June 11, 2015 Voice Your Opinions! Letters to the editor make a difference. You can send a letter of up to 200 words (shorter letters are more likely to be accepted) to the Alaska Dispatch News by email (letters@alaskadispatch.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; 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 Neighbors:

I’ve been periodically frustrated, and sometimes worse than that as the budget process plodded along too slowly. Passing a budget isn’t rocket science and many Democrats, Republicans and our one Independent legislator could likely have reached compromise in a few days, rather than taking 50 extra days of special session. But some legislators, though good people, were, I’d have to say, less “flexible” than others.

Yesterday a bi-partisan compromise budget finally passed. A bi-partisan budget means there are important Republican priorities, important Democratic priorities, many bi-partisan priorities, and some priorities many legislators on both sides don’t love. I believe the budget does more good than bad.

I and others worked to negotiate in reforms to protect and improve the lives of abused children and foster youth. It reduced major cuts to public schools, the University, public radio, and the monthly payments we provide to low income seniors. It restored what had been a wholesale elimination of state-funded pre-k. And importantly, passing a budget before July 1 avoids an expensive and stressful government shutdown. People agreed to work across party lines, and for the reasons stated above, I supported it. I was disappointed we couldn’t garner enough majority member votes for smarter cuts that would have reduced the budget more surgically, and without any cuts to education funding. Those battles will continue next year.

Medicaid Expansion: I Still Think We Can Get It Passed: I’m very disappointed a vote on Medicaid Expansion and Reform was ultimately blocked during session and 50 days of special session. That occurred under an arcane rule that the Republican-led majority uses, barring a floor vote if a majority inside their caucus does not want one – even if a bill has enough votes across party lines to pass. I will keep pushing, with the Governor, for Medicaid Expansion and Reform.

At a time of impending statewide job losses, I believe we should have passed a Medicaid Expansion and Reform bill that would bring 4,000 jobs, $330 million in state budget savings over the next six years, medical care for people who need it, and $145 million in federal funds that would ripple through our economy. I respect those who disagree, but I was convinced of the merits of this bill, and we don’t yet have the votes in the majority caucus to get it to the floor. I do think that will change on this very popular issue as the next election nears, and if the public keeps pushing. I wasn’t willing to shut down the government in a likely futile protest.

Why did Passing A Budget Take So Long? This year, under the Constitution, Democratic and Republican votes were needed to pass a budget. The idea of a bi-partisan budget didn’t offend me at all, but some folks are used to passing a one-party budget with little compromise. The logjam finally broke this week, and a bi-partisan budget compromise passed yesterday.

For much of the session and special session some Republican leaders kept looking for ways to avoid a bi-partisan budget, and avoid compromise across party lines. Most people, in both parties, I think, could have solved budget differences months ago.

For much of the past month some who wanted to avoid bi-partisan compromise considered a novel scheme to drain $4.9 billion from the Permanent Fund Earnings Reserve which, under technical constitutional rules, would have then let them bypass Democrats and pass a GOP-only budget. There were cool heads in both parties who favored compromise, and ultimately those folks prevailed. Compromise was delayed as this Permanent Fund plan kept getting dangled as a way to avoid working across party lines. The public increasingly opposed this Permanent Fund plan, as evidence came out that with bad market years it could jeopardize the Dividend – a third rail in Alaska politics. Sen. Kevin Meyer admitted this problem on the radio last week, and ultimately folks dropped that idea. Here is his concession that the Permanent Fund plan could have jeopardized the dividend just to avoid a bi-partisan budget:
http://akdemocrats.org/gara/060415_KFQD-Sen-Meyer-on-risk-to-dividends.mp3

What the Budget Compromise Does:

The Good:

A Fair Chance In Life For Foster Youth and Abused Children: Alaska has been chronically and vastly short of caseworkers to investigate child abuse and neglect, and get Alaska’s 2,500 foster youth into permanent loving homes. We can’t continue with a system that leads to 40% of our foster youth ending up homeless at some point, and results in a 27% incarceration rate. We can do better, and did in this budget.

