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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. Good morning, my friends. Welcome to. Well, I will say I was not expecting it this morning.
Yesterday, day before yesterday, it was icy and crazy. I fell. I fell over again. I got slipped on the I mean, it was like, man, it's so slick out here sometimes. And I got up this morning early to to. prep for the show and let the dog out and there was like seven inches of fresh snow on the porch it was like hello that was you know
You don't like, wow. It's just kind of crazy around here. I love it. I love it. It's a whole new world. Welcome to a hump day, the Wednesday edition of the Michael Luke show. It is. It's beautiful. It's beautiful around here. You all ready to... Y'all ready to go? We've got a whiz-bang show lined up for you today. We've got a lot of headlines to cover and a lot of ground to go over here this morning. In hour one, we're going to talk about some of the things that are coming up.
The latest on the ranked choice voting debacle. And the petitions and the ballot measures, we're going to talk about that. Some of the new highlights, some of the new bills. David Boyle, who is our... is a friend of the show and is one of our resident kind of education advocates. He kind of dug through some of the...
New pre-filed bills. There's some other interesting bills in there that don't necessarily have to do with monetary things, but have to do with some of the education requirements. And that's kind of some interesting stuff. We've got a story also out of the ADN. that the headline's what caught my attention. The headline, excuse me, reads, Alaska education advocates gloomy about prospects of a big funding boost this year.
And I'll be honest, I kind of smiled when I read that, when I read that headline. And it goes into some things that we'll be talking about later on in this hour. And some of the reasons why, you know, I mean, because we've been a lot. Let's be honest. We've been a little doom and gloom around here about the upcoming session because there has been just this a lot of talk about.
how much they want to spend on all these programs. I mean, that was the I mean, that was the theme of the of this last election is that every gets a chicken in their pot and a moose in their roaster, right? I mean, that was kind of the feel of it. But there are some realities that we have to butt up against. And so it's not all quite doom and gloom. Although I will say that a lot of this will rely on the fortitude of the governor. And so...
I have questions on this, but we're going to we're going to get into that later in in this hour here as we go through some good news coming out of Congress with Nick Begich and some new appointments. We'll talk about that. We'll talk about. the final wrap-up of the November election. Iris Samuels over at the ADN has a story about
the total number of ballots, uh, that were rejected and how they were and why they were. And what does that mean for the upcoming session as well? We've got priorities coming out of the Kenai Peninsula borough and, uh, And more. And I bet that I mean, there's a lot there, isn't there? There's a lot going on. So anyway, it's it should be a good trip. And. Um, we're going to be, uh, we're going to be talking with state Senator Mike shower in our two. I mean, fingers crossed because I had.
I didn't confirm with him yesterday. I usually try and confirm, and the day just got away from me. I mean, it was like 7 o'clock at night last night when I finally was like, well, I probably should stop and eat some dinner and then move on. So anyway, we are we're we're ready to go. We're ready to go and ready to to get things rocking and rolling. Quick check around the. Quick check around the state. I don't see much going on as far as the weather and road conditions.
There is in the Kenai Peninsula borough, there is an alert this morning, a two hour delay start for the Nikolevsk school due to the snow and road conditions. But apparently. Most of the other schools right now are ready to go. I don't see any other... schools that had alerts i'm just double checking now as i say that because uh you know how sometimes these things change uh i checked earlier and uh and then the next thing you know things could be like uh boom
Things could change in a heartbeat and they post about it and say, oh, by the way, we closed these schools. But it looks like as of as of this morning. that it's only that one school on the KPB that seems to be on a two-hour delay. It looks like the Anchorage School District and the Matanuska School District and the Fairbank School District are all running on time.
So we're just so just keep keep getting it. Keep getting it. Don't worry about it too much as well. So we're we're we're we're on our way. So everybody else is good to go for this weather pattern. And the weather has been crazy. Have you been following the stories of tales of woe? in uh in the uh in the adn uh for what happened in the anchorage and surrounding areas especially i mean the this what was this the story of the woman and the man and the woman who were just laying in their home
that night. And then the windows exploded, uh, because they had a hundred and something mile an hour winds at their house up there. And it was a newer house. They just moved in. They just had it built. And it blew in the windows and just scoured the inside of the house. I was just like, it's crazy. It's crazy with what's going on out there. Still, power's still out.
for many on this, the fourth day after that extreme weather storm. And so people are still trying to pick up the pieces. I know at my former radio station up in Anchorage that I used to run. They didn't get power. One of the stations was down for three days. They finally got power back up there about noon. because the transmitter is, like, way up on the very, very top of Eagle's Nest. And they were, like, one of the last little areas to get power back. So, I mean, it's been a crazy, crazy week.
for folks in the Anchorage area. Lots of downed trees. The municipality is saying that they will take wood and tree debris for free for the rest of the month because people are still trying to... to clean up and stuff anyway. It's, uh, may you live in interesting times.
seems to be a theme for our lives right now. We're living a fortune cookie. We're living a Confucius... a saying here right now we are living in interesting times of that there is no doubt this morning so we got a lot of stories to kind of cover uh and talk about and uh and go through before we get too far along I thought I would start us off with a story of hope and happiness. Maybe we could classify this as some good news.
You know, I do occasionally do the subjects on the good news segment kind of thing. And I just thought this was kind of cool. During the winter storm, the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center. was hit pretty hard. That windstorm just ripped through their area, and they had a new shelter. built up for their Sitka deer yard that's where people can come in and view the Sitka deer and everything and it just it looked like
It looked like the aftermath of the Wizard of Oz. I mean, literally ripped the whole top of the structure apart and and just shredded the whole thing. And. This was, again, almost this is a fairly new piece of structure that they just put up to accommodate the Sitka deer that were there. And so the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center turned to the public and said, hey, we need some help because they're, you know.
They're a not-for-profit kind of thing. I don't know if you've ever been down to the AWCC, but it's a very cool place with all the different types of animals, and you can do viewings, and you can do feeding things. We partnered with them at the other radio station on several...
different things. And it's just kind of a cool, amazing place down there. Um, anyway, so they turn to the public for help and, um, and they set up, they set up a, I don't know, was it a GoFundMe or a Kickstarter or something? It was, it's some kind of. fundraising thing and they said look we just spent about thirty thousand dollars to build this structure not too long ago and now it's been completely destroyed and if you're willing to help you know we'd love to rebuild it again
Maybe a little stronger this time. I don't know. Anyway, and within 48 hours, they had raised all the money for their target. They had raised enough money to rebuild the Sitka Deer Yard shelter. And so they're planning on drafting a new design. to start construction this week. And they said they've changed the design into two smaller structures instead of one large one, which probably would help with the wind and everything.
