Thursday 3/13/25 | State Headlines | FNSBSD Melissa Burnett

Welcome to the party, pal. The Michael Duke Show. The greed and the entitlement. is astounding to me what more could you want from a low budget radio program this is a dumpster fire that was just bs it is time to get a new perspective We know just what you need, and we've got just the cure. Open wide and prepare for a steaming hot cup of freedom. I just don't fathom it.

The Michael Dukes Show, streaming live across the world. Live around the world on the Internet at MichaelDukesShow.com and across the state of Alaska on this, your favorite radio station and or FM translator. Hello and good morning. Morning to you, my friends. It's Thursday. Man, it is. I'm so tired. I don't know what the deal is. I don't know what's going on, but man, holy cow. I feel like somebody's been beating me with sticks this morning.

Getting ready to do it. We're gathering up here for today's show, and there's a lot going on. There's a lot going on. The House yesterday passed their education bill. Yep, they sure did. $1,000 BSA at $275 million added to the... added to the old bill for the year and that was after they got a new um they got a new revenue forecast that was 70 million dollars worse than they expected

Meaning they're going to be short even more. It's wow. I mean, it's just it. It's astonishing. And three members of the minority jumped on board and voted for it. Now, it's not it's not over yet. The Senate still has to have their bite at the apple. We're going to talk about that here this morning as we get ready to go along here. We're also going to talk about the escalating tariff war with Canada and how it affects Alaska and some suggestions from Senator Dan Sullivan, who is.

pushing on a new federal law or pushing back on a federal law, I should say, to try and get a waiver for it. We're going to... We're going to discuss that. Things going on. The mayor of Palmer is about to be recalled. What else? What else is what else is on the agenda? Oh, the that snow machine, that daring snow machine rescue yesterday out by Paxson. The young kids who are challenging the gas pipeline, which may or may not happen, but they're expending tremendous resources to try and stop it.

Eight young Alaskans in a lawsuit. We'll talk about that. And and more. It's it's it's all it's all going on in our one in our. Two, we're going to be talking with the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District President, Melissa Burnett. I'm sure she'll be speaking in her capacity as a private citizen. I'm sure she's not going to be officially speaking to us as the school board president, but she will probably be giving us her insight as a private citizen. We don't.

We don't want any more ethics complaints, all right? So we'll see what she has to say on that, and we'll see if she gives us a disclaimer at the beginning that... I mean, really, it's just, it's wild. Also, let's see, tomorrow for Firearms Friday, we've got a full boat. For Firearms Friday with Dr. John Lott joining us in our one. And then in our two, we'll be joined by Chris Chang and we'll be finishing up with Willie.

waffle for our waffle movie entertainment news and streaming review, et cetera, et cetera. So that's going to be tomorrow. And then on Monday, I hate to tell you, but I'm going to be off on Monday because I'm going to be in the air. I will be airborne. I'll be traveling back from Fairbanks. This whole coordination thing.

You know, the further I get away from Fairbanks, the more difficult it becomes. I mean, because I didn't realize, you know, now that I'm down in Homer, having to try to get to... Having to try to get to Fairbanks in a timely manner is a little more difficult. You know, it used to be that I would just climb in my car and drive, quite honestly, because it was a five-hour deal. But now, of course, you can't, you know, it's a lot longer. And so catching an airplane.

And making all the connecting flights and everything else that it was just so I actually will be done in Fairbanks on Sunday, but I won't be flying back until Monday morning because that's how it all. That's how the flights all line up. Anyway, so I will be airborne during showtime on Monday morning. And so you'll be listening to alternate programming.

Wherever you're listening, wherever you're listening. And I mean, not on Facebook, YouTube or Rumble. There will be no alternate programming. You'll just have to live with the podcast or to rewatch an old show or, you know, whatever it is out there. So it's. There you go. There you go. That's all coming up for tomorrow and Monday. And then we'll be back on the air first thing Tuesday morning. to tackle the weekly top three that'll be fun that will be fun okay um so

What can we do here, my friends? There's a lot to cover. I want to get to this school funding bill. I just, I don't know what to say about what's happening right now. Because it seems like there's just this rampant amount of madness that nobody... Everybody just seems to want to pretend that no matter what we do, it'll be okay. It'll be fine. All right, I'm going to get to that. I'm going to put that off for a few minutes and get to that first.

Let's talk about what's going on with the escalating tariff war between Canada and the U.S. I know it's not Canada. You guys, come on. So Dan Sullivan, he got into the middle of this. And according to Iris Samuels over at the ADN. He has issued a threat to Canadian officials during an interview he did on the Pocaro show on Tuesday. He threatened. He threatened. He said he would seek a waiver to a law that requires cruise ships to stop in Canada when traveling.

When traveling from the lower 48 to Alaska. Now, this is the companion piece to the this is the companion piece to the Jones Act. And it's called the passenger vessel. Oh, hell, I can't remember what it's called. Anyway, it's the the Jones Act affects freight. And this act.

affects passenger ships, passenger best. Somebody is going to help me out in the chat room with what it's called again. I don't it. I told you guys this morning is something is just, I'm not a hundred percent here. You'll have to forgive me. Anyway, and so essentially what it says is, is that you can't have a direct port to port connection from American ports on ships that are not.

built and or flagged and or crewed by Americans. So if you're going to take a ship directly from Seattle to Anchorage, for example, or Seattle to Homer or wherever. It would have to be on a ship that was built in America by Americans flagged under the American flag and crewed by Americans. Right. The Alaska, the passenger vessel anyway. OK, so.

The answer to this was for the big cruise ships and everything else was they would stop in they would stop in B.C. They'd stop in Vancouver or some other port on the way up. Therefore. They would no longer are they going from American port to American port. They would be stopping and then heading up. So Sullivan said he would seek a waiver to that law.

just days after the president imposed tariffs on Canada. The move came after British Columbia Prime Minister David Eby said he would introduce legislation to place tolls. On commercial trucks traveling from the lower 48 to Alaska. So we're playing this game of chicken. Now, this isn't the first time that this has happened. The U.S. had created an exemption for this law back in 2021 during COVID because Canada was like, no, eh? You can't park it here, eh?

No way, eh? The Passenger Vessels Service Act. Thank you. Thank you. The Passenger Vessels Service Act, Rob. Thank you. Rob Myers in the chat room hooking me up like a tow truck because, you know. So they that's what that's that's what it was. They they they did a waiver during the pandemic because Alaska, you know, tourism was about to crater hard.

Because Canada was not going to allow anybody to step foot in Canada during the lockdowns and everything else. So they wrote an exemption and they just bypassed Canada and went on their merry way to Alaska. So anyway, this is a way to basically give the middle finger to Canada to say, hey, look, you don't want to play. You know, you don't want. In fact, Sullivan, this is the quote from the radio show.

You know, Canada, you don't want to mess with Alaska. If you do, we're going to work hard on having our cruise ships bypass your port, and that'll help our economy tremendously. It'll help our tourism tremendously, and it'll really hurt your tourism. So I mean, I know there's a lot of strutting and striding back and forth across the barnyard going on on this. I find it kind of interesting. I did watch a little bit of the commentary yesterday.

From the premier of Ontario, I believe, where they were, you know, because as soon as the president did the tariffs. Then Ontario increased the price of electricity that they were shipping across the border to some of the northern states in the northeast. They increased it by, was it 25 percent or something? And so Trump said, OK. Let's just double the tariffs on steel and aluminum out of Canada.

And so it's just going to get this chip, chip, chip. It's this, you know, and so then the premier of Ontario said, no, no, we're going to meet with them and we're going to, I've instructed them to reduce that electric price back down. And I, you know.

There's a lot of shoveling going on. You know what's interesting, though? President Trump at one point did say, OK, look, let's all just get together and we'll just eliminate all tariffs. How about that? Well, let's just zero all the tariffs out. I like that idea. What do you think? crickets from the other side which kind of vindicates some of the things that he's been saying about you know the fairness of you know how fair are the tariffs when they when they've got an unequal advantage

And that's been his argument for why he wanted to put these tariffs in the first place. Now, I'm not I'm not a fan of tariffs overall, but he does have a point if he's like willing to go, look, we'll just do no tariffs between our two countries. How about that? And they look at him like, well, you know, no, I mean, we don't like your tariffs, but we do like ours. So we're not going to do. I mean, you know, you could see where this is going.

So anyway, Sullivan is now proposing to do this. He said Congress could pass that law exempting the cruise ships from the mandatory stop in Canada or... asked the president to issue an exemption by executive order, which is exactly what happened during COVID, if I recall correctly.

And again, Rob Myers, who's been following this a lot closer than I have and has a better memory at this point, this time in the morning than I do, can remind me, I believe that Biden just issued an executive order. I don't think Congress got involved in that one. It was a short term executive order. Now, give credit where credit is due. At that time when that happened back in 2021, Lisa Murkowski introduced a bill to make that change permanent.

arguing that the requirement, quote, unintentionally put many Alaskan businesses at the mercy of the Canadian government. So, I mean, even a stop clock is right twice a day. So thank you, Lisa Murkowski, for doing that. It didn't go anywhere. Because, again, there are so many vested interests in the government that are tied and baked into some of these laws, the Passenger Vessel Service Act, the Jones Act.

