OPINION: Do you support public safety in Alaska? You might be surprised by who doesn’t.

Like me, you may have received calls and flyers from Americans for Prosperity (AFP) that sound mighty convincing to moderate voters like most of us, who in Alaska lean to the conservative side. AFP is spending massive amounts of money this year attacking legislators who support public safety in Alaska. Alaska is unique; both progressive and conservative. In this past legislative session, Democrats and Republicans worked together to modernize a broken public employee pension system to retain public employees and cut wasteful spending on avoidable turnover and retraining.

Alaska has the worst-in-the-nation retirement system for local police, Alaska State Troopers and statewide firefighters, costing our state approximately $76 million annually due to turnover and retraining. There are approximately 75 vacancies within the troopers and more than 50 vacancies at the Anchorage Police Department. Staffing is so short in Kodiak and Fairbanks that local police are not on patrol 24 hours a day. It’s a public safety crisis.

Last legislative session, the Senate passed Senate Bill 88 — which would have restored better, defined benefits for public safety officers — in a strong bipartisan vote. But this bill was strongly opposed by AFP. Now, AFP is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in certain legislative districts to attack Republicans who support public safety. As Alaskans, we need to rally together and support our elected officials who are doing what is right. Regardless of party affiliation, Alaska representatives should not have to kowtow to Outside billionaires like those backing AFP.

AFP has a long record of advocating for defunding the police and public safety across the country, so it’s not surprising that it’s happening in Alaska, too. One of AFP’s position papers even says police officers should be exposed to personal liability lawsuits for their work as officers. Police are already treated as criminal defendants after serious uses of force in the line of duty. Police are routinely civilly sued throughout the course of their employment. Now AFP is calling for them to face frivolous lawsuits filed by criminals but wants to make these public safety professionals personally liable for just doing their job. This exposes their families to the potential of losing their homes, for example, if they were ordered to pay damages to criminals. What police officer can afford to have their own attorney on retainer?

Along with defunding the police, AFP has called for releasing more criminals from jail. Alaska tried that with SB91 nearly a decade ago, but with no social support in place, crime and homelessness shot up. Since then, our Legislature has steadily strengthened penalties for crime and added resources for public safety. AFP backers like the Koch brothers have been funding anti-police initiatives for 20 years, since their own companies were embroiled in court cases, found liable and fined. They have additionally supported private schools and private prisons for profit.

Defunding the police didn’t work. Defunding police retirement continues to harm safety in Alaska, and we need to fix our broken pension system. AFP will continue to pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into this year’s election in the name of “conservatism.” Please look carefully at who’s behind the ads and ask yourself why they are attacking elected officials who stand up for public safety.

Angelina Salvato retired this year as a police officer to finish her Ph.D. in clinical psychology. She served 22 years in law enforcement in Alaska and currently lives in Anchorage with her family.

The views expressed here are the writer’s and are not necessarily endorsed by the Anchorage Daily News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)adn.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to letters@adn.com or click here to submit via any web browser. Read our full guidelines for letters and commentaries here.