But she said this, the gal down there at the AWCC said these animals need this shelter. They need something that they can feel like they have a home they can go into, especially when the weather kicks up like it just did. And so construction is set to start this week. And they're going to finish it within the next two weeks. And if with any additional funds that are left over, they said they're going to ask the donors how they would like to proceed.
with funding plans for other projects that are going on around down there at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center. So that's just a piece of good news, right? I mean, we've got to feel good about that. I am all about people being able to put their money.
where they believe it will do the most good. Now, if AWCC had gone to the government or begged for a grant or something like that, I'd be singing a different tune. But they went to the public and said, hey, we need help. And the public responded. And I dig that. Voluntary, you know, voluntary participation. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Um, and so I just, I think that that is an amazing story and it's amazing that people support. I mean, it is a great, like I said, it's a great facility. It's a great cause. If you've never been by there, you should swing by. If you're coming up from the peninsula going towards Anchorage or if you're coming down from Anchorage towards the peninsula down there by down by just past Girdwood exit there.
I think is where it's at right before you get to the train yard. Anyway, the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center. And so good for them. And I guess a big thank you to all those who. helped make that happen. That's our piece of good news for today before we get all, well, I'm not going to get all doom and gloom, but I am going to talk about some of the things that are coming up. It should be an interesting discussion. And then again, as I said earlier, hopefully.
We we're going to bump up into State Senator Mike Schauer. That's all directly ahead. OK. I think we're ready. We're going to take a quick break. And when we come back. We will have more. I need to get an update on that flooding down here on the lower peninsula. I know Anchor Point River was still flooding. I don't know if it's still going on with the snow and everything else, but probably not helping.
What's the weather like in Fairbanks? We'll find out more about that as well. And then all of our other stories when we return. 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 weekday morning on Facebook Live and MichaelDukesShow.com. Okay, we are in the break.
All right, we're good to go here. I think MD should have a helicopter sound going on in the background when giving the traffic report. I didn't give a traffic report. What are you talking about? I did talk about the schools. All right. My new automation isn't doing its job, says Brian. Oh, no. I mean, I have, dude, that, if you're talking about me working late last night.
No, that was, you know, you're always finding something that you need to tweak in the very beginning. Like, oh, this has got to work better. And then I made a mistake yesterday on, I made a mistake on something. And then Terry and I had to work through it. It took us like 35, 40 minutes to work through. I had kerfluffled something and we had to unkerfluffle it. And it was, well, it was educational.
small, tiny mistake. And you're like, wow, this is complex. And try to fix this mix. You really have to pay attention when you're doing stuff. Uh, anyway, um, It's interesting. David Boyle, who I quoted earlier, we're going to go over David's latest article in Must Read here in a minute, but he said, I have to throw the BS flag on that headline. He was talking about the headline in the ADN. I mean...
I know, David. I know. But we'll see. We'll see what happens. We're going to go over that. Good morning, good morning, good morning. Chris says good morning from snowy Seldovia. How much snow did you guys get in Seldovia, Chris? I mean, I was really surprised. It was sprinkling lightly when I walked back last night from the station.
But I thought, oh, it won't be too much. And I literally came out this morning and there's like seven inches of snow on the deck. And I was like, wow, I wasn't expecting that. Wasn't expecting that at all. So anyway, how much snow did you guys get down there? And what's the weather like in Fairbanks? Because I didn't go to the news minor this morning to see what's going on. All right.
taxpayers are paying for their own destruction uh i guess ben's in the chat room i didn't see ben oh there he is good morning ben uh donna says good morning good morning representative carpenter We should have you on if you're back. If you're back in pocket, we should have you on to talk about the upcoming session just to get your take on it. I fully intend to abuse my friendship with Ben Carpenter to bring him on frequently to talk about these issues because, again, he was.
one of the few legislators that really tackled this while he was in the legislature. And now that he's been freed of his shackles of being nice to other legislators, because there's kind of that, you know, you've got to be nice to your colleagues. Maybe we can get some hard truths out of there.
That'll be interesting. I see my dad is in the chat room. Dad, love you, Dad. Love you, Mom. Thanks for listening. Every time I talk to them, we love listening to you in the morning. It's just so great. It makes you feel good when your folks are... are happy to listen to you, I guess is the thing. Brian said if the Alaska Wildlife Center had gone to the government, they'd be required to have a transgendered moose exhibit. That's possible.
possible although did you see the headlines i know we don't normally do national headlines but the uh the u.s house passed uh the ban on transgendered uh athletes in uh girl sports i don't know if it's going to go anywhere but it was interesting to see four below in fairbanks says chris everything is frozen again man yeah i just i wow wow crazy stuff um
Chris said they only got an inch and a half and soon it'll start raining. I'm sure they didn't get much snow down in Homer. I'm up on top of the ridge here and we've been getting a lot more snow, but I'm sure it will start raining. I'm sure you are not wrong either. Let me see what it says here for the seven-day forecast for Homer. It's going to be today 34, tonight 22, tomorrow 31.
38 on Friday with rain. Yeah. So it's, you know, this, this snow won't last long. It's just enough to make a mess and make an inconvenience, but it's all good. It's all good. Okay, well, guys, thanks for coming in. Let's dive into it. I haven't decided which story I'm going to start with, but we'll decide that now. Like, share, subscribe, ring the bell, do all that stuff. If you haven't...
There's only 15 of you who've liked the show. Don't you, don't you like me? Don't you like me? Why don't you like me? All right, let's get to it. Here we go. The Michael Duke Show. Seriously humorous with a pinch of intellect. Pinch of intellect. Sorry. That is humorous. Here's Michael Dukes. Okay, welcome back to the program. Thanks for being part of it. Hour one continues this morning. We are ready to go. Lots of different stories to crack into.
I do want to get into this piece from the ADN talking about how education advocates are gloomy about the prospects of big funding. Well, I mean. I don't know if that's PSYOPs or not. I haven't quite decided if that's PSYOPs. We'll have to see. where it goes on this. But let's continue on, I guess, with some of the good news. In an interesting turn of events...
And I think that this is just proving yet again why Nick Baggage was the right candidate for the job. Must read Alaska is writing about this. Congressman Baggage has only been in Congress for two weeks. but has already been appointed to three committees, which is one more than most members serve on. Most only get two committees. He's now been named vice chair.
of the House Subcommittee for Energy and Mineral Resources, which, I mean, that's kind of a high horsepower for a freshman congressman just fresh out of the gate. That is a that's a big, big appointment. That subcommittee focuses on issues critical to Alaska and the nation, including energy as a national security concern. And so, I mean, that's some...