These have been, you know, around for there's a lot of constituencies here. And, of course, we're the ones that are paying the price for a lot of that. Not just us, but we pay, I would say, a disproportionate price here in Alaska.

than they do in other parts of the nation. Some of the coastal states definitely feel the Jones Act effect. We were talking about, you know, having to buy gas from Russia and not being able to get Gulf... gulf port gas up into the east coast and some of these other things because of this act we do more harm to ourselves than good but i would say that um this you know yeah i mean why not

First of all, I would support this not for hurting Canada, not for trying to put a tougher squeeze on Canada over the tariffs thing. I would do this simply because it's better for Alaska. And, you know. I hate to say it, but we should look out for ourselves first in this regard. We should be doing this. I mean, they would save any money that they might spend in Canada. They could now spend in Alaska. I'm all about that.

You know, maybe you add an extra stop somewhere down. I mean, I don't know where these cruise ships stop. I'm assuming they stop in Ketchikan. Maybe they stop in Juneau. Maybe I don't know where they stop. But, you know, all the way up to Seward. Hey, let's let's do it, baby. You know, this is the all-American tour. We're all just going to stop everywhere that's America. And if it's someplace else, we just don't do it. So...

I think this is, although I have to love the, it's, he threatens, he issued a threat to Canadian officials. I'm going to destroy you. No, just, you know. It's a nice town you got there. It'd be a shame if we bypassed it. That's how I... I mean, that's how I look at it anyway. So... Yeah, I mean, to me, this is a good start. The Passenger Vessel Services Act gets superseded or gets waived. Make that permanent. And then let's talk about the Jones Act, shall we?

I think we should. We should talk about the Jones Act. All right, we got to go. We're going to be back with more in a minute. The Michael Duke Show. Up next. I guess we're going to talk about this education thing. I don't want to get too angry, but I can feel it. Back with more right after this. If you missed the show, you can listen to it on your time with Duke's On Demand. Oh, and it's free. Like America used to be.

Streaming live every weekday morning on Facebook Live and MichaelDukesShow.com. Okay. All right, so Rob corrects me again. Thanks, Rob. It took a congressional act. I thought that Biden had just issued an executive order. I know that there have been executive orders that have been issued for places like Puerto Rico and other things, declarations of emergency, et cetera. It did take a congressional act to suspend the PVSA for a period of time there. You know, there you go.

He'll do Porcaro, but not you. I mean, he's been on the program. He was on the program here not too long ago. But, yeah, it's fine. Brian says, I've listened to a lot of Michael Duke show in the airport over the years, just through the podcast or what? I mean, you know. Oh, hey, Melissa. She says the disclaimer's coming. Okay, let me scroll. Now I can scroll. Now I got back to the good mornings. The good mornings.

Although Jeannie does point out, and that's what I said, it hasn't passed the Senate or the governor yet. She's talking about the education bill. So we'll see. We'll see what goes on from there. Okay. Um, what you're off on Monday. What about the children? You hate the children, don't you? Yes. I hate children. Hate them. Just hate them with a pat.

No, I'm going to be in the air. I think they would frown on me setting up all my equipment in the aisle of the airliner. And I don't think that their Wi-Fi would hold up to what we need to do here on that, you know. David says, note how many retired and active teachers are in the House of Representatives. Yeah, I mean, it's a jobs bill. We all know that. It's a jobs bill.

Anthony says, a war with Canada conceptually makes me chuckle out loud. So the country of old breakaway action shotguns and grandpappy's bolt actions thinks they can bully an American state. An American state crazy with cabin fever and one of the highest firearms per capita of the entire country? Hold my beer. Kanukistan. Kanukistan. uh good morning um uh how about we stop funding the alaska highway through canada says chris well i mean

I know we're spending a pretty penny on that and keeping a lot of that. You're right. Maybe we just say, okay, if you're going to start charging a toll, then you can pay for it. How about that? Good morning, good morning, good morning. Frank says, so let me get this straight. Sullivan is only interested in amending the Jones Act because of tourism, not for the benefit of Alaskans. No, I mean, first of all, it's not the Jones Act. I need to be clear. It's the PVSA.

Passenger Vessel Service Act, which is kind of the companion piece to the Jones Act, but it's not the same. And I think Sullivan's trying to just take a bigger stand on it. It would help Alaskans. Because otherwise they're going to, you know, they're going to hinder us. So, yeah, we might as well do it. Let's see. Okay.

Lord, please don't let Canada continue this nonsense, says Jeannie. I'm afraid Dukesters will show them what an uprising is. No, I mean, you know, what are you going to? It's Canada, eh? What are you going to do? Let's see. Okay. It's amazing. Colts. Yesterday, Harold was singing the praises of the presidents and being able to bring Russia to the table and all this stuff. And today he's back to it's a cult if you like the president or like what he's doing. So, I mean, it's.

You know, there you go. It's an episode of South Park, says Melissa. Blame Canada. Yes. Yes. I love it. I love it. All right, here we go, my friends. Let's get back to it. The Michael Duke Show, common sense, liberty-based, free-thinking radio. Like, share, subscribe, ring the bell. Let's do it. Public enema number one. Oh, wait, sorry. Enemy. Public enemy number one, which makes more sense. On the other hand, he's a little bit of a pain in the Michael Duke show. Oh.

All righty then. Let's continue. Let's continue on here. So. Well, we'll let you know what the we'll we'll let you know what happens with the PVSA and whether or not the president is going to do, you know, I don't know. This tariff war could escalate. It could not. But, you know, people could. get back to it. But we'll keep you in the loop on that. Madness did reign supreme yesterday in the Alaska House of Representatives.

as they advanced that school funding bill, HB 69, over any objection about the cost of it. The estimated cost. For this $1,000 BSA increase is about $275 million a year, every year moving forward. The only good news on this. is that they didn't peg it to inflation, and they didn't put any other escalators in it.

The bad news is, is that now we are on the hook for an additional quarter of a billion dollars plus every year moving forward. Now, there were some I guess there were a couple of policy changes, which we'll get into here. And just a minute. But you could see. You could see some of the lies continually being perpetrated and perpetuated on the floor. From some of these representatives who are out there just, you know, they're laying the groundwork for more of the same.

Where's the I'm sorry, I need the quote, the quote that I highlighted. Here's here we go. Him shoot, who is the author of the bill. And remember, this is the same gal that got up there and said, well, you know, how did you pick the $2,808 numbers? We just went for everything we wanted. We went. how much if we wanted everything, essentially. Pie in the sky. That's what she essentially said before.

And she got up on the floor to wax philosophical about this bill. And she said the following. They have cut the fat. They have cut the flesh. And we are now cutting into the bone. of our education system to which I say, what, what cut, where did they cut education? They. In fact, education spending has increased. Now, maybe it hasn't increased as much as you want, but it has increased every year. And, you know, we've got the one-time funding. We've got the BSA. We've got...

We've now cutting into the bone of our edge. Of course, this is all wrapped around the mental gymnastics of saying because they didn't increase the BSA by the amount that the majority wanted. And now because of inflation, they're actually receiving less. But that's not how, I don't know if you know this, but that's not how math works.

You could say that you're buying power is less and it could actually mean it is actually less. We've seen inflationary measures. But to say that we've cut, that's not the same as, again, a lie off repeated. becomes the truth, right? She also said that this is not the education system we want for our kids, and it's not producing the outcomes we want.

Well, the question becomes then, because I would agree, this is not the education system we want for our kids, and it's not producing the outcomes we want. I mean, I hope it's not because, again, 51 out of 53 jurisdictions were number 51. I hope that's not what you're looking for. But the question that's not being asked is, is money going to solve this problem? The good news is that they were able to pair a big chunk of this off, not half, although they keep talking about halving it.

It was $1,808 to begin with, and they got it down to $1,000. So it's not quite half, but there you go. And there was a bunch of amendments on the floor. There was, you know. passionate speeches back and forth against it. The House Republicans in the minority said their policies priorities were not reflected in the package.

Justin Refridge said, I think we actually have a lot more work to do on it. And he made a motion to send the package back to the education committee. And that failed along party lines. Mia Costello said, I support a permanent increase to the BSA. However, this version of the bill is not achievable. And again, it didn't go anywhere. And they continued to try and make.

Now, there were some amendments that made it into the measure during the two days of debate. One requires the governor to introduce a school funding bill each year separate from the budget. which that's, that's an interesting, um, I haven't read the justification or the whereas is or anything else. Let's, uh, shall we do that? We should do that right now. Let's just do that right now. We'll, we'll do it together. We'll discover this together.

what the whereas is and uh and everything else uh says on it um well there is no whereas it's just an it's just a line okay so it says relating to the duty of the The legislature relating to the duty of the governor, there's, okay, so there's no, there's no whereases or why, you know, what the justification is, but it is amendment number 23. And it basically would say the governor has to, again, introduce a school funding bill each year separate from the budget.

