OPINION: If the Legislature’s budget reflected Alaskans’ values

Alaska’s House of Representatives has finalized an operating budget after rejecting amendments to fund literacy, child care, Pre-K education and a range of public health programs designed to reduce the rate of child trauma and abuse. With Alaska children facing the highest rate of abuse and sexual assault and some of the lowest reading preparedness rates in the U.S., why would a slim majority of legislators reject funding for programs that most voters see as common sense? The answer is simple: Allocation of approximately a billion extra dollars for a mega-Permanent Fund dividend is crowding out investment for literacy and health programs that are orders of magnitude more affordable. If you want to understand why Alaska is squandering its wealth and falling farther behind in terms of economics, education and health, this year’s budget deliberations illustrate it precisely.

We could easily afford to pay a healthy PFD, and fund a great K-12 education system, and make investments in literacy and kids’ health that would ensure we never again are worst in the nation for indicators like child abuse. The math works, but the politics haven’t.

Although a majority of legislators in the House are personally supportive of public education, the House leadership structured a budget around a $2,700 PFD that will costs the state $1.73 billion. The marginal cost of going from a normal $1,000-plus PFD to a mega-$2,700 PFD is more than $1 billion. Following that decision, leadership bullied House majority members into rejecting these amendments that would have actually improved our state’s reading and public health outcomes:

• $15 million for child care grants, which according to providers would stabilize the labor force in the sector and ensure parents can access child care.

• $3.7 million for the Infant Learning Program and Help Me Grow, complementary programs that help kids catch up to their developmental milestones and enter school ready to learn.

• $320,000 for Imagination Library to ensure all eligible kids receive books in the mail to help families teach literacy at a young age.

• $14 million so every kid in Alaska could access Pre-K and enter kindergarten ready to learn.

We should give credit where it’s due: The Alaska Department of Health has prioritized the Healthy Families initiative and explained to legislators how programs like these will reduce child abuse and neglect — if we fund them adequately. If kids have support in early childhood and good schools K-12, Alaska will have a prosperous future.

The House majority initially included $175 million to reverse recent cuts in funding to K-12 education, then backtracked and used an unfunded Constitutional Budgetary Reserve draw to pay for this basic operations funding. Thus, K-12 education is sort-of-funded in the House budget, but the structure of that funding is designed to hold kids hostage in exchange for mega-PFDs. Note the differential in costs: Fully funding education and kids’ health programs is orders of magnitude cheaper than inflating the size of PFDs.

This budget is out of line with most Alaskans’ values. If it were signed into law, we can anticipate what would happen: Alaska would continue to have worst-in-the-nation child abuse rates, and fall farther behind in reading readiness and educational attainment.

In theory, the Legislature could raise a massive amount of revenue to fund much larger dividends than the historic average. I think we should vote on revenue measures to see whether the legislature as a whole will raise sufficient revenue for core services and large PFDs. That way, all Alaskans can watch and see if a majority of legislators really want to raise taxes.

Regardless of tax increases affecting future budgets, the state Senate will have the task of aligning this year’s budget with Alaskans’ values. We can have a great school system, high rates of reading proficiency, safety for kids and a normal PFD with current revenue. More revenue could be a good thing, but we can’t let our state continue spiraling downward while we wait for tax increases that may never materialize.

Rep. Zack Fields (D-Anchorage) is in his third term representing Downtown, South Addition, Forest Park, Fairview, North Star and Eastridge neighborhoods in the state House of Representatives.

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