That's some great news. He was appointed and it was announced by the House Resources Chairman Bruce Westerman, the representative from Arkansas, who has been a strong ally.
of alaska when he's in this position baggage will be able to better advocate for common sense policies policies on oil gas alternative energy mining and access to Now, again, this was a committee that that, again, not you don't normally see a freshman congressman get put on some of these committees, let alone becoming vice chair of the.
vice chair of the committee so that's some i mean that's some good good news and it shows what happens when because i know nick was down there working the room long before he was ever elected He was down there because he and I had talked not only on the air but off the air, and he was talking about going down and talking to a lot of the players and trying to advocate for Alaska even before he was elected.
And so this is a very, very strong start, I think, for Nick Baggage. And I know a lot of people are, I've been accused of being cynical. That they're worried that this whole thing with baggage, that it was just a shell game to get into things. But I truly believe that Nick is a true believer in making headway for Alaska. And I think, again, this shows a very, very good start for Begich. We're going to try and get him on the program on this Monday.
This Monday or the following Monday. But we'll try and get Nick on and get an update from him. Remember, he has promised to come on the show and talk with us. pretty, pretty regularly, obviously not as regularly, uh, as when he was running for office, because now he's of course got the full-time gig and he's very, very busy, but we will, uh, we'll continue on, but yeah, good job.
So three committees for Nick Baggage, including that important and powerful subcommittee for energy and mineral resources. So I guess that's a continuation of the good news. segment for today. This is a story that caught my eye and it's more of a national in nature than anything else, but I thought it was interesting because there's been a, um, there's been a turnaround, a remarkable turnaround for the U S army.
The U.S. Army only three months into the new fiscal year, because the new fiscal year starts September 1st, right? Is that right? October 1st. It's October, November, December. Anyway. They have already reached the halfway mark in meeting their recruiting goals for the fiscal year. Recruitments are up over 25% from last year. Last year, the Army barely met its recruiting goal, which was substantially lower than this year's goal. And they...
This year, they have a goal of recruiting 61,000 soldiers into the Army. Last year, it was 55,000. And the Army's already hit the 30,000 mark. which is an increase of over 24,000 than what they had enlisted at this time last year. Fiscal year starts October 1st. So there you go. Under President Biden, the military has seen the worst recruitment number since the Vietnam War.
The worst. And you wonder why. Right. You wonder, why would it? Why would it? Well, I mean, there's lots of reasons. But the big part of it, of course, is the culture and the. And a lot of the other stuff this being that's been going on, of course, the pullout of Afghanistan also led to a lack of faith in the president and the execution of the operations that he's been overseeing.
Um, and, uh, now we're seeing some real fighting going on. I don't know if you've been listening to some of the confirmation hearings for Pete Hegseth, who's the president Trump's nominee for sec defense, but, um, He's gotten nasty, man. I mean, these people are, they are, I was listening to it last. Listening to it last night as I was doing some work in the office and I was listening to one of the Congress critters just rake Hegseth over the coals about his wife or ex-wife or I mean, it was.
Man. It was like the Kavanaugh trials all over again. It was brutal. But more and more people now seem to be coming back. Hegseth wants to bring that warrior ethos back to the military. And that has a big impact on it. I remember that I, for a time when I was younger, this is right out of high school, I had debated whether or not I should go into the military. It was something that I had considered.
And I remembered that I had a conversation with with my dad and with one of my dad's friends and a couple other people. And the common theme at the time that seemed to come out was. you know, don't that now is not the time to join the military with the way that it was right now. And that was right at the beginning of the Bill Clinton years. And so the commander in chief does have a big impact on whether or not people.
decide to make a career of the military and uh i mean obviously i'm glad i didn't now but um yeah so it was an interesting story that those things are now up And people are feeling pretty good about it. But the fact that they've already hit halfway to their recruitment goal only a quarter of the way into the year is a pretty good sign overall. I thought that was interesting.
All right, let's get over to the ranked choice voting. Now, look, ranked choice voting, we've now learned how to beat it, right? The first go around, we got suckered into it, right? We ended up, you know, the infighting amongst the Republicans, and we got sucked into the game. We played it, and we lost. For good reason. But on the second go around, we figured it out. Right. We figured it out. And you could see the Democrats just.
struggling and spinning on this as soon as um dahlstrom pulled out of the race and then of course that pushed uh Pushed Eric Hafner up into the top four and then they were in a panic because now they had two Democrats on the ticket. And you just say we've figured out we've figured out how to work the system. Right. So. Although I would like to see ranked choice voting repealed, I was not as worried about it because we've done figured it out now.
But, of course, right after the election, we saw that that Phil Izon, who had ran the Ranked Choice Voting Appeal initiative this last go around, he had refiled and then another group. had refiled as well. So we actually had two different initiatives to repeal rank choice voting. Well, Phil Izon has decided that he is withdrawing his petition.
He's going to withdraw, he said, to avoid confusion. And since there's another group trying to do the same thing, he said, nope, we're going to stop. He said, I made the decision to withdraw my petition to repeal ranked choice voting for the past two years. Dedicated myself to the fight against RCV, working tirelessly to protect the integrity of our election systems. Together with incredible grassroots support, we made remarkable progress helping six states prevent the adoption of RCV.
debating three Alaska legislators, three Oregon legislators, the father of RCV in Oakland and San Francisco, and even presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party, Chase Oliver. And despite being outspent 100 to 1 by out-of-state interest pouring $15 million into the defending RCV, we stood strong, losing by only a fraction of a percent after two weeks of counting.
He said, we fought not only in the court of public opinion, but also in Alaska's legal system where we successfully defend our ballot measure with unanimous victories in both the Superior Court and the Supreme Court. And he goes on to say that even though they felt like they fell a little bit short, he believes that ranked choice voting is on a life support. And he said...
The formation of this new group dedicated to repealing ranked choice voting. He said it's time for he said there's there's other things that he wants to work on. He's got other petitions. That he wants to work on and he wanted to avoid having any potential confusion with two repeal measures on the ballot at the same time, because it'd be tough if one got voted in and one didn't. That would be a tough situation.