The second one, which we talked about with Will Stapp yesterday, which he questioned whether or not it would pass the constitutional sniff test. said that the legislature has to fund the schools by March 15th to better match school district budget cycles, which again comes back to time compression as a weapon and an artificial timeline.

Which all plays into the hands of the education establishment and the educational, you know, the industry, the schooling industry. Because that's what they've been doing. They've been maneuvering things behind the scenes for years.

to make sure that all the budgets in the various communities line up so that they're all putting pressure on the state right when the state's starting to work on the budget because they make sure that their budgets are due just before that. So it's a thing. It's a thing. So those two amendments made it in, but none of the nothing else really made it in in there. There were some of the policy priorities that came out.

They had sought extra funding for homeschooled students. That was zeroed out. They wanted the provisions to expand charter schools. That was torpedoed. And they wanted a proposal to limit the class size. That was, you know, again, summarily cacked in the head. And when it was all said and done, excuse me, when it was all said and done. They put it to the vote. And the House majority only had a one seat margin, but three members of the minority crossed over and voted for.

The package, $275 million. Representative Jeremy Bynum of Ketchikan. Representative Julie Colom of Anchorage. And Representative Justin Ruffridge of Sildana all crossed the aisle and voted with the package. Now, again, Justin had some I mean, he he was trying to make amendments, trying to get it. So I don't know. I don't know. Because nobody is asking the question, except for, again, I guess my new personal hero, Will Stapp.

Who's like, you know, guys, we've Houston, we have a problem. He said there is no reliable funding source for this bill. He said, right now we're about to write a check we can't cash and it's going to bounce on the other end. He suggested new taxes or that the permanent fund dividend would need to be eliminated to fund the measure.

which is what he talked about yesterday. He's like, I know it's not popular when I talk about that, but I'm trying to show people that we cannot do all, we cannot be all things to all people. Now, the only piece of good news out of this whole thing is that this is not the last word. It's now headed over to the Senate. The Senate is going to take it up. They have signaled support for a much smaller boost. They said they'd be comfortable with doing what they did last year.

which was $175 million boost. Now, it was one-time funding that they did. Whether or not that they would put that boost in permanently, as in under the BSA line, is a question. But again, the biggest question that comes out of that is, how do you pay for it? In the long run, especially given that yesterday they also got the bad news in the updated state forecast for revenue forecast that there was a 70 million dollar downgrade in oil revenue starting on July 1st.

So it's $70 million worse than we thought it was to begin with. And then after it goes through the Senate, then it's got to go to the governor. And the governor has already said, well, he wants his... He had priorities. He wanted the expanded charter school. He wanted some of the... He said last week that there had been positive movement at the House education package.

That they've been working behind the scenes and stuff, but there's no guarantee that he's going to sign off on this. And it's unknown whether or not they'd have enough votes to override a veto. So we're going to have to see what the Senate does with this. But again, the biggest question becomes, how do we pay for it?

And pay for everything else that we've been paying for at the same time. How do we do it? And of course, I just love the answers from, oh, we've got, we just got to, we just got to do it. We just got to do it. We've got to, we just, you know, whatever it takes. There's a lot of wishful thinking going on in the legislature. I just got to be honest with you. There's just...

You know, there's a lot of wishful thinking that it just doesn't apply to us and we've got to do it. And I don't know. I don't know what happens from here. other than I guess we'll see what the Senate does and then whether or not Big Mike will allow it to go through. We'll have to see what that looks like. All right, we got to go. The Michael Duke Show, common sense, liberty-based, free-thinking radio.

If you missed the show, you can listen to it on your time with Duke's On Demand. Oh, and it's free. Like America used to be. Streaming live every weekly morning on Facebook Live and MichaelDukesShow.com. I mean, this is going to be angry. It's going to be interesting. All right. We cut to the bone. is going to be the same phrase they used in the next hour, says Frank.

Yeah, it was actually closer to $2,400 with all the inflation-proving clause that everyone missed, said Kevin. That was the original proposal. I mean, it's huge. It's huge! What was that? Rob said, by that argument of the cutting to the bone argument that Hemshoot made, we've cut every department except maybe corrections. because they haven't kept up with inflation on the funding mechanisms. Pochois. See, this is the thing that I don't get about Harold.

He talks about the billions in the oil, which I mean, you and I agree on that, Harold. I mean, I agree that there's money on the table. So I don't know why you're arguing with me on that. But he says, then you're whining about the two hundred and thirty to million it. to educate our kids, yet you rail on this program day in and day out about how giving the money just to the BSA is a waste.

So on the one hand, you talk out of one side of your mouth about how it's a waste. And then you're like chastising us for complaining about the 230 million that is a waste. He's a conundrum wrapped up into a fortune cookie. He just, he, yeah, he's my, Harold is more bipolar than my ex-wife and that says a lot. Um, yeah, that's the, that's the, I mean, interesting.

Anthony says, hell yeah, we're trying to cut to the bone of the education system. Kind of hard to amputate a gangrenous appendage without doing so. Just saying, yeah. I mean, that's the thing. If the Democrats understood words, they'd be very angry with Michael right now. If they understood. OK. I'm going through here. More money is not the answer. Look at Steubenville, Ohio. Low income, one parent, no parent homes, high reading proficiency because they're doing the right thing.

I mean, it's the same thing in Mississippi, right? Some of the lowest per capita spend in the country, and yet they have leaped out of the bottom of the achievements and they're skyrocketing towards the top. Yeah. Alaska's in deep doo-doo. price of oil will go way down while spending goes way up which is par for the course that's uh that's uh that's that's that's the thing par for the course

What the hell was Rep Cologne thinking, says David. I don't know. I don't know. I really don't. Oh, well, he went over to her Facebook page. Friends and neighbors today, HB69 passed the House and has now moved to the Senate. You have my respect and gratitude for having hard conversations with me and your school board members to ensure that they increase funding.

In this proposal directly supports teachers and students in the classroom. That's why I voted yes. Well, there's no guarantee that it's going to directly support teachers and students. There was no amendment that. All right. We'll have to see. We'll have to see what's going on. The point of order, says Kevin, the points of order raised by the rules chair concerning even mentioning the PFD were wildly well out of order. and indicate how much the PFD they know is going to take to fund this bill.

Yeah, I mean, that's part of the problem. You can't mention the PFD during the discussion. You can't mention where the money is coming from. They're terrified. They know they're going to have to go on record with this vote. And quite honestly, that's how you're going to have to frame it if you want to run against them in the future. Yeah. Yeah. Terry says Ruffridge is driving the whole caucus through Mia Costello. He's a master manipulator. Really? I don't know.

Must use performance overtime to grade schools rather than one-time center scores. I think I'm late to the party today. Melissa says, I'm late to the party. I've read that HB 69 takes away from the option of homeschooling through our district programs. Is that, did I read that right? No, I think that that was one of the fears, but that's not how I'm reading it at this point.

So, I mean, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe somebody wants to correct me. Kevin can correct me, maybe. But we'll have to see. All right, we're jumping back into it. Here we go. One final segment dead ahead, and then we jump into this with Melissa. The Michael Duke Show. Seriously humorous with a pinch of intellect. Pinch of intellect. Sorry. That is humorous. Here's Michael Dukes. All right. We are... We're...

We're moving ahead. I'm still reading the chat room comments. I'm not even caught up yet. There's a lot of things going on. All right. We just finished up. Well, talking about me, but we can still continue on this whole this whole thing with with the House Bill 69.

is again ignoring the simple reality that we are continuing to spend more than we take in we have no idea how we're going to pay for this bill and again Kudos to Will Stapp from Fairbanks, who pointed out yet again that there is no reliable funding source for this bill.

Right now we're about to write a check we can't cash and it's going to bounce on the other end. They're not talking about it. There was no new fiscal note. That was something he mentioned yesterday. We haven't seen an updated fiscal note on it. So what's it going to cost? Nobody knows. I mean, you can guess. Anyway. Maybe they got a new fiscal note by the time it hit the floor yesterday, but, you know, and they all get up there and just say, think of the children.

And then Julie Colom voting for it. And somebody said, I mean, what was she thinking? Well, they went out and she actually posted up on her Facebook page. After the vote. and said, friends and neighbors, today HB 69 passed the House and has now been moved to the Senate. You have my respect and gratitude.

for having the hard conversations with me and your school board members to ensure that the increased funding in this proposal directly supports teachers and students in the classroom. This is why I voted yes. I didn't. Was there was there a provision in there that required that the funding be directly supporting teachers and students in the classroom?

I certainly didn't hear anything about that. I didn't hear any amendments or, I mean, was it just a pat on the head and assurances? Of course, we'll do that, dear. Was there a piece of was there a because remember, there was a used to be a provision that 70 percent of that stuff had to go into the classroom. So was there a provision added somewhere that I didn't read about?

Because, I mean, let's face it, I didn't listen to the whole thing. I didn't, I mean, I'm working. I didn't have time to listen to their caterwauling for two whole days. But nobody wrote about a provision that would have ensured that the increased funding goes directly to support teachers and students. I mean, I've got questions.

