OPINION: Gov. Dunleavy vs. Alaska’s quality of life

There’s been minimal reporting about what Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed in this year’s budget, but there is a very clear theme: The governor apparently does not believe that Alaskans deserve a good quality of life, and he wants our businesses to be less competitive. From Head Start to early literacy to workforce readiness to retirement, the governor’s vetoes simply hurt Alaskans. At a time when Alaska is ranked 48th in the nation for business-friendly states, Dunleavy’s vetoes do further harm to our ability to build a workforce and improve quality of life. Early in his tenure as governor, Mike Dunleavy once talked about the days when our state population was 300,000. With budget vetoes like these and the dramatic outmigration from the state in the last decade, it looks like he is on his way to achieving that number again.

Among Dunleavy’s most baffling vetoes were his cuts to Head Start and literacy programs, including funding for the Alaska Reads Act that he claims to support. The governor vetoed a wide range of operating and capital investments for Head Start even after Head Start programs have been closing. He also vetoed funding to implement the Alaska Reads Act, leaving it as an unfunded mandate for our massively underfunded public school system. A reading program without funding is meaningless. Dunleavy even vetoed funds for the Alaska Literacy Project and for Parents as Teachers. These cuts are particularly damaging for children whose parents work multiple jobs and don’t have as much time to read to them as upper-middle class families.

At a time when Alaska employers are struggling to find employees, the governor’s vetoes to workforce programs are difficult to understand. He vetoed capital projects for University of Alaska facilities in Juneau, Fairbanks, Anchorage, Kodiak and the Mat-Su. He vetoed vocational training in Department of Corrections for programs like welding, and even vetoed operating funds appropriated by the Legislature to help fill much-needed positions for snowplow operators. Apparently, the governor thinks that the state has been doing too good of a job of plowing state roads in the past two years. We all know how that really worked out. When businesses lose money or kids cannot go to school because the roads are not drivable, the impacts are not insignificant. Collectively, these vetoes simply mean there will be more unfilled jobs and less productive capacity for Alaska’s private sector.

The governor’s vetoes of energy programs make even less sense. At a time when our resource development companies, Congress and the Alaska Legislature are working together to boost critical mineral production for national security, Dunleavy vetoed funding for mapping of critical mineral resources. He vetoed port electrification funds from the federal government, meaning we are missing an opportunity to reduce fuel costs at our ports. Juneau was the first port in the world in 2001 to offer shore power to cruise ships — so we used to be an industry leader in things like this. All this veto does is make us less competitive. The governor vetoed nearly $4 million in Renewable Energy Fund (REF) investments, meaning more rural communities will be stuck with unaffordable electricity costs instead of deploying cheaper clean-energy generation. For someone who claims to support sustainable energy goals, these vetoes are nonsensical and anti-business.

For years, Alaska’s business community has urged local and state governments to work together on quality-of-life issues to attract and retain a skilled workforce. The Anchorage Economic Development Corp.’s “Choose Anchorage” initiative is just one example. The Legislature listened, and appropriated funds for a wide range of projects from housing to trails. Dunleavy vetoed nearly all of them, from funding for the Alaska Long Trail to appropriations for housing. In fact, the governor appears to have vetoed all the housing initiatives funded by the Legislature, including for the Housing Alaskans program that leverages private sector and federal investment. These vetoes mean we will fall even farther behind in our supply of workforce housing next year.

Taken together, these vetoes don’t make any sense if our goal is an economically prosperous state. While other states are supporting business by investing in education and infrastructure, Dunleavy’s vetoes are making us less competitive. The Legislature made these investments as part of a balanced budget, in contrast to the massive budget deficit proposed by the governor earlier this year. All these vetoes do is hold back economic growth, impose suffering and lost educational opportunities on children, and reduce our opportunities to attract and retain skilled workers.

Is the governor’s goal to sabotage economic growth in this state? Despite his being known for saying “Alaska is open for business,” his actions suggest otherwise. Given that our state must survive another two years with him as governor, the best thing we can hope for is voters to elect legislators who will be independent and ready to override vetoes like these when an override is in the state’s best interest. If we want to move forward as a state, we need to empower our Legislature to leave the governor behind.

Carl Johnson resides in Anchorage and is a small business owner in the tourism and publishing industries.

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.