And so he's working on two other ballot initiatives, apparently. And he said, I will finish my two petitions soon and look forward to having everyone's help on those. The new group. which is made up of some people that people probably know, some names you know, former Representative Ken McCarty, Bernadette Wilson.
and Judy Elledge are the three. They haven't named their new group yet. They haven't adopted a name, but they had filed a petition book as well, and they're working on getting that approved. Approved from the lieutenant governor's office or hoping to have an answer back next month. But we'll see what happens. So only one ranked choice voting initiative is going to be on the ballot. This if it gets approved.
if it gets approved in 2026. Won't be this year, it'll be 2026. But I'm interested to see what else Phil Izon's working on. I know that they had talked about vote election security and.
requiring photo ID on the ballot box, moving to paper ballots. I know those were all discussions that they were having. So it'll be interesting to see what they continue to talk about here as they go forward. And finally, The Kenai Peninsula Borough and the, I'm sorry, the city of Soldotna, I apologize, the Soldotna City Council has now defined its legislative priorities for the upcoming session.
And I've got questions. I mean, I really, I really have questions. Now, one of these things seems like it's a pretty much a no-brainer. Chief among their capital improvement plan. is the replacement of the roof over the city's mechanic shop. That's going to cost a million dollars, 1.2 million. And that's a capital improvement maintenance. It needs to be done. Okay, I could see that. And then...
One of the council members is quoted here saying that chief among the city is asking for nearly a million dollars to conduct a signalization study. at the intersection of Californsky Beach Road and Arena Avenue in front of the Soldotna Regional Sports Complex and Fieldhouse. He said, we've had long-term interest in getting a lit intersection put in front of the sports center. Before we can do that, we have to do a signalization study, basically.
just to justify the need, which from my perspective is kind of frustrating because we all know we need it. So we need to study to justify the study, to justify the work that needs to be done, that everybody knows it needs to be done, but we got to spend a million dollars. to get the study to say, hey, we need this. You want to know how we waste money? There's a prime example. Right there is a prime example.
Then they went on to talk about some of the other projects that they're working on, including $250,000 for improvements to Memorial Park. Design work for the expansion to the sports complex conference rooms, which is another $700,000 to expand in the sports complex. I mean, guys, guys. Guys, you're going to spend almost three quarters of a million dollars on... Shouldn't we have other priorities? I'm just asking. I mean, it's nice to have. Don't get me wrong. But...
The sports complex conference rooms, how many people are actually going to use 700? Okay. I'm just asking. Just asking for a friend. Just want to know. Anyway, that's the latest. I'm sure the other boroughs and city councils are going to come forward with their legislative priorities. And as we find those, we will read those and let you know what those are as well to you. But, you know, hey, there you go.
All right, we got to continue ahead here. We're getting ready to jump back into it. The Michael Duke Show continues. Up next, we're going to talk a little bit about this funding woe. The gloomy prospects of big funding for education this year. We'll talk about that. The Michael Duke Show, Common Sense, Liberty Base, Free Thicket Radio.
listened to by more staffers in Juno than any other show. Because their bosses told them to. And after what they just heard, oh man, they're gonna be best. You're a bad, bad man. The Michael Duke Show. Okay. Whew, man. Get back to you guys. I get so deep into reading the stories. I'm not even really watching what's going on in the chat room during that. Um, all right. Good morning, good morning, good morning.
Nick's family name unique clout that the typical freshman congressperson doesn't have, says Chris. Nick's family name uniquely carries clout. Well, yeah, but you wouldn't think it would carry clout on the Republican side. I mean, it's kind of one of those things where it's weird, right? It's like the who's the senator from Louisiana? Kennedy. What's his name? I can't remember his first name, but his last name is Kennedy. But he's this.
conservative firebrand right and so it'd just be one of those things where it's like that's so weird we know baggage but it's not the same it you know it's interesting um I'm just going through here. Was the reason there was no witness signature? Why does a witness signature even matter if a person is out of state, a resident, and the witness is not a resident? Okay.
Yeah, Denise says, but Hegseth didn't flinch. No, he didn't. He fired right back. He fired right back. It was interesting to listen to yesterday.
good morning good morning good morning uh oh yeah it was tim kane thank you uh rich it was tim kane that went after heggis hegseth's personal past um yeah it was uh yeah it was it it really is you know and what was ironic was that uh kane was going was talking about how well you know you grill all these people over their personal and so i'm like well you're doing exactly what you're accusing other people of doing at the same time what was the you know what was the what
Did I make the six o'clock club, said David. Yes, my friend, you made the six o'clock club. Welcome to it. You can officially wear the T-shirt now. Which you have to purchase if you want to wear the T-shirt. But, you know, there you go. Willowa wins the other day. Okay. Um, I think says, uh, Nick that I said, Brian, that Nick did the hard work and pre positioning and making the sales pitch. I agree. John Kennedy. That's right. John Kennedy.
Thank you, Donna. I agree. I think that's exactly why, like I said, he was down there working the room long before he got elected. And I think that positioned him uniquely to be ready. He was definitely. pre-positioning and getting ready and so when he did win and especially i thought it was a pretty significant win quite honestly um yeah they were like okay he's ready and uh so
Fingers crossed, man. I am just so cautiously optimistic. I'm just so hoping I can't get my fingers quite... That's what happens when you get arthritis in your fingers. You can't quite get twisted over. Anyway, it's good. It's good. Okay. I think that's all. I think I'm all caught up. I think I'm all caught up.
I'm going back here just to make sure that there was nothing else. Okay. Yeah. We're all good. All right. Okay. So let's, what am I? Oh, I'm getting into that story. Sorry. I'm getting into the story. I don't. I don't think I'm going to get to David's story, which is unfortunate. I don't know if I'm going to have the time. Well, maybe a shower, uh, doesn't show up or no shows as we can get into it. But, uh, David Boyle had, uh, another piece, uh, from yesterday, day before.
talking about some of the pre-filed education bills. And there's some interesting stuff in here. There really is. There's a new bill that mandates CPR education in public schools and the use of an automatic. AED, Automatic Defibrillator, External Defibrillator, that that's required to graduate, which, again, I'm not saying that...
You know, knowing CPR and how to use a defibrillator, probably good stuff. But it should it shouldn't we teach them how to do reading, writing and arithmetic first? Shouldn't that be on the top priority? I mean, we're. We've already got a 23%, 25%, 24% failure rate in graduation. Only 73%, 75% are graduating. Although I'm all about CPR and that kind of stuff, shouldn't we encourage them to graduate, you know, to learn the basics first? In a little act of irony.
Bill Wilikowski introduced SB 22, which is an act establishing a financial literacy education program for public schools. I mean, the irony of a legislator mandating financial literacy. is not lost on me. It is not lost on me that they are like, wow, I mean, really? wow yeah exactly i'm just like okay that makes no sense whatsoever anyway so maybe we'll if we have enough time we'll we'll see if we can get to that but
Uh, it's a good article from David and I suppose I'll just drop a link for you here in the chat room. Let me just drop a link in the chat room and you can go take a look at it for yourself. For yourself. I'll drop it on rumble too. So folks on rumble can get it. Okay. Here we go. The Michael Duke Show. 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. All right. Welcome back to the program. The Michael Duke Show, Common Sense, Liberty-based, free-thinking radio. We were just talking about this article from David Boyle over at Must Read and some of the stuff that's in these new pre-filed bills. I'm hoping we get enough time today to get back into that. But if you missed it, go over to Must Read Alaska.