I, you know, I know Julie has complained that we we chastise her on the show and we take her to task on the show and we have disagreements with her on the show. And that's why she's hesitant to come on because we beat her up. But. You have my respect for having the conversations to ensure that the increased funding in this proposal directly supports teachers and students in the classroom.

That is why I voted yes. What assurance? Is there an assurance in law? Is there an amendment that said this must be spent directly in the classroom or supporting? I mean. If there is not a provision that I'm unaware of, and it very well could be, because there's a lot of things that I'm unaware of. If there is not a provision that was proposed either in committee or on the floor as an amendment that directly states.

That this increase is going directly to support teachers and students in the classroom, even as flawed as that is. Even as flawed as that that idea could be, because, again, we knew what happened before they killed the previous provision. They were throwing all kinds of stuff under classroom, quote unquote, the classroom category, right? They were counting a lot of things that were, I mean, but even.

Even taking that into account, if there is not a provision written into this through the amendment process somewhere, then this... is not a valid excuse, in my opinion. To ensure that the increased funding in this proposal directly supports teachers and students in the classroom. This is why I voted yes. So let me scroll down here and just make sure to see if there's anything that did any of my legislators, did any of the legislators in there?

who were in the chat room this morning. Kevin, was there a, was there an amendment that, was there an amendment that, that, that put that stuff directly in the, you know? I mean, what? Then if not, if there wasn't an amendment, then this is poochua. Right? This is why I vote. If there was if you just had somebody said, oh, yes, dear, of course, we'll spend it in the classroom. And they patted you on the head and you bought and you bought that. That's not that's not a guarantee.

That's not insurance. That's not to, you know, we we wanted to ensure that the increased funding in this proposal directly supports teachers and students in the classroom. I'm not trying to beat up on Julie. I just want. If there was no assurances, again, in law, not a wink and a nod, why would you and how do we pay for it?

And then, of course, there was the points of order that were raised by the rule chair. Anytime anyone ever mentioned the PFD. That we shouldn't be talking about that. We're trying to fund a bill. They do not. want that on camera they do not want any discussion about how basically you're going to have to spend the pfd to make this happen they do not want that on camera okay well we'll see what happens here We will see what happens. All right.

I'm just so agitated now. I'm just so agitated about the, you know, I would have been better off if she had just not given a reason for voting. Because if it turns out that there was not some kind of concession given. If there was not some kind of concession or amendment made that guaranteed that that new money, because that's what she said.

This new funding that if that new money was going to be spent directly in the classroom again as flawed as that whole phrase phrase is or in you know that phraseology is. Then. then it's a lie i guess i was trying to find a way to be a little more polite about it but it's just an excuse I mean, just an excuse again. You have my respect and gratitude for having the hard conversations with me and your school board members to ensure.

that the increased funding in this proposal directly supports teachers and students in the classroom. This is why I voted yes. Okay, have the hard conversations with me. and your school board members to ensure that the increase. So is she saying that the school board, that her school board that she represents in her district has made some kind of concession to her?

That they're going to spend the increased funding indirectly in the teachers? I mean, do we have that in writing? I have so many questions. I have a headache now. All right, we're going to continue. Melissa Burnett's coming up next. The Michael Duke Show, Common Sense, Liberty-based, free-thinking radio.

i just yeah kevin said he thought there may have been one bill that had that but it was voted down so what's your what you're saying is that it's just it's all an excuse it's all an excuse okay We've got to, um, I'm trying to be nice, man. I don't like to be confrontational. And I know that every time we've had Julie back on the program after I took her to task that one day on her babysitting bill, her child care thing.

She's like, well, she's afraid because I took her to task and disagreed with her on it. She made mention of it several times. But, Julie, this is why. You know, and I know that her district is not as conservative as. I guess you would think or as we would like. And that her district is all OK with taking the PFD for all this kind of stuff, I guess. But don't just flat out...

I mean, maybe and maybe I'm wrong. Maybe she's got it in writing. Maybe she's got emails back and forth with her and members of the school board or whatever. But when this is what she says. You have my respect and gratitude for having the hard conversations with me and your school board members to ensure that the increased funding in this proposal directly supports teachers and students in the classroom. This is why I voted yes.

What kind of commitments did you get on that? Because somebody could say, oh, yes, we'll do that. We'll fight for it. We'll do that. I'll do my best. I'll do my best, Julie, to make sure that it gets direct. And again, what is in the classroom and into the teachers? Because remember back before 2017, before they cack, they.

acts, that thing, they were including all kinds of things as classroom spending, IT support, principal salaries. I mean, all just all kinds of stuff was getting wrapped up in that. Oh. Good. Okay. Um, I should stop talking. I should talk. I should stop talking about this. Becca Schwanke, Becky Schwanke, Representative Schwanke, just confirmed what Melissa had asked about, that they're not killing the homeschooling out of district homeschooling programs, but their open enrollment is anything but.

Yeah. Okay. We'll see. We'll see what happens. I need to stop. All right, let's go over here. See what's going on. This is the perfect time to bring on Melissa Burnett. who's waiting, I'm sure, patiently in the wings and just can't wait to get involved in this hot mess. She's over here. Good morning. Are you laughing at me? Yeah, I'm dying laughing over here. I think you're about to lose your few last hairs that you have, sir. At least the ones on your head. Thanks for bringing that up.

um you know just thinking blood should shoot out of my eyeball sockets at this point i'm just like hey at least you get to end the weekend with some sled dogs i mean i do i do i do get to end the weekend standing outside for five or six hours in the cold trying to broadcast you know i and i gotta be i gotta admit it to just you me and the 75 of our closest friends here on the internet melissa

I'm turning into a bit of a wuss I don't like to stand around outside at zero degrees anymore it's just not as fun as it used to be when I was younger I have been watching the temperature closely. I mean, as old as you want to claim to be, even me, as young as I am, I'm sitting here going, man.

Why do we sign up to do this every year? Why do we agree to this? Well, at least I would say, because I probably would have told, I mean, I still remember broadcasting that one year on downtown on Second Avenue. when i was standing over on the balcony of river city cafe and it was oh yeah it was 35 or 38 below

And then the wind was wrapping around the building right there. It was blowing between the buildings and blowing on me. And so I stood there for six hours and it was probably 55 below with a wind chill. I'm still cold from that, all those years ago, you know. I've been super fortunate. I've been very lucky that all the years we've done this together, the coldest I stood out at the fairgrounds area was like 15 below. Yeah, yeah.

It's, you know, it's fine. We're going to have a good time. It's going to be a long weekend. But we're going to have a good time and we're going to do it. But we're ready to go. All right. So you're ready to tackle all this hot mess? Yeah. And I'll try to make you not lose any more hair. Doesn't matter.

I told Terry, I said, if it gets any worse, I'm just going to shave the whole thing bald, and I'll just be beard and bald. That's what it'll be. Hey, do it. You're in St. Baldrick's. There you go. See, there you go. There you go. We can get it done. What? Frank says, I think MD is in the mushers hall most of the time. These days. Have you? Have you? No, I'm not inside. I'm on a platform outside the mushers. Yeah. Okay. Thanks, Frank. Yeah.

Frank, he sits in a spot, too, at the Mushers Hall outside of it where the wind hits the roof just perfectly. And so not only is he getting the wind, he's being blasted in the face by snow. So he's the superhero here. It's no big deal. It's no big deal. I did broadcast one year from inside. That was amazing. But, you know, hey, we'll get out of that right now. All right, we got to go. The Michael Duke Show. Common Sense, Liberty Base, Free Thinking Radio. Let's do it.

Buddy, put that thing back in its holster. We haven't gone anywhere. I don't understand. Check out themichaeldukesshow.com for information on how to get access to the podcast. Welcome to the party, pal. show. The greed and the entitlement is astounding to me. What more could you want from a low budget radio program? This is a dumpster fire. That was just BS.

It is time to get a new perspective. We know just what you need and we've got just the cure. Open wide and prepare for a steaming hot cup of freedom. I just don't. The Michael Dukes Show, streaming live across the world. Live around the world on the interwebs.

at michaeldukeshow.com. It's a series of tubes, in case you didn't know. We are ready to go. Hour two of this big Thursday broadcast here. Jumping into it. Just finished up talking about... the madness that's going on in judo i'm trying to bring my blood pressure back down um But we're going to continue on discussions about education. Melissa Burnett, who is the president of the Fairbanks-North Star Borough School District Board, school board, is here with us. She's sitting in the green room.

But I'm sure she's coming to speak as a private citizen. We don't want to get any. We'll talk about that. But then before we do that, I just want to make sure if you're just joining us, good morning. First of all, good morning. Second of all, tomorrow, Firearms Friday, we'll be broadcasting from Fairbanks. Oh, that'll be fun. We'll have Dr. John Lott. We'll have Chris Chang. And we'll have Willie Waffle tomorrow. Tomorrow's a full show. And on Monday.

