Bipartisan vote sends $700 school funding boost to Gov. Dunleavy’s desk

Alaska’s public schools may get a long-sought increase in state funding this year. A bill that would boost state education funding and make changes to state education policy passed the state House and Senate Wednesday and will soon head to Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s desk.

House Bill 57 would provide a $700 increase to basic per-student state education funding, the base student allocation, a longtime priority for the bipartisan coalitions who control the House and Senate.

Billed as a compromise, the package would also limit student cellphone use during school hours, make a number of changes to the laws governing charter schools, and — if lawmakers pass an otherwise unrelated tax bill — create a new incentive program that would provide school districts with $450 for each young student who reads at grade level or demonstrates improvement.

Any leftover revenue brought in by the tax bill, which would expand corporate income taxes to include non-Alaska companies who do business in the state, would be put toward career and technical education.

“This bill supports all public schools: brick-and-mortar, charter, homeschool, correspondence and residential,” said minority Sen. Mike Cronk, R-Tok.

Senators voting against the bill said they were worried the tax bill may not pass into law. Though Senate Minority Leader Mike Shower, R-Wasilla, said he would advocate for the tax expansion, he said the uncertainty led him to oppose the bill.

“I want to know that I’m voting for something that is going to do what I think it’s going to do, and I can’t guarantee that as I stand here today,” Shower said.

Wednesday’s vote started with a redo: senators approved a very similar bill on Monday, but discovered what Senate President Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak, called a “drafting error” before the House could vote on the measure. Senators deleted the errant amendment and approved a very similar replacement to it before approving the bill 17-3 Wednesday afternoon. Shortly afterward, the House passed the bill 31-8.

The votes in the House and Senate crossed caucus lines, with 3 minority Republican senators and 10 Republican House members joining all members of the bipartisan coalitions who control both chambers.

It’s unclear whether Gov. Mike Dunleavy will sign or veto the bill. Dunleavy’s education commissioner, Deena Bishop, emailed superintendents on Monday and asked them to urge their legislators to modify the bill to align with Dunleavy’s priorities. Though lawmakers added several policy initiatives proposed by Dunleavy to the bill that passed, they declined to add additional funding for correspondence schools or implement a statewide open enrollment policy.

“If these critical reforms are not included, we risk repeating the challenges of previous years when the education bill — and its funding components — were vetoed,” Bishop wrote.

Bishop’s email was first reported by the Anchorage Daily News and confirmed by Alaska Public Media.

Bishop also raised the possibility that Dunleavy could use his line-item veto power to delete funding from the state budget that would allow for the $700 funding increase. Dunleavy used a veto to reduce one-time funding lawmakers approved for schools in 2023, but he has not vetoed the long-term funding specified by the base student allocation.

Dunleavy’s office did not immediately respond to an email asking whether the governor would sign the bill.

Lawmakers may not need Dunleavy’s consent for the bill to become law. It takes a two-thirds majority to override a veto, a total of 40 votes across the House and Senate. If all 48 legislators who voted for the bill support an override, they would have enough votes, even at a higher three-quarters threshold that would be necessary if Dunleavy vetoes funding for the bill.

“I am confident that we’re going to get this bill past the finish line,” Sen. Löki Tobin, D-Anchorage, said in an interview after the vote.

Several minority lawmakers said they would vote to override a veto from the governor if it became necessary, including Sens. Robert Yundt, R-Wasilla, Mike Cronk, R-Tok, James Kaufman, R-Anchorage, and Rep. Justin Ruffridge, R-Soldotna.

But a veto could scramble the dynamics. Last year, after lawmakers approved Senate Bill 140, a similar education funding and policy package, on a 56-3 vote, they fell one vote short of overriding Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s veto.

“I really hope we learned our lesson from that,” said Ruffridge, who voted to override last year’s veto. “It’s good for us to make sure that we don’t vote yes on this if you don’t plan on voting yes again.”