Lin Davis holds a protest against Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s state budget proposals with a sandwich board of potenial menu items in front of the Capitol on March 7, 2019. (Michael Penn | Juneau Empire File)

Lin Davis holds a protest against Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s state budget proposals with a sandwich board of potenial menu items in front of the Capitol on March 7, 2019. (Michael Penn | Juneau Empire File)

Opinion: Alaska needs a smaller, sustainable budget

We can’t run away from the problem with taxes.

  • By LANCE ROBERTS
  • Wednesday, March 27, 2019 7:00am
  • Opinion

The last letter to the editor I wrote was on the general principle of Gov. Mike Dunleavy coming forth with a budget that he had promised the people of Alaska.

In this My Turn, I want to make some specific talking points on the budget itself. This of course is knowing that smart legislators will make some deals with the governor and conservative colleagues to pay out more money working with him to get the main pieces of legislation passed that are important to Alaskans and a sustainable future. The governor has line-item veto authority, so the intended balance of our representative system will be in full force.

Let’s start with the University of Alaska. The budget proposes cuts of around 17 percent of its current budget. There have been third-party reports that have shown in the past that the university system has much more middle and upper management than similar universities around the country. I went to the university for 30 years, some full-time, mostly part-time to acquire my degrees.

[Opinion: The governor’s false choices — a lose-lose proposition]

Every year I was there, the bureaucracy increased and there was always more paperwork and unnecessary processes that had to be dealt with. It’s an interesting question as to whether creating more bureaucracy requires more rules and process to justify the jobs, or whether unnecessary rules and processes force the institution to hire more people to enforce them. Either way it’s a vicious circle that never stops unless there is some economic pressure brought to bear.

I’ve learned over the years through my involvement and observation of government entities that they never get lean and efficient with budget pressures — they always spend what they are given, creating the structure to spend the money. Keep that in mind with all of the budget issues, that years of overspending has created inefficient entities that until now had no reason to restrain themselves.

[Opinion: Alaskans must stand up against cuts to higher education]

One practical example of what the university could do is to combine all the campuses into one. Not physically of course, but management-wise. Currently, it duplicates a lot of management running each campus as an independent entity. This would be a great first step to becoming a more efficient university and would result in better education as resources would be more focused on educating instead of managing. Another easy-to-implement step is to move some of the satellite campuses back to the community college model.

The K-12 education system is another great example of inefficiency. Currently Prince of Wales Island has four school districts that encompass it. In Fairbanks, the place I have the numbers for, the school district over the last 28 years has decreased in student count, the number of teachers has stayed pretty flat, but staff has more than doubled, and administration has gone up over 40 percent.

It would be nice if they didn’t use teachers as weapons to try and get more money from the state. Please remember that large pot of money that the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District has squirreled away, which came because we taxed more for them than they needed. They’re actually ashamed enough of their budgeting that they stopped the Fingertip Facts publication a few years ago that showed the public where the money came from and went in a nice simple layout. Last year they started giving the school board an incomplete budget document, so they don’t even have all the information they need.

[Even with ‘super-sized’ PFD boost, economist predicts thousands of jobs losses under Dunleavy budget]

There are many right now in the public sector hammering on the Legislature to take most or all of Alaskans’ PFDs. Recently, economist Ed King gave a presentation to the House Finance Committee. He said if we didn’t cut spending and just used the Percent of Market Value (POMV) method and only paid dividends under $500, after two years the entire POMV will be entirely used by the increase that naturally occurs in the budget due to wage and other cost increases. The prior governor had attempted an income tax and found that, at best, it would bring in about $350 million, about a fifth of the deficit.

The lesson to be learned here is that we can’t run away from the problem by taxing the PFD, or instituting any other tax. If we don’t decrease the budget, we will never be sustainable. The last administration ignored that reality, and now the situation is a little more advanced. Wherever the Legislature ends this year on the budget, they have to keep moving it downward so we can one day have a sustainable budget.


• Lance Roberts is an engineer, born and raised in Fairbanks. He is a former member of the Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly. My Turns and Letters to the Editor represent the view of the author, not the view of the Juneau Empire.


More in Opinion

Web
Have something to say?

Here’s how to add your voice to the conversation.

Dan Allard (right), a flood fighting expert for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, explains how Hesco barriers function at a table where miniature replicas of the three-foot square and four-foot high barriers are displayed during an open house Nov. 14 at Thunder Mountain Middle School to discuss flood prevention options in Juneau. (Mark Sabbatini / Juneau Empire file photo)
Opinion: Our comfort with spectacle became a crisis

If I owned a home in the valley that was damaged by… Continue reading

The site of the now-closed Tulsequah Chief mine. (Michael Penn / Juneau Empire file photo)
My Turn: Maybe the news is ‘No new news’ on Canada’s plans for Tulsequah Chief mine cleanup

In 2015, the British Columbia government committed to ending Tulsequah Chief’s pollution… Continue reading

(Juneau Empire file photo)
Letter: Voter fact left out of news

With all the post-election analysis, one fact has escaped much publicity. When… Continue reading

The Alaska Psychiatric Institute in Anchorage. (Alaska Department of Family and Community Services photo)
My Turn: Rights for psychiatric patients must have state enforcement

Kim Kovol, commissioner of the state Department of Family and Community Services,… Continue reading

People living in areas affected by flooding from Suicide Basin pick up free sandbags on Oct. 20 at Thunder Mountain Middle School. (City and Borough of Juneau photo)
Opinion: Mired in bureaucracy, CBJ long-term flood fix advances at glacial pace

During meetings in Juneau last week, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE)… Continue reading

Rosa Parks, whose civil rights legacy has recent been subject to revision in class curriculums. (Public domain photo from the National Archives and Records Administration Records)
My Turn: Proud to be ‘woke’

Wokeness: the quality of being alert to and concerned about social injustice… Continue reading

The settlement of Sermiligaaq in Greenland (Ray Swi-hymn / CC BY-SA 2.0)
My Turn: Making the Arctic great again

It was just over five years ago, in the summer of 2019,… Continue reading

The Alaska Psychiatric Institute in Anchorage. (Alaska Department of Family and Community Services photo)
My Turn: Small wins make big impacts at Alaska Psychiatric Institute

The Alaska Psychiatric Institute (API), an 80-bed psychiatric hospital located in Anchorage… Continue reading

President Donald Trump and Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy pose for a photo aboard Air Force One during a stopover at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage in 2019. (Sheila Craighead / White House photo)
Opinion: Dunleavy has the prerequisite incompetence to work for Trump

On Tuesday it appeared that Gov. Mike Dunleavy was going to be… Continue reading

After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, many Louisiana homes were rebuilt with the living space on the second story, with garage space below, to try to protect the home from future flooding. (Infrogmation of New Orleans via Wikimedia, CC BY-SA)
Misperceptions stand in way of disaster survivors wanting to rebuild safer, more sustainable homes

As Florida and the Southeast begin recovering from 2024’s destructive hurricanes, many… Continue reading

The F/V Liberty, captained by Trenton Clark, fishes the Pacific near Metlakatla on Aug. 20, 2024. (Ash Adams/The New York Times)
My Turn: Charting a course toward seafood independence for Alaska’s vulnerable food systems

As a commercial fisherman based in Sitka and the executive director of… Continue reading