We're making up for Friday because I will be off the air because I will be flying. I'll be in the air mid-flight during the showtime on Monday. So there's no show on Monday. You'll be listening to alternate programming, you poor boogers. That's what's going on. So that'll be happening on Monday morning. And then we'll be returning to the airwaves on Tuesday because I'll be back down here on top of the world in Homer by then and we'll be all good to go. All right.

So that's the housekeeping for today. Tomorrow, Firearms Friday, off on Monday, back on Tuesday. Live it, love it, learn it. All right, let's get to this. We got a lot of stuff to talk about. All right. Melissa Burnett is our guest. She is a friend and cohort and also the president of the Fairbanks North Star Borough School Board. And my whole thing just crashed. So I'm going to rejoin here. And we're going to get Melissa back.

she's there, but she, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to do this again. And there we go. Everything went snap. I was so angry that the whole thing broke. That's what happened. It was just so. So Melissa joins us this morning to talk about education and we welcome her. Good morning. How are you, dear?

i'm good how are you good morning good morning friends yeah no i'm doing i'm doing okay um so melissa you're here in your non-official capacity right i just want to make sure i am yeah i'm here as a private citizen i'm speaking in my As such, though, I have been told that because I'm the president of the school board, that doesn't matter. But I'm here on my own private.

My own thoughts. These are not the thoughts of the board. It doesn't matter because you're the president. Wow. I hadn't told that. Yeah. Well, okay.

i can't keep track i'm like no i that i respect that but at the same time i am allowed my own opinion so yeah i will say these are not the opinions of the board as a whole okay all right so we've got that out of the way because savannah fletcher she's looking for new stuff um so let's um let's let's let's let's before we dive into the specifics of fairbanks

You have been listening to my rantings and my diatribe for the last 45 minutes on this. What's your take on what happened in the legislature? And I know because I know that you're supportive of an increase. But you are also rational enough to understand the problems with arithmetic and mathematics and things like how do we pay and all that. What's your hot take on what what happened in the legislature yesterday? What does it mean overall? What do you think?

Yeah, well, I actually happened to have spent the last, I don't know, many days watching it on Gavel, Alaska. I've been watching everything unfold. And, man. craziness. I am supportive of an increase. I have not shied away from that. I have not kept that a secret from anybody. I do think that school districts need an increase. Now to say that we've never had one, again, that's false rhetoric.

you know, that's false. We have seen increases. We have gotten funding every single year so far. While it's not inside that BSA like people would like it to be, it still has been. that we have gotten funding every single year um i think that this hb 69 um it's kind of been railroaded in my opinion it's gone really fast um and while i am in favor of trying to

get funding quicker so that districts have an answer because we all do do this budget process at the same time. This has been basically everybody in the minority, everybody on the right has been shut down. Anytime that a question has been raised, there's a point of order. Anytime somebody brings up a solution like props to Representative McCabe with bringing up the question of consolidating districts.

completely shut down right off the bat. And that was pretty much the rhythm of it. Everything that they tried to put in policy wise or that tried to get in there that maybe the governor would have a taste for so that when this got to his desk that it wouldn't necessarily be a straight up veto um everything was shot down and the pfd question that was a point of order will stop um

My hats off to Representative Stapp. I loved when Representative Hemshoot called him Stappasaurus because it's kind of what he's been, but in a good way because he's asking that tough question. How do we pay for this? And now it's in the Senate. And I just hope that the senators will look at this and.

put some policy in it. There's got to be something. We don't have the money to fund this and it's DOA. That's how I see it. This is dead on arrival as soon as it gets to the governor's desk if they send it in like it is. I hear rumblings of the 680 number, maybe 720. I think that's palatable for the governor, and I think that's maybe where this goes at the end. So you suspect that when it hits the governor's desk that he will veto it or veto it down?

to the proper number or whatever um in that regard well um i just i'm uh again The games that get played in the legislature are fascinating and frustrating at the same time. To watch all these policy debates and watch the minority get riddled full of bullets over and over and over again. uh when trying to put in what i thought some of these are you know simple well-considered policy goals is a little is a little shocking i mean you you're in the industry you're you're part of this whole thing

I mean, were any of the things that they put forward, in your opinion, were any of the things that they put forward, were they onerous on the school district? I mean, were they something that, you know, would have been a deal breaker for you? No, honestly, I think many of the things deserved a lot more conversation, but I think they were all. legit in my opinion. They were all legit amendments. They were all things that I think had something to them.

deserved a discussion instead of a point of order or an objection, which was basically everything. It was ridiculous to see the shutdown. And when I was in Juneau, I spent three days there. And excuse me, I'm dying over here. The three days I spent there, the one thing that came out of offices from the minority was they won't even let us have a conversation.

And then when we would go to those members and say, hey, they really want a conversation, it was a blah, blah, blah, blah. No, but it's ridiculous. You don't get anywhere without a conversation. Well, and that's the biggest part here is that they don't want to have the conversation. As I've been saying since the very beginning, to paraphrase their combined reaction, it was, shut up and give us our money.

and leave us alone i mean essentially no we're not going to talk about we'll talk about policy later which We know we'll never mean based on past performance. We know that will never happen. We've been we've had those promises before, you know, on not just on education, but on tons of other. Just give us the money and we'll figure out the rest later. And of course, you never go back and revisit it. It never gets done.

And, and I'll even, you know, I'll tell you this. I know that I am one of two people on my board who do agree that we've got to have the policy with this. You know, a lot of people out there will agree that you do the funding, then you do. the policy but not with this governor. I actually had a representative and I like this representative a lot. I have a lot of respect for him but he literally looked me in the face and said

I would rather see the districts get nothing than do policy for a governor who's out the door. Word for word. Okay. I mean. You know, I mean, judging something on its merits versus whether or not a person you like or is going to be there, that seems a bit counterintuitive. I mean, wait, Melissa, isn't this for the children? I mean, isn't this what this is? Because this is what we kept hearing about, right? It's for the children. It's for this. It's for that.

But what it looks like from the outside, from a lot of our points of views and a lot of our opinions, is it looks like it just guaranteed as a jobs bill for people in the education industry. And if the kids don't do well. Oh, well, I mean, if the kids are their achievements, not there. I mean, we're 51 out of 53. We've fallen. That's that should be on the that should be the first thing on everybody's lips when this happens.

And instead, it's, well, it's money. And don't talk about policy. We don't want to talk about, I mean, what, something's fundamentally broken in our education system, not just in Alaska. But across the country, I mean, this has been a national conversation going on. We spend more than any other industrialized nation in the world on education per student education. And yet nationwide, we're.

i don't know what are we 20th or 25th or something in amongst industrialized nations western nations and i mean something's wrong and we can't have a discussion on what's wrong and try and fix it Yeah, I think that that's a little crazy. You know, there's plenty of things you can do to fix it. There's plenty of things that you can start implementing. I don't know what the direct answer is on how we get up there and climb and what.

policies it is but it starts with things like the cell phone bill we gotta get those cell phones out of the hands of the kids while they're inside the classroom when they're inside that classroom they need to be focused on learning And they need to be focused on their schoolwork. And when I walk into a classroom, which I have been very busy this year visiting many, many, many schools.

my boss at work may have even gotten irritated with me because of how much time i have been spending in schools this year and i when i walk into these classrooms of middle schoolers and high schoolers they've got their phones right there and they're texting and they're you know yeah they've got their assignment pulled up but they're over here on their phones

That's one thing. And people, you know, I've had people come at me and say, well, this doesn't need to be a law. Well, one, the law is directing districts to get a policy in place, which many are already doing. Fairbanks, we're already working on that. We've already put it through one reading. We're getting ready to bring it back around so we can implement it by next year.

So that's where you begin with one. But then the other steps are listening to legislators that are saying, hey, we need to implement some other policy things that will help. Target this targeted funding. Why not that? You know, for every increase in this level of reading, we'll fund here. I don't see what's wrong with that. Why? Wait a second. That's a meritocracy and we can't have that. OK, we can't. I'm sorry. Yeah, you cannot have meritocratic. No, I'm sorry. You can't you can't reward good.

That's just that's just not how government works. Melissa Burnett is our guest here with us today as a private citizen, although she is the president of the Fairbanks North Star Borough School Board. We're going to continue with her here. In just a second, we're going to be back with more. Don't go anywhere. The Michael Duke Show, Common Sense, Liberty-based, free-thinking radio. We return right after this. running on 100 pure beard power oh also some coffee we dip our beard in coffee nice beard

The Michael Duke Show. Okay, Melissa Bernadette is our guest. Kevin says... What is fundamentally broken is the removal of parents from the education mix. The state or schools are not and should not be a substitute for parents. This is just a symptom of which of the problem, which is the lack of parenting. And to me, I agree. This has always been something that I've tried to bring up over and over and over again is parental involvement is critical. Absolutely critical. But I don't know how to.

to motivate that. I do not know how to get more parental engagement. There are parents who are engaged. There are plenty of parents who are engaged. And those are the ones that I think whose students are doing really well. I mean, I've always said... that homeschooling is the ultimate expression of parental involvement i mean that's the ultimate

You know, a teacher pupil ratio is one to one right in the in the thing. But the problem is, is that there's a ton of teachers or a ton of parents out there who are treating. the education system and the school system like a glorified babysitter. They drop them off and they're like, it's your problem. Just go do it.

