April 9, 2014 Voice Your Opinions! Letters to the editor make a difference. You can send a 175-word letter to the Anchorage Daily News by e-mail (letters@adn.com); or by fax or mail (call them at 257-4308). Send letters to the Anchorage Press via e-mail editor@anchoragepress.com or by mail to 540 E. Fifth Ave, Anchorage, 99501. Feel free to call us if you need factual information to help you write a letter. Contact the Governor. The Governor can be reached at 269-7450; sean.parnell@alaska.gov; or www.alaska.gov. Contact us. My office can be reached at: 716 W. 4th Ave, Anchorage, AK 99501; by phone: 269-0106; visit my website at http://gara.akdemocrats.org; or email: Rep.Les.Gara@akleg.gov

Dear Friends and Neighbors:

I remembered my promise to you: a short synopsis for those who have lives to lead; and a longer explanation for those of you who want details and not snippets.  Here goes on an education bill that leads to three more years of teacher and classroom cuts, and, on a brighter note, this Friday and Saturday’s FREE dental clinic dentists have organized to help our neighbors in need. Spread the word – on one or both of these issues!

Education Cut Déjà vu:  Cutting the people who help students achieve is simply cutting opportunity for the next generation.  Money doesn’t grow on trees and we have to economize in a world of massively declining oil revenue.  But we shouldn’t economize on the backs of our children.  We should prioritize. 

Reversing the three-year trend of cuts in our schools is a higher priority than a $1 billion Knik Arm Bridge, that fancy new Anchorage legislative office building that will cost us an additional $3 million a year, and questionable multi-billion dollar mega-projects (I do think we need a gasline that gets us affordable energy, and revenue from exported excess gas if we can fix some of the troubling items in that bill). 

And I’d like the Governor to apologize to parents and students who he said were “scaring everybody” by, um, asking their elected officials to reverse the last three years of cuts – which I’ve voted to stop. 

In my view, these parents and students are being responsible citizens.  It’s fair if you disagree with them.  It’s unfair if you vilify them. The state benefits if citizens stay active and involved.  And judging by the Governor’s education bill, and the bill that passed, we need citizen voices and pressure more than ever.  So this one legislator says thank you!

Monday night the House passed an education bill, at 1:00 am, leading to three more years of classroom cuts (likely teachers, staff, curriculum, or all three).  That’s on top of the past three years that have seen over 600 teachers, staff, counsellors, and nurses cut. 

This year we’re faced with a $2 billion deficit, and a new oil tax law the state now concedes will lead to a 40% reduction in oil production in the next 10 years, and that doesn’t let the state fairly share in oil company windfall profits when oil prices spike. The endless billion dollar deficits that oil tax law guarantees gives those who are okay with more educator cuts a good excuse. 

We’ll keep working on fixing this mess until the last day of session, to see if we can create opportunity for children, not stifle it.  A more detailed analysis on how it continues cuts for another three years, and what shortfalls it leaves school districts with, follows later.

Spread the Word: Free Dental Clinic Friday and Saturday

Thanks to some great, publicly minded dentists like Dave Nielson, Julie Robinson and Evan Young, there will be a free dental clinic for those who cannot afford to go to the dentist.

The Alaska Mission of Mercy will be providing free dental care at the Dena’ina Center, 600 W. 7th Avenue, Friday April 11 and Saturday April 12, from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.

• Free dental care for up to 2,000 patients in just 2 days!
• Children and adults
• First come, first served
• No application process, no income limitations
• Patient information at www.akmom.org

The main goal of the Alaska Mission of Mercy is to relieve pain and infection.  It is unlikely that all dental needs will be met at this clinic.  But the most immediate needs will be addressed. Multiple procedures such as fillings AND extractions are not likely because they are trying to provide care for as many people as possible. Patients will receive a list of community dental resource where you can continue your dental care.  Your patience and understanding is appreciated if this event draws a large crowd.