And just look up, it's in the top news there, legislators pre-file education bill, including CPR, civics, and ironically, financial literacy. Yes, the irony that a legislator is mandating financial literacy for children is the ultimate do as I say, don't do as I do. I mean, it really, really is. But I want to get over to this story. Um, which, uh, I saw it, it's from Sean McGuire over at the ADN and it, uh, the headline reads Alaska education advocates gloomy.
about the prospects of a big funding boost this year. Now, ironically, they don't really talk much about... the state of the status or the current state of Alaska's finances. They don't mention it. I will say that kind of a kudos to Kathy Giesel. I know that's something you don't hear every day. But she actually, when she was talking about some of the upcoming stuff in the session, she actually mentions the one and a half billion dollar deficit.
in her comments back to, I think it was KTUU. She says, we have a budget that's been proposed to us that has a $1.5 billion shortfall that's got to be dealt with. So, I mean, at least she... mentions it nobody else really seems to be you know well i mean a lot most other outlets most other news stories they're just not even mentioning it so the first thing out of the gate on this whole policy thing is that they don't even mention the fact that we're facing a shortfall
Which should make people gloomy about the prospects of big funding because there ain't no money. I guess unless you decide to take the whole permanent fund and make that your pot of money. Or I guess I should say the permanent fund dividend, not the permanent fund itself. Although I think that might be some people's on their wish list, right?
So the story goes on to talk about how education advocates are trying to gear up for a big fight this year. They think it's going to be tough. Well, I don't know how tough it's going to be since all the main players who seem to be running the shows in the House and the Senate are the same people that were running, you know, beating on their chest saying how they were education defenders. Went on to talk about last year's budget, how they received $176 million in one-time funding.
But school administrators say that helped, but its temporary nature reduced its usefulness. What does that mean? Its temporary nature reduced its usefulness. It means if we can't have a guarantee year after year, then we just can't do the spending that we want to do. Am I being too cynical with that? But I just when they say that school administrator says that one hundred and seventy six million dollar one time boost.
which the legislature passed an even larger boost, but the governor vetoed a part of it, okay? But it was the largest one-time funding that the legislature had ever passed for schools. And they're like, oh, that helped, but... It was only temporary, so it wasn't as good as it could have been. If it hadn't been temporary, maybe...
I mean, it's like they keep moving the marker. We need the money. Oh, no. Now we need the money permanently instead of one time. And then later on, it'll be, oh, now we need it to be even more. ongoing guarantee you know you know what i'm saying so they go on to talk about how the You know how they're having a hard time. The governor said he's going to unveil a 200 million dollar education package. We don't know what it is yet, but 200 million bucks. But education advocates say that a five.
$100 million school funding increase is needed annually to make up for 15 years of losses from inflation. Now, this keeps going back to the BSA. Because the BSA has not been adjusted very much over the last 15 years. But again, they are totally ignoring the one-time funding that happens every year. And if you look at how education has increased in the last 18 years, education spending has gone up over 35%. But they keep telling you.
Oh, it's not keeping up with inflation because they're looking at that one number for the BSA is just supposed to be the floor. It's not supposed to be the end all be all. It's supposed to be a guaranteed amount that you can work from. And then whatever else they give you, they give you. But see, now they're trying to manipulate that guarantee. Then the story goes on to talk about the absolute crisis. That's the sub-headline. Absolute crisis.
For the school districts around the state. And of course, we talked about the Kenai Peninsula borough yesterday, $17 million deficit. Last week, we talked about the Fairbanks North Star Borough has got a $17 million deficit. The Anchorage School District is facing a $111 million deficit. Which, again... It's not like you didn't know this was happening. It's not like you didn't know that this was what's going on. At what point do you people start making the hard choices?
Some high school classes have 40 students. Some elementary school classes have 30 students. Without a funding increase, class size will keep increasing. Okay. All right. Okay. And then it goes on. And this little piece, this little quote here is very reminiscent of what I was just talking about, how, oh, that one-time funding was great, but its temporary nature reduced its effectiveness. Legislators last year approved a historic one-time school funding.
Booth's superintendent said that came late in the budget cycle and merely allowed them to tread water. You gave us one of the one-time historic, most biggest amount of money, but it really only allowed us to tread water. At what point do you start going, man, is this just a never let a crisis go to waste kind of moment? Is that what we're facing here? Oh, it helped, but it came too late. Oh, and we just can't make those decisions. And we just can't.
Oh, and of course, Loki Tobin, she has requested a memorandum from the emphasis nonpartisan. emphasis on the nonpartisan legislative finance division if you believe the if you believe the legislative finance is nonpartisan it doesn't have some kind of agenda in there Okay. Over the past 15 years, the $5,960 base student allocation has increased by $280.
added cost of $70 million per year to the state. The division found the BSA would need to be increased by $1,808 over that period to make up for inflation. Again, focusing strictly on the BSA, which is supposed to be the base student allocation is supposed to be the foundation. And then they live on anything extra. And we do it. That's the guaranteed part. And then we add to it every year. No, no.
They want to change the base. They want to do it. $500 million annually is what that would cost. If you put that in there, and again, if it's in the BSA, If it's in that base, you have to pay it no matter what. That is just there's no discussion on it. So anyway, then they go on to talk about whether or not the governor. is going to veto. And that's really where our only hope lies this upcoming session. Our only hope at this point, based on the current makeup of the current makeup of the.
of the leadership of the House and the Senate, the only real true hope we have is that the governor will stand strong. Now, he's done okay on the vetoes that he's done? And he's not been a fan of this increase in the BSA, which has surprised a lot of people as a former teacher and, you know, educator there. But I don't know.
I just, I don't know how to read this. I don't know if he will veto this or not. I would hope that he would. Shelley Hughes is quoted as saying, we will uphold the governor's veto. You can count on that. So they better work with us this time. Well, I hope so. I hope that's it. Interest groups are ready for another potential bruising fight. The state's teachers union wants a substantial increase to school funding that would then be automatically adjusted for inflation. Yep.
and the union also wants a return to pensions for teachers of course they do of course they do they want all that they want all that big money although it's ironic that claymire later on talks about some of these policies shouldn't be contingent on like school outcomes and how they're doing how the education is doing it shouldn't be transactional he says it shouldn't be that's how the world works tom
everybody it's transactional what have you done for me lately i will pay you but what kind of product will you produce for me if i pay you everything's transactional don't be surprised all right well we gotta go hour two dead ahead the michael duke show common sense radio OK. Yeah, I just the whole tone of this article was like, really?