A recent study points out some caseworkers had caseloads so huge that protecting the children they are charged with was not “humanly possible.” With excessive caseloads, most new social workers don’t even last two years on the job, and burn out and quit when we need staff who have the time to help youth succeed. A 2012 study, adjusted for the continued growth in our foster youth population, suggests were are roughly 50-70 staff short to run a protective foster care system. We added roughly 30 needed social workers to bring normalcy and a better chance in life to these youth.

Restoring State-Funded Pre-K: The GOP budget that passed in April cut all evidence-based state funded classroom and Parents as Teachers out of classroom pre-k. We restored this pre-K learning, and expanded pre-k to cover more children.

Protecting Seniors: The April budget also had a $5.1 million cut to the senior benefits program that provides payment benefits to low income seniors who earn as little as $11,041/year. These seniors, who struggle to pay for basic necessities and medicine, were slated for a 20% benefit cut. Through compromise we reduced this cut by more than half, and added back $2.8 million to this low income senior benefit program.

The University and Public Radio were slated for major cuts. We were able to reduce the cuts to these valued Alaska institutions as well.

Honoring Promises: We should stand by our written word to workers. Some tried to avoid honoring the third year of a very modest wage deal with non-union and union workers. The statutory and agreed upon 1%, 1%, 2.5% three-year pay increase agreement was honored.

The So-So:

Reducing Major Education Cuts: Early versions of the budget included extreme education cuts that would have resulted in the loss of hundreds of teachers statewide. The Senate budget included a $79 million cut, and the budget that passed in April included a $48 million cut to public education. Through negotiation we were able to reduce this to a $32 million cut, which Anchorage believes it can absorb without losing teachers. I am not thrilled with this education cut, but worked hard to reduce this budget cut as far as we could. We simply couldn’t get enough votes from across the aisle for a better education budget than this, which was frustrating.

What We Couldn’t Achieve

There were smarter budget savings out there, which would have helped us avoid some damaging cuts. A recent report I requested shows the budget includes $609 million more in state-paid oil company tax credits than the law requires. That treats oil companies better than children and seniors, as schools and seniors received less than the statutes required.

Here’s what I said about that under the budget that passed in April:

https://www.facebook.com/freeryan/videos/10153203990453211/

I think those credits should have been at least cut by $200 million over the next few years, until we scale back the credit laws, and are closer to a balanced budget. The effect of doing this would be to still pay these earned credits, but oil companies would have to wait perhaps 2 – 3 months longer to get paid, at the beginning of the new fiscal year instead of at the end of the fiscal year when they were applied for.

And Democrats tried amendments to save roughly $3 million a year by moving from the new, expensive, $4.2 million Anchorage Legislative Office Building to space in the Atwood Building. We also tried to reduce prior grants to the $6 billion Susitna Dam, though were successful working with the Governor to stop any major spending on the money-losing Kodiak Rocket Launch facility, $600 Million Juneau Road, and $1.7 billion Knik Arm Bridge project.

Why Compromise?

The budget that passed in April did far more harm to schoolchildren, neglected and abused youth, and seniors than what passed Thursday. I voted for what I considered a vastly improved budget, but not a perfect one. And I had to realize we needed to cut the budget at a time of very low oil prices. All parties agreed to roughly $800 million in budget reductions, a major budget cut to address a major deficit. Some cuts, I think, went too far. Some provisions were improved vastly. And we negotiated to improve a number of provisions that had passed in the previous budget bill.

Moving forward I will keep working for an oil tax law that works better than the current one, which produces $650 million LESS in production taxes than we will pay out in oil company tax credits in the next two years. We can’t live with a tax that gives our resources away for little, and we need the revenue to fund schools, and needed senior, disability and children’s services, and a strong school system.

We have work to do together. But we also needed to pass a budget – 50 days ago in my view – and definitely by now, so people are no longer threatened with a government shutdown.

I wish I could have changed other people’s votes on some of these issues. In the end I can only negotiate as hard as possible and control my own vote. I voted for improvements to what I considered a very flawed April budget bill. In doing so, I believe, on balance, that I voted for more in the way of good improvements that move Alaska forward.

As always, call if you have any questions.

My Best,