How a single education vote is shaping legislative races across Alaska

In Anchorage, 148 teacher positions were vacant at the start of the school year. In Aniak, the superintendent says school buildings are falling down. The Kenai Peninsula Borough School District is projecting a $17 million deficit next year. In Fairbanks, an enrichment program for gifted students is on the chopping block.

Education funding is a key issue in several legislative races across the state that could shape control of the Alaska Legislature next year.

In March, lawmakers failed — by a single vote — to override Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s veto of a bill that would have substantially increased Alaska’s public education funding formula for the first time in years.

Since then, several candidates have said they were motivated to challenge sitting legislators because their representatives flip-flopped on the issue — voting first in favor of the bill to increase education funding, and then against overturning Dunleavy’s veto of the policy they had supported.

Incumbents who sided with Dunleavy say overriding the veto would have been futile because the governor could have again vetoed the funding from the budget. They argue that the path to a permanent increase in education funding must include agreeing to the governor’s demands — which include the expansion of charter school availability.

Challengers say that a permanent increase to the state’s education budget is urgently needed, and should not depend on the adoption of other reforms favored by the governor.

Many expect that education funding will again be a key issue in the coming legislative session. Lawmakers left Juneau earlier this year after approving a one-time funding boost for schools that educators and administrators said was insufficient.

Meanwhile, the impacts of the legislative stalemate are profound.

Kuspuk School District Superintendent Madeline Aguillard said that this school year, two-thirds of district teachers — who serve 320 students in nine schools — are international hires on visas. The district has no music or foreign language classes.

“No in-person, elective-type courses are taught by certified teachers,” she said. “They’re all an online-based model, because we can’t plan long-term to hire people.”

‘Pretty much trashed’

In an open Interior race to replace GOP Sen. Click Bishop, Rep. Mike Cronk, a fellow Republican, is running against Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly member Savannah Fletcher, an independent. Both say education has been brought up repeatedly in their campaigns.

Cronk said he’s been “pretty much trashed for not overriding the governor’s veto.”

Cronk, a retired schoolteacher, said he thinks the Base Student Allocation formula is broken, because it is written in such a way that ensures schools remain open even if they are not operating at full capacity.

“Everybody thinks just writing a big check solves the issue. It really doesn’t,” said Cronk.

The state’s funding formula should be revised with the goal of improving student performance, he said, and state funding could increase “as long as we know that our kids, our students, are the benefactors.”

Fletcher said education funding is “a major reason” she is running for the state Senate.

“If you believed in legislation enough to vote for it the first time, why would you not stick to your convictions?” Fletcher said. “I am disappointed, and I promise to be a legislator that will stick to my convictions.”

The view is shared by Walter Featherly, an Anchorage independent challenging Republican incumbent Rep. Julie Coulombe for an Anchorage Hillside seat. Like Cronk, Coulombe voted in favor of the underlying bill and then against overriding Dunleavy’s veto.

Featherly, a former president of the Anchorage School Board, said that Coulombe’s vote against overriding a bill she initially supported indicated that she was willing to “cave to political pressure.”

Coulombe was not available for an interview. In a written statement, she criticized Featherly and Dunleavy’s opponents for failing to consider the education reforms the governor sought to enact.

“I am for funding and reform, but you must have both sides willing to come to the middle, and I just didn’t experience people on the funding side willing to consider any of the governor’s reforms. I do not support pouring more money into a failing system but would like to see the schools change and adapt to improve results,” she said.

On Friday, the Anchorage School District projected that the $5,960 Base Student Allocation would need to be increased by $1,526 to match losses from inflation since 2017 — the last time the BSA was substantially boosted. A school funding increase of that size would cost the state over $385 million per year.

‘Coding their language’

The 907 Initiative, a group that supports progressive causes, has launched an advertising effort targeting sitting legislators for their votes on the education funding veto.

One ad attacks several lawmakers for voting no on overriding Dunleavy’s veto, calling the underlying bill “a historic opportunity to increase education funding and get our students the support they need to thrive.” The legislators on the receiving end of the attacks include Cronk and Coulombe, along with Kotzebue independent Rep. Thomas Baker and Anchorage Republican Rep. Craig Johnson.

“When I knock on doors, there are two main issues that I bring up. The first one is school funding,” said Featherly, who trailed Coulombe by three points in the August primary.

Johnson faces a challenge from Chuck Kopp, a more moderate GOP former lawmaker with a history of working across the aisle. Kopp led Johnson by a 21-point margin in the August primary.