I mean, that whole first thing where they're like, well, that helped, but the temporary nature reduced its usefulness. Okay. Boy, I'm sorry that your life is hard. I'm sorry you might have to justify your expenditures. I'm sorry that the base student allocation is just that, a base.
Plus, did you see the numbers that came out of Todd Smolden posted it up on Facebook? Somebody sent it to me. I think it was David sent it to me. Oh, I'm logged into the wrong. That answers the question. I'm like, why couldn't I see that? Because I was logged into the wrong Facebook account. I think it was David. I think David Boyle actually was the one that forwarded to me. Oh, come on, man. There we go.
Where is it? Oh, no. Somebody else. Somebody else for it. Oh, there it is. There we go. Right here. Willie Keppel sent it to me. Willie. sent this over can i uh can i do that i can check it out check check it out come on give me the give me the full view whoa the internet's slow this morning there we go So here's the full... Come on. Let's see if that break it up. No. What the what?
What the what? All right, let me go over here Right there. Aha, there we go So take a look at this I guess I'll hide my I'll hide myself for a second here. So look at this. This is the average daily membership of the... There we go. Pull this over here so you can see it. Average daily membership of the state with brick and mortar and correspondence. Look at this dip. Look at this drop.
2024, 22,000 correspondence students, only 105,000 brick and mortar students down from 2020 by 10,000 students and correspondence programs up by almost 10,000. So, yeah, you wonder what's you wonder what part of the problem here is. Whoops, I didn't take my camera. You wonder what part of the problem here is. That's it right there. That was Todd Smolden.
I posted that back on December 30 and I missed it. Somebody forwarded it over to me. But anyway, it's interesting stuff. That's what's going on. So take a look at that. All right. I suppose we need to. um uh bring um mike shower on the program let's see if we can get let's see if we can get a hold of him and uh see what he is doing this morning There we go right here. Let's see if this works. Get him on the line here.
Hey, look at that. Oh no, you don't forward me to voicemail. No, you tell me you don't forward me to voicemail. Let's see if we can get... See if we can get through to him Okay Okay Your call has been forwarded to voicemail. Okay. Well, I guess that means I'll be sending him an email or a text message. see what he has to say. All right. Um, let me get back to the chat room over here. Um, classroom size says Pete.
Now, Pete works at the district and his wife is a teacher. He mentioned that yesterday. Should be 25 to 30 students. Classrooms with 12 to 14 students is not sustainable. Well, and quite honestly, I don't think as you get older, especially into the high school regions. I don't think a classroom size of less than 30 students is helpful because a lot of these kids are then going to go off to college where some of the classroom sizes are 50, 60, 80 kids, right?
If they can't make their way in a room with 30 or 40 kids, then, you know, you've got to train them up. You can't say, well, we need you to, everybody's got to hold your hand. Everybody's got to hold your hand. yeah brian says we need to leave mike a voicemail with all of us chanting dozer dozer dozer uh terry just said he left for work yesterday i don't know um
We'll have to see what's going on. What happens and what happens when the U.S. government dumps the education system and gives it back to the states? Well, that should be interesting. If that does happen, I don't know what's going to happen with that. I don't know what to make of that. It should be interesting. Let's put it that way. It should be an interesting time for sure. All right. Let's see.
Barber says, fast planning meeting today at noon. Nordale PD roundabouts and the Peridot-Richardson Road access study are items of interest. Fairbanks, which is what, the area transit plan? Fast planning? Isn't that what it is? All right. Okay. Well, we'll see if Mike joins us here. I don't know if he is. He may be gone. We'll have to see what happens here.
But we're going to take a break. Well, we're going to start the show, is what I meant. Wow. He talks for a living. Does a really good job, doesn't he? Yeah, no. All right, we're back in a minute. Don't go anywhere. The Michael Duke Show, Common Sense Radio. buddy. Put that thing back in its holster. We haven't gone anywhere. I don't understand. Check out the Michael Dukes show.com for information on how to get access to the podcast. 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 steaming hot cup of freedom. I just don't. The Michael Dukes Show, streaming live across the world.
Live around the world on the internet at michaeldukeshow.com and across the state of Alaska on this, your favorite radio station and or FM translator. Good morning, my friends, and welcome back to the program. It is hour two of the big radio show. And so far, no joy with Dozer, State Senator Mike Schauer. I guess this is what I get for not confirming the night before.
But he's been regular like clockwork. So I thought it would be. So anyway, we'll see if he calls in here this morning in hour two as we continue to move ahead. If you're just joining us, we were just going over some of the different stories that were going on out there around. the state. One of them was this story from the Anchorage Daily News talking about how the education advocates in the state were gloomy.
about the prospects of big funding boosts this year for education. Primarily because the big funding boost is going to cost $500 million. Half a billion dollars. And we're already upside down. We're already a billion and a half dollars in the hole with the governor's proposed budget. Plus, we have a 200 million. They're estimating some of the people who were in the know estimated somewhere between 150 and 200.
million in supplemental budgets for this year, which for those of you who don't understand, they'll start the session for next year. But they'll have a supplemental budget for this year, which is things that weren't covered in last year's budget to still have to be paid for. So basically they're truing up this previous fiscal year. And so, you know.
What I love is, oh, they're always like, oh, we did such a great job. We kept it under, you know, we didn't overspend. And then the supplemental budget will come out and it's got, you know, one, two, three hundred million dollars in it. And you'd be like. Well, wait, I thought you said you saved money. Oh, no, we really had to pay for that. Anyway, so $1.7 billion if you include the supplemental. And now they want to talk about adding $500.
million dollars on top of that. Now, here's where they're focusing on a lot of this stuff. They're focusing primarily on the BSA and for good reason. The BSA is guaranteed money.
right? Here's what they want to do. They want to get the money into the BSA so they don't have to fight over it every year. They just want that money to come in year after year after year. But what they fail to explain to most citizens and to most average everyday people who don't understand the intricacies of the budget process and how these things work and which pots of money are what, is that the BSA is the base student.
allocation. It is the minimum funding level that the state could provide. It gives them a base to work off of, right? A base student allocation. and that it wasn't intended to be a full funding mechanism for schools. It's just the base. See, then you need to go in and you need to advocate for your various things and issues, and then the state would fund it on a one time basis. So they're kind of running this game on us.
