Gov. Mike Dunleavy says there won’t be any major surprises in the proposed budget he’s releasing later this week and he will introduce another education bill during the upcoming legislative session with goals such as more charter school support during a brief gathering with reporters Tuesday.
Dunleavy also reiterated optimism about expanding oil and other natural resource projects in the state when President-elect Donald Trump takes office. In addition, the Republican governor offered his first public explanation for the cancellation of a joint live announcement with Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom that was widely believed to be about Dunleavy taking a job in the Trump administration — declaring the announcement was actually going to be about the outcome of Alaska’s U.S. House race.
His comments were made during a 10-minute session with media members before the annual Holiday Open House at the Governor’s Residence on Tuesday afternoon. Dunleavy is expected to release his proposed state budget for next year Thursday at the Alaska State Capitol and said energy-related programs and project — another big issue from the most recent session — will be among the areas of emphasis.
“We’re going to need probably two to three times as much energy as we were producing right now,” he said. “So you’re going to see more work on transmission lines in Alaska, more work on renewables (and) gas…We’re going to introduce a bill on education and education funding that we believe will be comprehensive, and it’ll be a combination of increased funding and, again, outcomes like we discussed last year with our charter schools, correspondence schools, neighborhood schools, etc. So I don’t think there’s any surprises.”
Dunleavy, in his sixth year as governor, has proposed budgets that each year include so-called “statutory” Permanent Fund Dividends based on the formula used to pay them out until 2016, which in his initial proposal a year ago meant an estimated PFD of $3,429.
But his budget also contained a $1 billion projected deficit and no increase in the per-student education funding formula, which was unacceptable to many legislators — particularly the bipartisan Senate majority that played a lead role the past two years in passing balanced budgets that increased education funding, with drastically lower PFDs ($1,312 last year and $1,702 this year).
This year Dunleavy will likely face even more of a challenge to his proposed spending plan since the House has switched from a Republican-led majority to one mostly comprised of Democrats with similar goals to an incoming Senate majority that remains similar to the previous one. The governor said Tuesday he doesn’t plan to modify his legislative agenda based on that change.
“I think we’re going to work together,” he said. “I think whether you’re Democrat or Republican you’ve got to turn the lights on. Whether you’re Democrat or Republican you want to create more opportunities for Alaska.”
Education was one of the most hotly contested issues at the Capitol during the past two years, where in addition to back-and-forth developments in possible funding increases there were also social policy changes proposed by Dunleavy including a so-called “parental rights” bill opponents said targeted LGBTQ+ students. The governor also sought to expand support for homeschooling and charter schools, including allowing the state rather than school districts to establish new charter schools.
The Senate majority led efforts both years to get one-time funding increases in the per-student formula approved — after bills for a permanent increase failed — but Dunleavy vetoed half the increase last year before allowing the full increase this year.
While the makeup of the Legislature has gotten more liberal, Dunleavy said he is “optimistic about the next several years with the new administration in Washington,” where in addition to Trump returning to office both chambers of Congress will be under Republican leadership.
“What I mean by that is pro-development, pro-exploration, resources across the board,” Dunleavy said. “President Trump was here before, and conversations that I’ve had with the president and people are ‘we’re looking forward to helping Alaska create so many opportunities.’”
President Joe Biden has been a frequent target of Dunleavy and other Alaska Republicans for what they say are excessive restrictions and regulations on development in the state. The most recent such criticism arose this week when the Interior Department announced it will hold a congressionally mandated lease sale in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, but limited it to the minimum of 400,000 acres — or one-quarter of the coastal plain of the refuge — specified in a 2017 law.
There was considerable speculation Dunleavy would be in a prime position to help alter those policies as a Cabinet member, with reports six days after the Nov. 5 election stating the governor was in discussions with Trump transition officials about becoming Interior Secretary. Reports also stated he was a possible candidate for Energy or Education Secretary.
A day later, early in the evening of Nov. 12, Dunleavy posted messages on his official social media accounts that he would be making a joint livestreamed announcement with Dahlstrom shortly, but then canceled the announcement about 90 minutes later. Trump nominated other people to his Cabinet and Dunleavy, in a Nov. 25 radio interview, stated he planned to remain in Alaska and finish the final two years of his term.
Dunleavy, when asked Tuesday about the cancellation, said it was related to an ongoing count in the U.S. House race between Democratic U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola and Republican challenger Nick Begich III, which Begich took an initial lead in and was maintaining a week after Election Day.
“We thought we were going to have numbers on the election — on the Begich and Peltola race that evening — that would have basically said that it’s going to be called,” Dunleavy said. “That didn’t happen. And we waited until about 9:30 before we found out it wasn’t going to happen at that rate.”
A total of 295,806 ballots of about 341,00o cast had been tallied as of the night of Nov. 12 with Begich leading Peltola by 10,133 votes, a margin of 49.1%-45.8%. A majority of the remaining votes were expected to be from remote districts favoring Peltola, indicating the process would go to a ranked choice tabulation once all eligible ballots had been tallied on Nov 20.
Dahlstrom, as lieutenant governor, oversees the Alaska Division of Elections and posted some messages on her official social media accounts (without videos of her) updating the overall count of ballots and then the recount of a ballot measure. Dunleavy posted a text message on social media, which Dahlstrom shared, congratulating Begich when he officially was declared the winner of the race.
“It’s a very strange thing,” said Michael Carey, a retired longtime political reporter and editorial page editor for the Anchorage Daily News, in an interview Wednesday when asked about Dunleavy’s cancelled announcement and the explanation for it.
“I’ve never heard of such a thing. It would usually be left to the candidates themselves. Or perhaps if there were some important numbers, if the final count had come in, and the director of elections and the lieutenant governor wanted to announce it, maybe that would be the tradition. I don’t know why the governor decided to get involved in this.”
Also, late-evening public announcements by the governor are more typical for emergency situations such as an oil spill or earthquake, Carey said. Still, the governor’s explanation can’t simply be discounted.
“It might even be true. It could have happened,” Carey said.
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.