Baker was appointed to his seat by Dunleavy late last year, and voted in line with the governor’s positions on key issues. He was a registered Republican when selected for the seat, but switched his party affiliation to independent ahead of the election. He faces two Democratic opponents, each of whom received more votes than he did in the primary — Mayor Saima Chase of Kotzebue and Robyn Burke of Utqiagvik, president of the North Slope Borough’s school board.

“The first thing I want to see is an increase to the Base Student Allocation,” Burke said in an interview.

Chase, who had Dunleavy as her fourth grade teacher in Kotzebue, said that she supports a long-term increase to the state’s school funding formula, alongside more funding for vocational education.

“It’s tough on our kids, because we constantly get first-year teachers here, and we’re not getting enough support to get them long term,” she said. “Gone are the days of teachers that have been here for 20 years.”

Baker did not respond to a request for comment. In a July interview with Kotzebue’s public radio station, Baker reasoned that the veto override vote would have been futile because the governor would have vetoed the funding from the budget.

Some lawmakers quietly said that voting to override the governor’s veto could lead to reprisals by Dunleavy against their other legislative priorities. Other legislators told the Daily News that it was simply difficult for a Republican lawmaker to defy a sitting Republican governor. Fifty-six of 60 legislators voted for the underlying education bill. Seventeen of those Republicans voted against the measure after Dunleavy vetoed it.

Aubrey Wieber, who directs the 907 Initiative, said it was important that Alaskans know about legislators’ record on the veto override — an action they may not choose to highlight.

“Everyone talks about supporting education, and even if they’re not supporting any funding increase for public education, they’re still pretty much coding their language so you can’t understand what their actual position is,” said Wieber.

Other independent groups backing candidates are also putting education front and center.

Putting Alaskans First, an independent expenditure group that funds progressive and centrist legislative candidates, received $70,000 this year from the political action committee of NEA-Alaska — a union representing most teachers in the state — and in turn contributed significant sums in key races.

Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group that urged Dunleavy to veto the bipartisan education bill and thanked legislators for sustaining that veto, has been spending money to support Republican candidates aligned with its positions. The advocacy group broadly supports expanding charter schools and sending more public funds to private schools.

Dunleavy has remained largely opaque on his education priorities after failing to gain legislators’ support for his policy goals earlier this year.

His office declined an interview request for this story. In response to emailed questions, Dunleavy spokeswoman Jessica Bowers said that the governor’s position is that “schools need funding to address inflation. However, the BSA is not a silver bullet, and funding should be targeted to where it will have the greatest positive impact on student learning.”

Fierce competition

Rep. Bryce Edgmon, a Dillingham independent running for reelection, said the makeup of the Legislature next year — and the House in particular — will play a role in determining the outcome of the education funding debate.

Currently, the House is governed by a 23-member majority that includes 19 Republicans, along with two Democrats and two independents — Edgmon among them.

The 16-member House minority, made up mostly of Democrats and independents, is seeking to grow its ranks enough to control the chamber. Increasing education spending is one of the coalition’s top priorities.

Members of the current House majority vary in their positions on education but have been skeptical of a plain funding increase.

House Speaker Cathy Tilton, a Wasilla Republican running unopposed, said she would support policy proposals favored by Dunleavy to increase the number of charter schools in Alaska. But when asked about whether House Republicans would support an increase to the Base Student Allocation, she declined to answer, saying that it would “certainly be a topic of discussion.”

“Although a lot of our members are being hit on not being pro-education, I would say that is totally opposite,” said Tilton.

Control is often won narrowly in the closely divided chamber, but it could take just two flipped seats to see a sea change.

The seats held by Baker, Johnson and Coulombe could all be part of determining control of the House as more moderate candidates run on a platform of boosting education funding.

The campaigns have so far refrained from talking about specific numbers. Last year, educators said they would need a boost of more than $350 million to the existing education budget of around $1.2 billion in order to make up for seven years without significant increases to the formula. The funding ultimately written into the bill vetoed by the governor included a $175 million increase to the estimated annual budget.

Edgmon said that the legislative debate next year could be all the more challenging because oil prices are currently hovering close to $70 per barrel, below past projections by the state.

“The competition for what could be a lesser amount of state dollars could be more fierce this upcoming session,” said Edgmon.

Correction: The story has been updated to reflect that the 907 Initiative focuses on progressive causes, but does not involve itself in political campaigns. A separate organization, 907 Action, supports progressive candidates in statewide and local elections. 907 Action and 907 Initiative are both directed by Aubrey Wieber.