This false game of saying, well, we look at the base student allocation, it hasn't adjusted for inflation. Well, I don't think it was meant to. It has adjusted not as much as you would like it to adjust. It has adjusted somewhat, $70 million per year more than it did 15 years ago. but that wasn't meant to be the end-all be-all. It wasn't meant to be the main mechanism for school funding. It was supposed to be the base mechanism for a baseline that you then work off of.
And if you look at the actual funding. Again, of education and Sarah Montalbano did this and several other people have done this gone back. If you go back, you know, 18, 20 years, you'll see that the education funding in the state has increased over 35, 36, 37 percent in the. last 18, 19 years. So we're definitely spending more than we ever have on education. But again, it's not enough. They want it baked into the formula.
That's the whole, we want it, we want it in there. We want it baked into the formula so that we don't have to fight about it anymore, so that we can count on it. Then they can go back to fighting about one time funding on top of the base student allocation. And this is why this BSA argument is so dangerous. And because, number one. It's supposed to be a base, and then it can't be messed with.
basically isn't messed with very much because the legislature is very hesitant to open up the formula or make any changes to it because it's supposed to, you know, they're reticent to get into that. But the bottom line is, is that not only that, it locks us into it. And so now we're on the hook in the future. And it still doesn't stop them from coming back and saying, well, we know we got the base student, but, you know, we need some one time funding to true up.
X, Y, or Z. And so far, I'm not really impressed with the financial acumen of the school districts around the state. I mean, the smaller districts seem to be doing, you know. Okay, pretty good. I mean, they've got deficits, but they're... You know, only double digits. The the the Fairbanks school board deficit is 16 million. The the Kenai Peninsula borough is like 17 million. But the Anchorage School District has a deficit of 100.
And $11 million. And that's up from $89 million last year, I think it was. Maybe David can straighten me out in the chat room. I think it was $89 million was the deficit last year from the Anchorage School. So, again, this is not like this is new. You know it's coming. You know you're going to be in deficit. You know you're going to be in strong. And you know that you have a declining enrollment. You know you have fewer students.
You know you've got to consolidate schools, you've got to make things more efficient, and yet your deficit continues to grow because you're not doing it fast enough because nobody wants to make the hard choices. And that's really what it's about. Nobody wants to make the hard choices that are necessary and tell people we can't afford it. Yesterday, we were talking about the tool that's being used down on the peninsula.
I'm sorry, let me go back to yesterday's story just so that I can pull it and make sure that I... I'm covering it honestly. Here we go. KPB launches a conversation. So this is the discussion from the Peninsula Clarion that Jake Dye put on there. And he talks about this tool.
that they used last year um and it's called it's a piece of software to drive the conversation around the budget the school district will for the second year be using balancing act, which is the name of a piece of software accessible in a web browser that gamifies the budget.
It allows the user, you, the public, whoever, to go in there and make a version of a balanced budget and submit it back to the district. Although yesterday, after we talked about this in the chat room, Jeannie, who is in the chat room down in Soldotna, and she's actually run. the school board so she's been watching this stuff she said it was great except it wouldn't allow you to change like certain department lines you couldn't remove it's it's kind of on rails you can't necessarily do anything
Right. You can't make there's just some things they won't allow you to change. OK, well, that kind of blows part of that. But what was interesting was that they said in this article yesterday, last year. People using the software, because they did this last year, they had a $13 million deficit last year, $17 million this year, $13 million last year. People using the software overwhelmingly opted to budget for a funding increase from the state.
meaning they didn't have to make decisions about what to cut from the budget. Why was that even an option? Because you just why are you betting on the if come? Why are you betting on the oh, it's going to be the best case scenario? I mean. He said that's not going to be an option this year on that balancing act software. That won't be an option for them to say the state will pay for it. Why was it an option last year?
other than they were looking for a bunch of input for people to go to the legislature and say, we need the money. Now is the time for these school districts, these administrators, these school boards. To make the hard decisions. To make the tough choices. Because...
I mean, I'm kind of happy to see a headline that says, you know, that Alaska's education advocates are gloomy about the prospects of big funding. I don't know if it'll come true. I think it might be a little bit of hyperbole or soft selling it. because they've got pretty strong majorities in the Senate. And although it's close in the House, you've still got some people on the minority side who said they favor an increase in the BSA. They've said that.
Justin Ruffridge and a couple others have said, well, they'd look at an increase to the BSA. Now, maybe not a $500 million a year increase, but, you know. So the big question on this is where? Does the governor stand on this? Because he is going to be the ultimate arbiter of this when it's all said and done. He is going to be the ultimate decision maker blocking.
you know, blocking tackle. He's the one that's going to have to veto it in the end. And then we hope that there's enough chutzpah in the legislature to uphold the vetoes. We're going to have to see. We're going to have to see where that goes. But the hope is that there will be enough. All right. We're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we'll have more discussions on this. And David Boyle's new.
article in Must Read talking about the new education bills that don't have to do with funding, they have to do with actual classrooms. And we'll have that discussion in just a moment. The Michael Duke Show, Common Sense. Liberty-based, free-thinking radio. We return with more 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. Sorry about that. Hi. Wow. Yeah.
So we're not done for the day. Sorry about that. Had to talk to a man about a horse. That's what's going on. There was a man and a horse out there. I had to talk to him immediately. if not sooner okay um where are we at oh i suppose i should i hit the one timer but not the other one uh we're a minute out Is that right? Yep. We are a minute out, getting ready to jump back into it. Okay. So, let me see if there's anything that, oh, we're going to turn.
turn this off there we go delete there we go okay all right who pays um The libtards will scream they're killing kids, but this time it's because their socialist education funding has life-saving education. That might be it. That might be it. Okay. All right, I'm all caught up. You guys are killing me. You guys are killing me. Like, what? Where's he? Did he go? Where did he leave? Man, you guys, pay attention. Pay attention.
All right, here we go. We're jumping back into it. The Michael Duke Show, Common Sense, Liberty Base, Freethinking Radio. 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. Okay. Welcome back to the program. It is The Michael Duke Show. Common Sense, Liberty-based, free-thinking radio.
