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House Bill 11 Facts
As a co-sponsor of House Bill 11 (), I want to clarify some of the public misconception relating to this bill. HB 11 requires the state to deposit the constitutionally mandated 25% of all oil royalties into our Permanent Fund. The legislature independently, without the vote of the people, decided to put an additional 25% of the royalties from oil developed after 1980 into our Permanent Fund, which reflected the wealth of the state at that time. The state no longer has any excess income. The legislature is looking for ways to fund valuable services without heavily taxing our residents. HB 11 does not take any money out of the Permanent Fund; the extra 25% was like a bonus deposit. The impact of HB 11 on your Permanent Fund will be negligible. You will see no change in your Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) in the next four years. Projections show that the total cumulative difference in your PFD over the next ten years will be only $43. On the other hand, the state will benefit greatly having these oil revenues in the General Fund. I have worked very hard to restore funding to our schools and the statewide Independent Living Centers. HB 11 will provide the needed dollars to fund these programs. HB 11 would produce over $40 million each year for the next ten years. You can view the fiscal notes for HB 11 on BASIS (see link at bottom of newsletter).
House Bill 208: Airborne Wolf Hunting
The proposal to allow hunting of wolves from aircraft was rejected by the voters just a few years ago. I do not think the opinions of Alaskan voters have changed since then. The negative impression created within the tourist industry could be very damaging to our economy. The Governor does not support airborne hunting. Neither myself, nor Senator Gary Stevens will support .
Longevity Bonus Status
The House put the money in the operating budget to fund the bonus and has not moved the Governor's legislation to eliminate the program. However, the Senate eliminated the funding from its budget. Obviously this will be a BIG part of the Conference Committee negotiations at the end of session. I still believe that even if the legislature puts the $43 million in the final budget, the Governor will line item veto this expenditure out and we will not be in session to override that veto.
Per Diem Cuts
The "belt tightening" around Alaska is being felt by legislators along with other residents. Our daily per diem has been cut, with a retroactive effective date of April 1st. The per diem rate for all legislators decreased by $28 per each day of session. The legislature has a policy that automatically adopts the rate established by the federal government for federal employees in Juneau.
Education Budget News
As vice-chair of the Education Committee, I have been diligently striving to restore and improve education funding and opportunities. In the House budget, we added back the full $10 million for the Learning Opportunity Grants [LOGs] and the $10.8 million for pupil transportation. These were the areas that most drastically affected the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District and our local schools. We were not able to get the debt reimbursement restored from 90% to 100% but that is really more of a revenue sharing issue since they are Borough bonds and not school funds. Of course it may affect some Borough's ability to extra fund schools, but at least they are not direct instructional dollars. Hopefully, the KPB will be able to absorb that $260,000 reduction without impacting its ability to match to the funding cap as they have been doing.
Although the funding for Community Schools ($32,000 for the KPB district) was deleted, I proposed an amendment that retains the designation of Community Schools in the Statutes. To make up for the total elimination of state funds, it will cost each ADULT participant about $1.50 more per session. I am still trying to keep the Alyeska Central School (ACS) operating. ACS is our statewide, teacher contact, mail or computer, correspondence school that has been operating since 1939. It offers a huge diversity of accredited classes that can give our local schools more flexibility for elective opportunities. ACS costs $250 per student course per semester but it offers 8 different languages and many other courses that are not currently available in your children's brick and mortar schools. Many of the other in-state correspondence schools require full enrollment, whereas ACS students can be enrolled dually in ACS and a traditional school. Instead of adding to the diversity of classes our schools can offer, we would lose the student - which is not a good option! The funny thing about closing ACS is that we do not save any money because it costs more money for a student to go to a traditional school than to participate in ACS under the foundation formula. With the federal "No Child Left Behind Act" coming, I hope we can retain this huge diversity of class offerings taught by "Highly Qualified Teachers".
Recent Action on the House Floor
Last Week, I introduced , a bill allowing immunity from lawsuit for doctors and medical providers wishing to volunteer their services or provide free health care. The bill only applies to state certified and licensed medical providers. The high cost of medical malpractice insurance often keeps many of Alaska's best medical providers from volunteering their services.
Already, Alaska struggles to provide adequate health care. I am hoping this bill will allow medical providers to provide services to our seniors, our indigent and other Alaskans that may not have adequate access to health care. The bill has been referred to the House Labor & Commerce and the Judiciary Committees.
