A recent editorial in the Daily News condemned the special session as an irresponsible waste of money because it failed to address any of the state's long-term problems ("Cost or value: Special session wasn't worth it," June 24).

The editorial board chose to ignore all the accomplishments that the Legislature and the administration made by staying in Juneau an extra 15 days.

About $400 million of this year's windfall went to education. In addition, the establishment of the K-12 Education Account started the long-sought process to forward-fund education. I call that a major investment in Alaska's education system.

The capital budget erased most of the state's public school deferred maintenance list, paid for new roads, rebuilt existing ones and made significant improvements to the university system.

Lawmakers also improved the quality of life for all Alaskans by funding more public safety officers and improving the state's social services programs. A difficult, yet positive, step was taken to reduce the impact of workers' compensation on small businesses across Alaska.

We also took the first and most important step in addressing the $5.7 billion shortfall in the public employee's and teacher's retirement systems by placing future public employees into a 401(k)-type retirement plan.

The 2005 special session was a tremendous success and I look forward to making even more progress on important issues, such as these, next legislative session.

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