Services Available at the Clinic

• Cleanings
• Fillings
• Extractions
• As time permits, flippers (like retainers with from teeth)
• As time permits, denture and partial repairs
• As time permits, root canals on front teeth

Services NOT Available at the Clinic

• Implants
• Braces
• Impacted wisdom tooth extractions (pulling of teeth not visible in the mouth)
• Cosmetic porcelain veneers
• Crowns (caps)
• Bridges
• Dentures
• No narcotics will be dispensed

Education Bill: Why it needs More Work, More Public Pressure.

The bill that passed last night shuffled some money around from one pot to another with no increase, and included modest but inadequate money that has been added.  Unfortunately, it is completely inadequate to meet the deficits Anchorage, Juneau, Fairbanks, and most districts across the state face.  And in the three-year plan that passed, the staff and curriculum cuts in the second and third years will be even worse than those in the first year.

After three years of neglect since 2011, education funding has become like a lawn you don’t mow until August.  When you create a mess, fixing it isn’t easy. 

Anchorage gets $8 million less than needed to meet the $23 million shortfall it faces to just keep the staff and curriculum students had last year.  All school districts then get less money  two years and three years from now than they do in year one of this three-year plan. 

In Fairbanks students will be left $2.5 million short of their $8 million deficit in year one, and their deficits will grow in years two and three.  Juneau gets $1.8 million towards its $4.5 million deficit in year one, and roughly a third of that towards its deficit in years two and three.

The same story is repeated across the state.

The bill results in cuts in every major school district for the next three years, unless school districts reach into their reserves.

We generated a chart using a model created by the Legislative Finance Division.  It shows how short the bill falls in alleviating deficits in Anchorage, Fairbanks, Cordova, Juneau, Kenai, Mat-Su.

How it “Works”

I and other Democrats wanted to set a benchmark that would avert cuts and allow the rehire of some of the 600+ staff cut over the last three years.  We offered a $404/$200/$200 increase in per student or “Base Student Allocation” (BSA) funds over three years.  We learned from school districts that year two and year three increases of $58 per year as the Governor proposed, or even $125 per year increases, won’t stave off cuts.  Certainly we’ll push to keep schools even, at least, and provide more if we can get there to help rehire lost staff since 2011.

But the bill that passed didn’t do this.  It did the following.

House Bill 278 intends to eliminate a $25 million grant that has come every year since fiscal year 2011, but that has not risen to reflect school cost increases. 

That $25 million deletion is not stated in the bill because that money is in the operating budget – and you can’t amend the operating budget in an education bill.  But the deletion of this $25 million is expressly intended by House leadership – and was stated on the House Floor last night by bill supporters, and by GOP members in the media.  The GOP bill takes that $25 million, eliminates it, and then transfers it into the per pupil funding formula known as the Base Student Allocation.  $25 million is the equivalent of $100 put into the BSA. 

That’s how supporters get from the Governor’s vastly inadequate $85 BSA increase to a $185 BSA increase.  The “extra $100” comes, not from additional funding, but by taking $25 million out of the operating budget and moving it to the BSA.   So the $185 BSA increase is really the Governor’s proposed $85 increase, plus the transfer of $25 million that’s been in the budget the last three years.

The bill also adds one-time statewide FY15 funding of $30 million – to be distributed as if it were Base Student Allocation money.  That $30 million will disappear in the second and third year of the three-year plan. 

The $185 BSA increase in year one (which has last year’s $25 million transferred into it), is followed by smaller $58 BSA increases in years two and three.

And here’s a bigger problem if you don’t want to cut more teachers and staff. 

Interestingly, when the $30 million (the equivalent of a $121 BSA increase) disappears in the second year of this plan, the education funding in the second and third years will, in pure dollar terms, be less than the funding in year one.  That is, in year two, districts will lose the equivalent of $121 in BSA funding, and get $58 in BSA funding instead.  That’s a $63 cut in the BSA equivalent from year one to year two. 

In year three districts will get an additional $58 in BSA funding.  That’s still, in total, less than the year one funding!

Feel free to call with any questions.  Our goal as this bill moves through the Senate is still an amount that avoids cuts the next three years, and ideally allows some restoration of lost staff since 2011.

You can help with letters to the editor in Anchorage (see box at top of e-news) and also in your local paper. And e-mails to your legislators help too, though letters to the editor have a wider impact because they are read by, and can activate, thousands of people.

Best Regards,