And then they get them home and they probably don't follow up on their on their homework or maybe they do. But, you know, it's just like it's like in passing. They're so busy living their lives trying to make a living or doing whatever that they're just not paying attention. And then the problem with those students.

without the parental involvement is that they then drag down uh portion because they take a lot more time probably and a lot more effort and a lot more there's disciplinary issues and all kinds of stuff because they know there's no repercussions from their folks because hey it's you know it's a babysitter And that causes problems for the other students. So it's a ripple effect. So how do we how do we encourage that parental involvement, Melissa? What do we I mean, what do we do? I mean, I mean.

I have a few ideas, you know, starting with making it easier for parents to be at the schools, which. can be done a few different ways um we have talked about doing things like um having lists of opportunities for parents to be able to come into the schools they'll help with projects or whatever that maybe don't require such an extensive volunteer background check that's a big thing for our district is parents have anybody who wants

to volunteer in our schools has to go through the same background check a teacher does, which is very rigorous, which can be kind of off-putting for a parent who just wants to come in and maybe laminate. some schoolwork for a teacher right so um there there's a few different things that we're looking at in fairbanks at least that we can do to make it more welcoming more events more um i don't know that a public

that a brick and mortar could put the requirement there. I would like to have that conversation because I would be in favor of some sort of volunteer requirement. I think that's what.

makes charter schools successful is the fact that you have that requirement there that parents have to be involved yeah no absolutely i think that is one of the key and cornerstones of the success of the charter movement of the Montessori of the homeschooling that all has to do with the parental involvement i don't see why you shouldn't have a requirement

In brick and mortar public schools that the parents have to engage in X number of hours or be part. I mean, because that would work, you know, if you're. I mean, I don't know. It probably wouldn't pass constitutional muster because, you know, you're required to provide an education whether the parents, I guess, participate or not. But there has to be something.

This is not just a teacher problem. This is not just an administrator. There's a holistic problem here that's got little bits and pieces everywhere. The parental component is a big component. The administration overhead is a big component. Some of the teachers in the curriculum are our component, but there's no one magic bullet here. We've got to fix all this stuff. Yeah, no, I agree.

Parental involvement is huge. And bottom line is parents need to be involved with their kids, get them off their tablets and phones and interact with them more at home to back up what's happening at school. This show sucks. BS blaming it on parents. They're laughing at this show all the way to bank. This show sucks. Not doing. Why are you here, Henry? I mean, you know. You suck. I suck.

Hard. You suck. I know. Well, you know, it's good. I suck in a good way, I guess. I don't know if there is such a thing, but here we go. The Michael Duke Show. Not your daddy. Wait, sorry. Not your daddy? Ooh, not your daddy's talk radio. Whew. I was scared for a second. Thought we were going down. Here's Michael Dukes and the show. Yeah, I'm not your daddy, nor do I play one on TV. Because apparently I suck. All right.

We're going to continue here. We've gotten Melissa's take on a lot of this stuff. We were just talking during the break about parental involvement and how that is. It's critical. And there's a portion of parents out there that just are not engaged.

It's just a fact. I'm not blaming anybody. It's just there's a portion of parents out there and whether they're not engaged through choice or they're not engaged because they're single parents or they're so busy or, you know, whatever it is that are treating. school like it's a daycare the students that have the best i think if you went and looked at all the students who have the best outcomes

Probably one of the common threads through all of those students would be the fact that they're completely engaged parents, right? They are engaged. And we talked about how charter schools are a big example of that, Melissa, and how homeschooling and things like that. And so we were just talking about how do we how do we encourage and how do we guarantee parental involvement? I don't think there's any guarantee, but how do we encourage the parental involvement?

Um, in those, uh, in this area, how do we do it? Is there a way to require it or what, what do you think, what do you think has to happen? I would be in favor of that conversation. I would definitely like to see a requirement. I know there'll be a lot of people out there going, oh, you can't do that. And I don't know that you can or not, but I would be in favor of that conversation and seeing where that.

I am in favor of, there are some things we're talking about on the board here in Fairbanks about things that we can do. We're in the strategic planning process right now. And one of the big things.

that came up actually in the strategic planning was how do we get parents involved? And so we're discussing things like making it easier for parents to volunteer. Right now, parents do have to go through the same background checks that do and not all the time is that needed like if a parent needs to come in and just laminate some stuff or help make copies or drop some stuff off or whatever maybe that's lists of things that are

at the front desk or at the front door, maybe sent by email. I don't know how that looks, but we're discussing many of those components to try to get families more involved. Yeah, no, I mean, I think, I mean, first of all, you're doing background checks on them for being parents. I mean, at some point you got to be like, okay, this, I understand protecting the kids. Don't get me wrong, but.

you know yeah um that's why we want to look at it and see what we can do to make that easier because we understand the background checks is for people who will have interaction with the children right but that's not always the case all right well let's shift gears here and talk specifically Fairbanks. Fairbank schools, you know, they're struggling like many of the other school districts with deficit spending.

It's not unsurprising. It's not unexpected. We knew that this was happening. We knew that this was coming. This is what gets me about school districts and school boards is that they know. That they're always building their budgets based on the best case scenario, never on the worst case scenario. They're always riding the budgets, you know, in deficit, essentially.

And there have been some cuts and some pullbacks, but it's never to the point of we know this how much this is our guaranteed amount of money and we're going to build a budget based on that.

And then, of course, the first thing that happens is the things that get cuts are the things that get the most press, right? They're the thing, the music programs and the sports programs and things that keep kids engaged and give them a reason to go to school. Those are the first thing that gets cut because I think, I believe.

personally that it's because it's punishment for the public for not paying attention oh you're not paying attention we're going to cut this and so now you'll go and cry to the legislature that we need more stuff or we'll close the school etc Well, and contradictory to that, and I respect your opinion, Sir Dukes, I sit here and I do this and I've been doing it for three years now. And I promise you that's not how that works out.

those levers are the easier ones to pull. When it comes to cuts that you look at, Fairbanks cut sports a long time ago. All sports in Fairbanks are basically parental pay now. We have a small portion of funding that's still left in our activities budget that pays for the activities coordinator and some very small fees when it comes to like insurance for the players and court.

fees and stuff like that. It's a very small fund, just barely over a million dollars. So all sports now in Fairbanks are pay to play. That was just an easier lever to pull four years ago. um then you start looking at the other levers you know that you talk about again it's not that it's oh let's do this because this is political it's more of a What can we do that's easy that maybe we can implement back?

And not harm too much, but then, you know, impact versus reality. I have that conversation all the time. Impact versus reality or reality versus impact. Right, right. Well, but you can see what my point is. here because that's the perception whether whether it's intentional or not or i mean because we've seen government do this for years tony knowles i remember we were in deficit and tony knowles first thing he does is he cuts five hundred thousand dollars to keep the road open

to Central or North Slope or he stops plowing roads. And I'm like, you're $500,000 short and you got $500,000 to pave a parking lot in the back of the DOT yard. Maybe we should talk about shuffling some money from the Capitol. You know, maybe we should do something like that.

But instead, it's the high visibility things that gets because it gets people upset. Right. We saw that during the discussion on school on school closures and things like that. But the problem is, is that the overall problem. is that we have declining enrollment. Isn't that the crux of what's going on here? I mean, you guys had a 16% drop in enrollment in a single year.

656 students. It was crazy. Yeah. That's a, that's a big hurt. I mean, that really, that'll put a hitch in your get along right there. Well, and if you go and watch our budget sessions and all of our work sessions right now, we're actually budgeting and preparing for another hit because we don't know. And so we're preparing ourselves to lose.

another 175 to 200 students for next school year um and that's our reality is our enrollment is dropping and it's it's kids going to correspondence programs but it's also kids leaving the state That was actually the majority of what we saw as kids leaving the state. And so it's how do you correct? Well, it's consolidating. It's closing schools. Yes, it had to do with budget. It was helpful for our budget, but that's direct enrollment.

We have all these schools with all of these classrooms that are just sitting there open. We need to bright size our district to match what our student load is. And so that's what we did. And that's how you handle that. Well, and that's the problem when you have schools that are at 40, 50, 60 percent capacity.

You're still paying the same cost to keep the schools open and everything else, but you're only utilizing a portion of them. The consolidation to bring those schools up to 80 or 90 percent capacity. is one of the first levers that should be pulled. And it's hard because there's a lot of emotion in the community about, oh, my favorite school or, you know, my kids have gone to this school for years or whatever.

The bottom line is it's strictly a monetary issue. And until we turn around the enrollment problem, it's going to be a continuous. This is going to be a continuous thing. And the enrollment problem is not just out-migration. I mean, out-migration is a portion of it for sure. But there's also the free market issue where people are deciding, and COVID, you can thank COVID for this, that people are deciding that.

