OPINION: Support candidates who support public safety and EMS

A representative of Americans for Prosperity (AFP), a Lower 48 defund-the-police organization, recently published an op-ed in the ADN claiming that the organization supports public safety even though it opposes adequate pay and benefits for police, state troopers and firefighters. That’s like saying you support oil development, just not the exploration, drilling or building of pipelines. This is very simple: Supporting public safety means supporting the individual Alaskans who put their lives on the line every minute of every shift that they work.

Let’s look at AFP’s record. Right now, AFP has spent tens of thousands of dollars attacking elected officials who have a record of supporting police, troopers, and firefighters. It’s one thing for candidates to say they support the police, but we know by elected officials’ actions who will deliver. Credit to elected officials like Sen. Cathy Giessel (R-Anchorage) who sponsored legislation (Senate Bill 88) to fix our broken retirement system, and Sen. Jesse Bjorkman (R-Kenai) and Sen. Kelly Merrick (R-Eagle River), who helped get the bill passed in the Senate. Right now, AFP is attacking Sens. Bjorkman and Merrick precisely because they support the police and firefighters.

Let’s look at the facts about pension reform. This bill received more public hearings in the legislature than any other legislation and is extremely well-vetted. Those hearings explored a wide range of possibilities in terms of stock market performance and employee participation. The bottom line is that Senate Bill 88 would have saved the state and local police departments money in multiple ways: reduced turnover, reduced overtime costs and more efficient distribution of retirement benefits per dollar invested.

It costs nearly $250,000 to replace an Alaska State Trooper who moves to the Lower 48 due to Alaska’s worst-in-the-nation retirement system. Right now, there are approximately 75 Trooper vacancies. Turnover costs are similarly high for the Anchorage Police Department, which has more than 50 vacancies. AFP wants to defund police retirement. That is anti-public safety.

The Anchorage Fire Department currently does not meet the industry standard for staffing, and we are also losing trained firefighter professionals to the Lower 48, due to retirement security concerns.

Lower 48 organizations just don’t have a stake in our state’s future. When AFP undermines public safety, Alaskans suffer the consequences.

You do not have to look far in Alaska to find public safety organizations offering hiring bonuses and writing amusing ads, all trying to steal trained professionals from one another. Here is an idea: Why don’t we all pull on the same rope, with one common goal? What if we had a retirement system that could not only attract new applicants from within the state but also from outside Alaska? What if, instead of trading employees between agencies, we attracted new applicants and filled our vacancies?

Police officers and firefighters put their own lives at risk every day, every shift, every minute they’re at work. The simplest way to support our public safety professionals is to vote for elected officials who support public safety. Most of these elected officials have a record. If they have shown up and done the right thing like Sen. Merrick and Sen. Bjorkman, thank them with your vote. Please stand with Alaskans and support public safety this election cycle.

Darrell Evans is the president of the Anchorage Police Department Employees Association and serves on the board of the APDEA PAC. He has been a police officer in Alaska for over 29 years. Nick Glorioso is the president of the Anchorage Firefighters Union and has worked for the Anchorage Fire Department for 24 years.

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