Groovy vibes?--That's the rationale suggested by Rep. Bill Stoltze for rapid and remarkably acrimony-free Senate passage of the state's FY06 operating budget Friday. He thinks the pleasantness was sparked by good tunes from the 31st rendition of the Alaska Folk Festival just down the hill from the capitol. The House operating budget and the Senate operating budget will be reconciled in a conference committee.

Sayonara--A national study indicates 42 percent of Alaska's public employee workforce will be gone within a decade. The loss of gray hairs here is substantial but the State of Washington really gets hammered. They are due to lose 64 percent of their seasoned employees.

I think they graded on the curve--Another national study, published by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, gave our K-12 system a B minus for college prep, a C for participation by working age adults in the university system, an F for affordability (net college costs of tuition, room, and board minus financial aid), and an F for completion because a low percentage of first-time, full-time students earn a bachelor's degree within six years. The report did note some improvement in preparation, completion and benefits but we've fallen off in participation and affordability.

Enough already!--The Wall Street Journal reported that political messages are filtering down to the children level. They noted, as examples, two books from opposite ends of the political spectrum. One was entitled "No, George, No" and the other "Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed!" What ever happened to "Horton Hears a Who"?

Phone: (907) 465-4947
Fax: (907) 465-2108
Mail: Sen. Elton, State Capitol
Juneau, AK 99801
Email:
Senator.Kim.Elton
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Web: http://elton.akdemocrats.org

     The times they are changing. State pols now are aggressively trying to spend permanent fund earnings on "stuff", not just for inflation proofing, reinvestment back into the principle of the permanent fund, or dividends.
     In the recent past, politicians from the governor down promised they wouldn't spend this pot of money without a vote of the people. That was then. This is now. Now that we're trying to crack open the earnings account we'll see, as Bob Dylan put it in his 1964 classic, if Alaskans "soon shake the windows/And rattle the walls/For the times they are a-changin'."
     Let's be honest. This attempt to spend permanent fund on earnings is not just a little crack--like we've done before with spending ostensibly linked to permanent fund operations--but a big, wide crack named SB155 that oozes more than a third of a billion dollars for project spending.
     Bet you never expected that to happen given the plethora of campaign promises that permanent fund earnings won't be spent without a vote of the people. The events of last Wednesday, when SB155 passed the Senate 13-7, coupled with the promises made during past elections seasons kinda remind me of another 1964 Dylan song--It Ain't Me, Babe. Not only may the title line be a refrain in the next election season--it ain't me that broke a promise--but the iconic song also includes the lines: "Go lightly from the ledge, babe/Go lightly on the ground./I'm not the one you want, babe/I'll only let you down."
     I have a feeling a lot of voters will feel let down.
     SB155, sponsored and co-sponsored by eight Republican senators, spends $345 million on school maintenance and new construction--some of it for K-12 facilities and some for university projects. Some projects are needed more than others.
     The bill does follow the maintenance project priority list kept by the state's education professionals (in fact, SB155 does all those K-12 maintenance projects). But the new school projects and university projects are picked randomly. Some are on priority lists submitted by the state's educational experts or the regents, some are not. Some priority projects listed by the regents and education department are inexplicably skipped over. Maybe that's because, as Dylan reminded us in a 1989 song, "We live in a political world."
     But what defines SB155 more than the projects on the 'to do' list, or the politics of the list, is the funding source. Blessed by oil prices in the stratosphere, the state's general fund is flush. The general fund is normally the state's checking account when it comes to budget items and conservative estimates put excess revenue in this checking account this fiscal year alone at half a billion dollars. Also available for the SB155 spending is the two billion plus dollars in the constitutional budget reserve. The CBR is generally our savings account, used for government budget items when we run out of money in our general fund checking account.
     But SB155 ignores the $500 million in the checking account and ignores the $2 billion plus in the savings account. SB155 instead goes straight at the permanent fund earnings reserve--our trust account for future generations of Alaskans. It's all over now, baby blue, rasped Dylan in 1965.
     From a political science perspective, Wednesday's Senate action on SB155 puts into play some interesting issues. Will abandonment of 'no-earnings reserve-spending-without-a-vote-of-the-people' campaign pledges hurt incumbents? Does spending from a trust account, instead of a checking account or savings account offend Alaskan family sensibilities? Will SB155's permanent fund earnings funding source compel the governor (who promised a vote) to veto the projects so none of the buildings will be fixed or built?
     All these questions drove the debate Wednesday on SB155. We didn't have any debate on the integrity of the project list. Two amendments went straight to the heart of the bill. The first changed the funding source for the projects from the permanent fund earnings account (the trust account) to the constitutional budget reserve (the savings account of $2 plus billion). That failed with eight Democrats voting to switch from the trust account (permanent fund earnings) to the savings account (the CBR).
     The second amendment provided that an advisory vote be held before we drained a third of a billion dollars from the permanent fund earnings. That failed 7-13 with seven Democrats favoring the amendment and 12 Republicans and one Democrat voting against.
     I voted 'yes' on the two amendments and 'no' on the bill. I fundamentally believe the permanent fund earnings are the last place to go when we have a flush checking account and savings account. Another Dylan classic, the 1966 song Most Likely You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine, captures my rationale perfectly: "I'm going to let you pass/and I'll go last./Then time will tell just who fell/And who's been left behind,/When you go your way and I'll go mine." I'm going to the permanent fund earnings last. They went their way and I went mine.
     It makes no sense to me, no sense at all, to pay for one-time projects out of a trust account for future tough times when we're rolling in cash in our checking account and that fat checking account is protected by an even fatter savings account.
     I have to believe the motivation of some who voted 'no' on the amendment to switch the funding source and 'yes' on the bill was philosophical--the only rational explanation is that they view the permanent fund differently than I do. They see that piggy bank and want to crack it open. I see that piggy bank and know it's held in trust for our children.
     Permanent fund earnings should be the last place we go, not the first. Why would anyone disagree with that? As Dylan suggests in his 1962 song covered by every folk wannabe, that answer is "blowin' in the wind."