We're going to do it ourselves because they're dissatisfied with what they're getting in the public schools. How do you address that? Well, we address that with policy. We address that with parental involvement. We address that with it's everything we've already talked about, things that we're already working on. You know, people talk about policy. Well, we're.

doing the cell phone thing. And that was before the state brought it forward. That is helpful though. I will say the state doing that is super helpful for districts because it now gives the districts who maybe were afraid to do it. a little bit of backbone to be able to do it and i saw a comment earlier talking about you know we'll then take phones away from school board members and assembly members and all that too i don't disagree um

I 100% don't disagree. I will refrain from bringing too much up, but phones are a problem. Yeah. And that's for adults too. Yeah, no, I mean, again, the phones, I mean, that's not a problem that I had when I was in high school, right? Right, me neither. We didn't even have computers when I was in high school, right? I think there was one computer lab that had like three computers for the whole school. So I understand that.

for sure um so what is the what is the what's the biggest challenge you're facing right now uh you guys are still You guys had a $16 million deficit, I think. Was that right to begin with? And you guys are going to be – you've made some cuts. You've done some things. How much have you succeeded in that? And, I mean, where are you sitting now?

Well, it's a little bit of a mess. She's laughing. That's not a good sign when you laugh. No. We're going to have a very long work session on Monday to hopefully. come to a consensus on some of this. So we had five schools on the chopping block. We only closed three. Our biggest issue right now is surrounding. that we have a particular group here in Fairbanks that are not too fond of the fact that we closed down their school.

And so they're trying to make it a charter. And so we're having that fight at the same time that we're having our budget fight, which we are still having to climb out of a pretty big deficit. The school closures and everything would have brought us down pretty far, but then we didn't close all five. So our deficit is still around $8.7 million that we got to climb out of.

We have not reached any type of consensus on how that works. I will give props to the board as they have come up with some pretty unique ideas on how to get there. And. I will answer a question in the chat coming up in a little bit here. Okay. Okay. I got to quit reading that. No, quit reading the chat. Don't read the chat. Don't read the chat. So I guess my my first question is why if they want to create a charter school, if they're so heated about the fact that you want to close their school.

wouldn't it be better for them i mean if they want to have that involvement and they want to do that wouldn't that wouldn't that be because again you have a charter waiting list don't you i mean they're still There's still an opportunity. You could fill a school. Why would it be a fight, I guess, in that regard? Yeah. So the fight is actually around our policy.

I'm not against the charter. I want to make that very clear. I am very much in favor of charters and anybody who thinks that they can get one up and running and wants to put it together and do this. And this group of people. is actually they're very talented. They're a bunch of lawyers and doctors and education specialists. The charter application is a very good one. And they are working very hard. The issue is we have a massive deficit still.

And we are working through how to solve that deficit. We have a policy that says that we can hear. We hear charters by October 1st and then that gives them the year to go through the process, us time to do the work sessions and then send it off to the state. If we approve or not, then we send it to the state. And it's our budget right now.

It is very, very hard to figure out how we would add the charter school, depending on what the enrollment would be. If it's 300, it's going to be $2.5 million on top of our deficit. And so trying to figure out how to budget for that. is very difficult right now um and so we have a good majority of the board that it's

Let me speak for me. I'm not going to speak for the board right now. So for me, we went through this process of closing these schools. We went through this. It took a whole year. And really, if you back up.

It's been two or three years that we've been having these discussions. And we closed these schools due to maintenance, due to budget, due to enrollment loss, several different things. For this one school, it made... sense to me that that would be the school it was on the list twice it was the one school we were going to close before um i'm not against the families who want to start this charter i just question

on what this does for our policy. If we blow the policy out of the water and we say, okay, we'll scrap the policy, we'll hear this right now, what does that do for our other policies is where my head is. But at the same time... I fight myself hard because I'm not against the charter. And if they want to do this, I'm in favor of that. And so I fight myself tooth and nail with this every single day. It's a very hard one.

Is there a component of self-funding in charter where the parents have to pony up something as well? So there is something there. Yes, I don't know all the specifics behind it. But I do know that to get them up and running and to get it all solidified, it does fall on the district. Yeah. Okay. Well, we'll continue this discussion. We're up against the break. So let's take a quick one, and we will be back here in just a moment. Melissa Burnett is our guest.

We'll continue this discussion. The Michael Duke Show, Common Sense, Liberty-based, free-thinking radio. We return with more right after this. Listened to by more staffers in Juneau than any other show. Because their bosses told them to. And after what they just heard, oh man, they're going to be best. You're a bad, bad man. The Michael Duke Show. Okay, Melissa Burnett.

That's how I feel after what I just said. Oh, man, they're going to be pissed. They're going to be pissed. It is what it is. All right. So did you want to answer the question in the chat room just because, you know, I didn't want to, you know, what? What do you got to say there? Yeah, well, I pretty much answered why it's a fight. It's basically the funding piece. You've got a majority of the board that wants to honor the policy. It's also the policy piece.

We have a big majority of the board that says follow policy. We I will say. Because of how contentious this is, I have tried to let the administration and superintendent and everybody just handle this and work through it and kind of give the board advice on how to go. But everything has become so crazy. The governor's office has actually been reaching out to me to settle some of the crazy things that are going on. And at the end of the day.

The board on Monday will have to decide what direction we're going to go. And so we can't actually make a decision in a work session, but we can come to a consensus. And so this will be a topic. during our long work session on Monday to where the board can move forward with the consensus on where to go and how to handle it. Like I said, I'm not against the charter. I saw Representative McCabe ask, why not offer the charter before closing? You know, it's.

Again, that's a funding piece. Charters do affect the district when it comes to enrollment because whereas a school brick and mortar. the BSA comes in with a charter, it passes through and it goes directly to the charter and they do what they need to do with it. So it's, it's a very complicated conversation. Right. And again, I'm not against it.

I am in favor of it. It just depends on how we, when we hear it. I'm wondering because if you had 300 students at $2.5 million, that's 8,000 bucks a student. So if the parents were serious about it and they wanted to do it, maybe they would pony up, you know, and pay for that cost. I don't understand what the costs are, and we don't have time to get into it today. I'd be interested to know why it costs 2.5 million to stand up something like that. That's a whole nother.

show though it is it's a whole nother show i do have the answers to that but that's it's a big long process and a whole nother show i will say the parents from this the apc for this charter are really great um and They are actually trying to come up with solutions so that it does not cost the district so much. Yeah. But again, anytime you can put a charter school in there, that would I mean, I think that would show that, you know, do well for the achievement of the district overall. All right.

policies are words written on paper. policies can be changed. And that's true. Rules are meant to be broken, right? I mean, there's an exception to every rule. I mean, whatever metaphor we want to use or whatever, it's true. And if the policy is not working and the policy is counter indicative of good results, then, yeah, maybe we should consider that.

And like I said, if these parents are serious about it and they want the school that badly, then, you know, if they had to pony up eight thousand bucks a kid to be able to do it. That would make sense to me if that's how they want to continue to to to put those things forward. All right. I want to we're about two minutes out here. So, Melissa, I want to kind of give you your head in the last segment here to talk about the policies and the things that you want to talk about in this. But.

This is a you know, this is an overall problem that we've been facing for a long time. And it's really just kind of coming to a head now. If if.

You get a $680 BSA or 720 or, I mean, the thousand. Is that going to fix your guys' shortfall? No. no not at all um it helps but no it doesn't fix it but it you know the 680 720 um it either way it puts us you know where where we need to start heading um the thousand it would be nice because that puts us in an even better situation going forward um i don't think we see a reality where that's possible because i mean

I'm sorry, what would the BSA have to be? What would the increase have to be to cover your $8.7 million shortfall? Well, to be completely honest, it's going to be up around that $1,400 number. That's not a lie. That's a problem. That's not happening. You can't pay for that. No, that's a problem for me. Yeah.

The question is, is part of this the hold harmless? I mean, I know you guys are running on this hold harmless for the next year or so. It's going to get worse because when that hold harmless drops off, your deficit's going to go even higher, right? Yeah. Okay. All right. Well.

We're going to give you your head here and let you steer the bus in the next segment. We'll see where it goes from here. I'm interested to hear what you have to say. But the fact that a whole BSA, this whole increase, would not fix your problem, to me...

is indicative of a lack. Yeah. It's indicative of a larger problem for sure. All right. We got to go. Uh, the Michael Duke show, common sense, Liberty base, free thinking radio, like, share, subscribe, ring the bell. Let's do this thing. Here we go. No, I was too early The Michael Duke show seriously humorous with a pinch of intellect Binch of inel- Sorry. That is humorous. Here's Michael Dukes. Because clocks are hard. That's why.

clocks are hard um we're going to continue on here melissa burnett our guest melissa i wanted to give you this last segment

because you'd wanted to come on the show. I don't know if we've covered what you'd wanted to cover, but I wanted to give you the opportunity to bring up anything else or talk about it. I will mention that right during the break, right before we came back, I asked her, would this BSA increase that's proposed... fix the problem this thousand dollars which is i mean i don't we can't pay for it but she said no no this wouldn't fix the problem okay no it helps but no it doesn't fix the problem um

you know and and i know that that's shocking and and i understand completely we can't pay for it um you know but uh really what i wanted to come on you know like i've been actually you know i watch your show every single morning i usually jump in on the second half because i don't do the mornings no more i do the afternoon drive now so i don't gotta be up that early right right right right slacker but yeah i know right but um i

I just had been watching a lot of how do we pay for it? How do we pay for it? How do we pay for it? And nobody ever has an answer. Well, I do. And I appreciate Representative McCabe's answer the other day when I said this in the chat. cut the department of corrections and i will stay on that horse for as long as i can because and i understand where representative became was we did this to ourselves right the things that we pay for um

Representative Stapp also did a really good job of explaining how it all works to me. We do have to cover costs of inmates who probably never saw a doctor before in their life, right, when they become part of our system. But I just, I think that there is a lot of money to find in the Department of Corrections. We are spending anywhere between what, $47,000 to $50,000 an inmate right now.

