The current and retired University of Alaska Anchorage staff want more money for a failed university. These high-paid, state-funded workers have lost national accreditation and enrollment has been dropping, yet they always need more money from the state. The university has large tracts of land to use for school funding, but they want the easy way out. Look at the high salaries that they are commanding. This university is not Notre Dame or Yale — the state should tell them to get their act together and learn how to do with less, not more every year.
The Anchorage School District also has a similar problem with falling enrollment, some of the lowest test scores in the nation and the least ready graduates for collage. But as usual “it’s for the kids.” Let’s challenge the school district to reduce its administration staff by 50 percent and prove “it’s for the kids” before they get any more money.
I have lived here a long time, and in every recession Alaska has faced, the private sector laid off people and reduced spending and the world didn’t end. The public employees are protected and never have to worry about this. They aren’t shy about wanting to take from the rest of us, so they can keep their nice, comfy jobs and always use the Alaska-will-fail scare tactic.
I say let’s try a new way and quit giving the government employees everything they want. The government will take half of the PFD and after a few years they will come for the rest as they cry for more money. This state budget belongs to every Alaskan, not just the whiny ones at the town halls and in the newspaper telling us the sky is falling. The silent majority sees what is really happening, just like when our Anchorage mayor gives unions raises while the private sector lays off hundreds of employees. We need to do what’s right for the state, not what the departments that feed off the state expect. Our elected officials have squandered the Constitutional Budget Reserve account, too; just think where we would be with our oil revenues and PFD if our politicians saved instead of spend every year.
— Mark Elliott
Anchorage
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