risk is that a careless good guy will create a tragedy. There are immature gun owners in Alaska, as a glance at any bullet-ridden road sign demonstrates.
If you carry a concealed weapon, you need to be mentally prepared to use it, perhaps acting under pressure with no time to think. Is that a toy gun or a real one pointed at you? Target practice is the easy part.
Some people have the discipline and judgment to take on the responsibility, such as qualified law enforcement personnel who spend their working lives preparing for an unlikely event that could require the taking of a life.
But I wouldn't expect the average legislator, college student or faculty member to make the right split-second call. Make the wrong one and the savior of helpless innocents turns into the perpetrator of a crime. The Kelly plan for school safety doesn't account for the trigger-happy.
Kelly has objected to sensible proposals from the university that the bill be amended to require people to get a concealed gun permit and to restrict guns in situations where K-12 students are on university facilities.
"I got to tell you, I raised some kids. I carried. I had firearms around kids, a lot. It was a good thing," Kelly said at one hearing on his bill. "It was a good thing. We should probably do that."
"I want to be able to protect my child at a football game, at a soccer game, skiing, whatever the case may be."
I raised some kids too. And I've been to my share of school events in Alaska. I can't think of one of them that would have been made better by turning my safety over to some guy with a Dirty Harry complex.
It should tell legislators something that most of the students and faculty members who have spoken up about Kelly's bill are opposed to it.
On Thursday, Kelly and fellow members of the Senate Finance Committee ignored reason and claimed there should be no financial impact from the bill. They're making no allowance for the cost of new security measures. In an earlier hearing, Sen. Charlie Huggins said that by providing free ammunition for target practice, the university could get people to volunteer as security officers for a "very low cost."
The university has estimated that it will cost millions to implement the bill because there are offices and buildings statewide where concealed guns will be prohibited. The bill, as amended, would allow the university to regulate possession in the dorms, in health service offices and counseling offices, among other places.
Kelly and Dunleavy said the university could protect public safety simply by putting up "no gun" signs. The only cost will be the cost of the sign.
This from the same guys who say that "no gun" signs are meaningless at preventing gun violence.
"I think what the deal is that we've given you the flexibility to figure that out and it isn't going to cost a bunch of money," Kelly told university officials.
UA Attorney Mike Hostina said one reason for higher security costs is that the bill provides for establishing restricted access areas, secure points at which visitors would be screened.
"It doesn't say that," Kelly said.
In fact, Kelly's bill says exactly that.
The university could regulate guns in an "area beyond a secure point where visitors are screened," the bill says.
The legislators were probably not listening, but when the UA Board of Regents met Friday and voted to oppose the bill in its current form, Stacey Lucason, the student member of the regents, outlined the situation perfectly, saying legislators are looking for a problem where one does not exist. She said the people opposed to the bill are students and faculty members, but their voices are being ignored by lawmakers.
"It's an election year and some legislators are more interested in an emotional issue instead of the less popular but far more important issue of the budget," she said. "It's distracting from real issues and we have a duty to speak against wasted public time."
Dermot Cole, a 1979 graduate of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, is a Fairbanks-based columnist for the Alaska Dispatch News. The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)alaskadispatch.com.