If my numbers aren't off too much, I think that's about what we spend. And we spend about 20 per student. And while, yes, that's still a lot, I just I feel like. that's offsetting and we're spending so much on prisoners when we should be taking care of our own. And I just, I have a lot of strong feelings about that. I have a Department of Corrections background where I spent a lot of time at Jackson Penitentiary when I was going through my academies and schooling and all that.

You want to find some money to help the state, the state needs to start making hard cuts. And some of those hard cuts come from the Department of Corrections. We've got iPads, or maybe not iPads, but tablets. Scott Kawasaki, Senator Kawasaki, sent out this email. a couple weeks back and this email just chapped me so hard because there was a picture of an inmate with a tablet and

I just when we have all of these problems in the state and the question is coming to cut the PFD, cut the PFD, cut the PFD. No, don't don't give iPads. to inmates. And even if you don't want to give that money to schools, there's other places in the state that could use that money and that funding. He's right though. We are obligated. Uh, to, to, you know, once you put them in incarcerated, you're obligated for a certain amount. And that's, that's problematic.

The bigger question, and this goes back, and, you know, I'm not saying that there couldn't be some cuts in the Department of Corrections. I mean, I, for one, am one of those guys that was like, yeah, why don't we just find the lowest common bidder and ship them out there instead of taking care of them here, you know? And I know that's not popular, but...

Hey, you pay your, you know, you do the crime, you do the time kind of thing. We used to do that. Yeah, we used to do that. I know. But there was a lot of questions about fairness to inmates and families and everything else. But at the same time. You did the crime. Don't do bad things. Yeah, it's one of those things. I'm sorry if I'm very harsh about that, but you don't want to be away from your family. You want a tablet. You want these things.

Don't go to jail. Don't go to prison. Don't do bad things. Don't murder people. Don't do crime. Don't do crime. Don't do crime, kids. It's not a good thing. But I want to reverse for just a second and go back to what you were saying earlier. If it would take a $1,400 increase to the BSA to fix the problem, the $1,000 is not going to do it. The $680 is not going to do it. The $720 is not going to do it.

Isn't that indicative of a larger problem? Isn't that indicative of a larger, you know, planning problem, budgeting problem? You know, just kind of we're not doing I mean, shouldn't we be going back to saying, OK, well, then we start with zero based budgeting and we go from there instead of where we're at right now? Doesn't that. paint kind of a tough picture? Because it's not just Fairbanks, it's every district. Yeah, I don't disagree with you.

you know i don't have answers to where we are and how they got here i've only been here for three years but i will say that these conversations should have started a long time ago the consolidating of schools the the cut different types of cuts and different types of way we spend there was a time when the district had a very healthy fund balance and we had a superintendent that you know what whatever was told by the assembly at the time and whatever

we got told we had too much in our fund balance and we needed to spend it down to statutory limits. Well, all they heard was spend it down. And so here we are and then covet hits and then all these things happen and it's you know money is not the answer um but also not funding it is not the answer and so it just

There needs to be a medium and the medium is policy. There needs to be something implemented. Also, you got to find those cuts to make it work. And it's not the PFD, but you got to do the policies if you want. the conversation on the funding and that's where i personally will always stand if you want it to happen you gotta come in over here as well

And one of the things that I've harped on for a long time, we've got about four minutes here, but one of the things that I've harped on for a long time is the growth of the administrative state inside the education system. And when I went to Lathrop High School, there was... 40 teachers, 38 teachers probably. And there were eight, I think, administrators. You know, administrative staff from teachers or from guidance counselors to nurses to office staff to principals, et cetera. And today it's.

One for one. In some places, it's more than one for one. Is that part of the problem that you see as well?

Not here in Fairbanks, but I will also say that this board is asking a lot from administration this year with cuts. Years past, it's been $400,000, $500,000, $600,000 from administration. The board's asking for... million dollars this year um straight off the top so it's we're not ignoring that call either as we're doing all of this administration is getting cut and it's going to hurt them just as much as it's hurting the students and so it's you know it's

It's a very contentious process we're in right now. It continues Monday. We've got three days of meetings, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Monday will be a work session, Tuesday and Wednesday. We're going to try to approve this thing, whether we do or not. will it get pushed off for another week i don't know um you know when it comes to the question of why doesn't the district want charters it's not that we don't want charters um and i think that that's a

thing that the board would be okay for me to say is that we're not against them. Nobody here is against charters. We do want to honor this and we do want to hear it. It just, the question is right. this second with the funding it's it's not emotional it's funding and we've got to figure that out yeah well we need to have a conversation as to why it costs

You know, if the school's already stood up and all they want to do is change it to a charter and maybe throw some money in the kitty from themselves, why would it cost $2.5 million more? But again, that's a whole show that we don't have time to get into today.

I definitely want to talk about that. As you said, the boroughs, though, may not be as fan as the charter because they lose that funding. It goes pass through straight to the thing. Right. So that's, again, another 300 student decline in enrollment if a charter school is full. So I can see. where there's a hesitation there because again they want to protect what they have right now which is

I think, again, part of the problem here is that we've got to anticipate these losses. You know that next year the deficit's going to be even worse. As you said, we should have been working on this years ago. Why aren't we doing it now? Final thoughts. You've got about 90 seconds here. us i'll give you the floor yeah um you know i'm i'll end this with as much as you know people don't like what i have to say on charters and whatnot bottom line is um

Being the president of this board during this time has probably been one of the hardest things I've ever done. It is very contentious. It has been the toughest budget season. The closing of the schools, the fight. the Charter. All of it. It's been so hard. It's been so complicated. Hats off to the community who has put everything into this as well. I've gotten thousands of emails, thousands, and that's not an exaggeration. um everybody on this

Board is just trying to do what they can. I'm trying to do what's best, not only for what I believe on my stances, but also what's good for students and the district. And I am up for reelection this year. So, hey, guess what? I'm running. I'm crazy. Wow. Yeah. I'm sure Perry's happy with it. I mean, yeah, it'll be fine. It'll be great. Don't worry about it.

sure it'll be fine yeah uh all right melissa burnett uh thank you for coming on board and joining us i appreciate it we'll we'll revisit this charter thing has got me thinking now we need to have more conversations about that Maybe we'll do that here in a week or two and see where we go from there. Hold the line for a second. Folks, we're out of time. We got to go. Tomorrow's Firearms Friday. I'll be in Fairbanks. John Lott, Chris Chang, Willie Waffle. And then I'm off on Monday.

because I'm flying. But we'll be back Tuesday after that. Be kind, love one another, live well. The Michael Duke Show. all right final bite at the apple there sister what uh i mean frank yeah i saw what you commented i want to say to frank i saw him comment that so i made it a point to not not say cut to the bone yeah cut to the bone i was like challenge accepted sir

I just, you know, I know that things are crazy right now in the Fairbanks area. There's been a couple comments about the stuff that has happened with the board. And yes, there's some contention. There's some things happening. I'm trying to nip it in the bud as hard as I can. You know, we got some antics that are happening, but we're working through it. And it's...

Yes, it's emotional. Yes, there has been some emotional issues, but we're doing what we can. We'll get through it. The budget will be over here soon. I don't know. I hope that HB 69 gets some policy attached because, man, that's going to die on the governor's desk. Yeah, no, it will die on the governor's desk. And I think, again, we've got to address the issue that we can't keep.

trying to pay for everything with nothing that's what they keep they want more and more spending but there's just no more money and if you keep driving it up you'll drive people out And that's just going to exacerbate the problem. I mean, right. And that's already happening. So that's the doom loop. Fairbanks is experiencing the doom loop where people move out and you got fewer people to pay for it. If you want a charter school, break out the checkbook.

you know if you want to if you just break it out if that's what it's going to take um anyway yeah i will say the governor's office you know they are very receptive to this charter school and trying to help us through it too so it's um you know we're we're working through it it's not all bad so yep all right well Thank you for coming on board. We'll visit with you again soon. Thank you, Melissa. Yep. Thanks, guys. Folks, we got to go. We're out of time for today.

The Michael Duke Show, Common Sense, Liberty-based, free-thickened radio. We'll see you tomorrow. Have a good one. radio skin. And now we are slimy lizard internet people. It's the Michael Duke show.