We passed House Bill 75 () out of the House by a vote of 27 to 11 along party lines. HB 75 is the operating budget for fiscal year 2004.
We approved by a vote of 36 to zero. HB 76 contains the operating expenses for the state's integrated comprehensive mental health program. HB 76 moves to the Senate for consideration.
The Alaska House of Representatives unanimously approved House Bill 127 () by a vote of 38 to zero. Sponsored by Rep. Jim Whitaker (R-Fairbanks), HB 127 allows for roadside memorials within the right-of-way on state highways. You may remember that I heard this bill in State Affairs a few weeks ago. HB 127 now moves on to the Senate.
The House approved House Bill 81 () by a vote of 31 to six. Sponsored by Rep. Meyer, HB 81 requires motor vehicle owners and commercial auto dealers to display a valid emissions inspection decal on their vehicles at all times. Failure to do so could result in a fine of up to $500.
HESS Information
The House Health Education and Social Services Committee only met once last week, due to extended Floor Sessions on the Operating Budget. We did meet to discuss House Bill 211 (), sponsored by Peggy Wilson. HB 211 establishes a student loan repayment program for nurses. This bill would make nurses who live and work in Alaska eligible to receive up to $10,000 in repayment on their student loans over a five-year period. This would serve as an incentive to draw nurses to our state and keep them here. There is a nationwide nurse shortage that will continue to grow as the population ages, in addition to the fact that fewer people are going into the nursing profession. Alaska is especially affected since many of our nurses are reaching retirement age and our state schools can't graduate enough nurses to fill their positions, let alone the new positions that are being created. We passed this bill out of committee and hope it will serve as a valuable recruitment tool in the future.
Other Fisheries News: EO 107 and HB 191
The move of the habitat permitting function from Fish and Game to Dept. of Natural Resources will be completed on Tuesday 4-15 since the joint Senate and House did not disapprove the move. Although there is still a lot of concern by many, our efforts at hearings has gained some ground in protecting our habitat and fisheries. However, I understand that many of our experienced biologists may leave for other positions instead of agreeing to this move. The loss of their expertise could be very hard to replace if that occurs. We can only hope and be watchful.
The new draft for was recently released and can be found on the Department of Governmental Coordination's web site at . The Committee Substitute for HB 191 is clearly an improvement upon the last version. The Coastal Resource Districts will remain, however the state standards will be rewritten and the local districts will be asked to resubmit their enforceable policies for approval. Remaining concerns about this new bill include the list of requirements placed upon acceptable enforceable policies. The new enforceable policies will need to be "clear and concise...not susceptible to inconsistent application to different projects or regulated persons...use precise, prescriptive, and enforceable language," and "do not address a matter regulated or authorized by state or federal law unless the enforceable policies relate specifically to a matter of local concern." It seems that the Commissioner of DNR will have quite a bit of discretion over which enforceable policies meet these requirements. Please listen and testify at the House Resources Committee hearing on HB 191, which will be held Wednesday, April 16th at 1:00pm.
Education Committee
The Education Committee did not meet last week, but this week and the next, the Committee will be addressing several bills proposing foundation formula increases (, , , ). This will be the time to call in to the Committee to voice your concern about education funding. Please watch the Education Committee schedule, which is posted on BASIS at for the hearing times.
State Affairs Committee
Last week we considered , which would have authorized a private prison in Whittier. The committee adopted a committee substitute that removed the designation of whittier. We passed out of committee the changed bill to the finance Committee but no one recommended that it pass. I voted 'Do Not Pass' as did four other members and one person voted 'No Recommendation.'
Bill Access System
Remember, all bills can be found on the State’s BASIS system. You will find the system to be accessible at the website below.
http://www.legis.state.ak.us/basis/start.asp
Live on the Web
Remember that you can hear just about any committee hearing or tune into just about any legislative session-present or past-by going to Gavel to Gavel, public radio and tv’s broadcast of the state legislature as it occurs. Click on the link below to connect to Gavel to Gavel.
http://www.ktoo.org/gavel/schedule.cfm.
Contact Staff
If you need to contact the staff please click below:
Lauren Radcliffe,
Cameron Yourkowski,
Chris Knight,
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