You guys all ready for the rest of hump day? Still haven't heard from Mike Schauer. I have a feeling that he is out of pocket and just didn't... didn't didn't drop me a line before he usually he usually throw me a bone and say hey i'm not going to be here yada yada yada and uh but maybe he got just got busy and didn't do it uh so we were expecting mike shower today but
Hey, you know, we shall overcome. We'll make it through here on this discussion. So I guess my final thoughts here on this last article. Let me pull these two articles together so I can read them side by side here. But the this this article in the ADN, I don't like I said, I'm not sure if it's psychological warfare. uh psyops because of the way the headline reads because when i first read the headline i was like oh great good maybe they were or maybe they're trying to gen up more uh
encouragement or more support from the public to press on the legislature. I don't I just don't know. But the headline reading that education advocates are gloomy about the prospects for big funding. But they never, here's the thing. And, you know, I don't want to, oh, I'm going to be critical of Sean McGuire, I guess, and any other. reporter right now who fails to mention the fact that the proposed budget deficit is one and a half billion dollars. That's just basic reporting to me.
If you're talking about any time you mention that they're looking for an increase of two, three, four, five hundred million dollars, half a billion dollars, you are almost it's almost compulsory. that you mentioned the offset to that to say at the same time we're facing a one and a half billion dollar deficit on the proposed budget And the governor's 10-year forecast calls for billion-dollar deficits for the next 10 years. Why are there no reporters who are pointing this out more and more?
I mean, it's a legitimate point. Again, leading to the question of who pays? $500 million is what education advocates are calling for. And I think... Quite honestly, I think that quote yesterday out of the Peninsula Clarion really encapsulates the problem that all school districts...
school boards, assemblies, and administrators are having right now. When they were talking about that gamify thing where the public was writing budgets to send in, and they said, that the public was overwhelmingly opting to budget for a funding increase from the state, a magical, mythical gift of money from Uncle Sugar.
meaning they didn't have to make a decision about what to cut from the budget. And this is what the legislature, the local communities, the school boards, the district administrations, the assemblies, this is what they've been doing. And the financial officer in KPB said they won't have that as an option this year. People will need to make the tough choices.
And I think we're rapidly approaching that part where people are going to have to, not just people in the public, but I think maybe legislators, maybe not legislators because they've got a multi-billion dollar. permanent fund corpus that they can juicily stare at but many of the districts many of the municipalities many of the cities and assemblies and boroughs they're going to have to look at this
And they're going to have to start making some tough choices. How many years has the Anchorage School District been in deficit? Right. I mean, the Fairbank School District has been in deficit for, what, four or five years now? They've been whittling away at it, but they're still in deficit. And what does that mean to you and Fairbanks? Well, Fairbanks does not contribute up to the cap. You realize that. Somebody sent me. I think it was my...
Secret economist here, sent me a chart. It wasn't in there. They sent me a chart. that showed that Fairbanks is only funding it up to the, I want to say 74 percentile mark, that they're not, that there are several, there are several. There are municipalities that are funding up to the cap, but Fairbanks is not one of them. Fairbanks instead is only at, I think, 78%, maybe 79%, whatever it was. I was just looking for the chart. Now I can't find it. Anyway.
So what does that mean? Well, that means that they could come back at the citizens of Fairbanks and they could hit them with another tax hike. Because then they could fully fund education all the way up to the maximum that they're allowed. I mean, it's a possibility. But the bottom line is, is that eventually somebody is going to have to be the adult in the room. And they're going to have to say that cuts are that you're going to have to face the hard choices.
And just like we were talking about here last week with Greece and, you know, the austerity measures when Greece had that meltdown. And everybody was in the streets rioting about austerity. You've got to, you can't, you can't do, there's no more money. You could be mad about austerity all you want, but there is no more money. Just like all these people in the various communities where they're closing down these schools and they're saying, oh, I can't my kids school and you.
close somebody else's school don't close my and they're coming and they're being they're weeping and wailing and they got the kids all genned up and they stamp and they stomp their feet at the meetings about you can't close my school and and everything else and it's just like It's the reality. You can be mad about austerity all you want, but there is no more money. Boom. Mic drop. End of story.
Yeah. And meanwhile, thanks, Fat Ray, for that. Meanwhile, the Fairbanks Borough Assembly has priorities like a $33 million puppy palace. They're going to build a new animal shelter for $33 million. I mean, that's a whole that's a whole nother show right there. But it's encouraging to me when I see commentary like this from the the. She's the finance director, or he's the finance director, Zen Kelly. Or no, what was it, Liz Hayes? Who was it that said it? I think it was...
Liz Hayes. Yeah, it was Liz Hayes. She's the finance director of the KPBSD. And she's the one that said. People didn't they last year, they overwhelmingly opted. They opted to budget. For a funding increase from the state, because it was a mythical option in the game, right? They were gaming out the budget. They didn't have to make the decisions. People will always take the easy road.
And that's why, again, that whole thing about money being one hell of a drug and, you know, the problem with OPM, other people's money, is that you eventually run out. And the whole thing about Bastiat saying that the great fiction is that we're all living at the expense of somebody else in the government. Government is the great fiction that we're all living at the expense of somebody else.
All those things come back to the fact that as long as it doesn't hurt me, I love it. Right. As long as I don't have to pay for it, I love it. Don't tax, you know, me. Don't tax the tax, the man behind the tree. Oh, I want all those programs. Just don't make me pay for it. And that's where we're at right now at every level of government. But we're seeing it especially here in these educational things.
On top of that, you've got a bunch of special interests, including the teachers unions, the school board associations, the... You know, people with a vested interest in seeing where they want all of this stuff to come to fruition and they're pushing hard and they're organized and they've got a group of people who've got, again, a vested interest in making all this work. But we're going to have to make the tough choices. You can't have a deficit, million, multi-million dollar per year deficits.
And you can't look back at yourself if you're in year three of a deficit or year four of a deficit and you have not at least reduced it. If it just keeps going up. Every year. you're not cutting hard enough. You're not making enough tough choices, especially if you have a declining enrollment, a smaller... population base, a smaller market of customers to serve in that regard, you're not making the tough choices. You're expecting a Hail Mary.
You're expecting a Hail Mary to come down and save you at the last minute, just like these people who were using that gaming software. They didn't want to have to make the hard decisions, so they overwhelmingly opted to budget for a funding increase from the state. That's great. except for where's the money going to come from. And even if the money is there, which it is right now in the permanent fund dividend, they don't even think about the ramifications of what that does.
to the rest of the economy and to the rest of the people, to the middle and lower income families, what the effect will be when you take more and more of their PFD. They don't think about the knock on or trickle down effects of what that money, taking that money out of a private hands in the economy and giving it to government to spend what that does.
They just know that they want their local school that's been there for 30 years, that their other kids went to, and they shouldn't have to take their kids to another school, even if it's only got 20% occupancy. It doesn't matter. We love this school. It's a school. Let's find efficiencies. Let's do what needs to be done. Multi-million dollar deficits.
$111 million deficit at the Anchorage School District. And last year, again, I want to say it was $89 million. So the increase, so they've got, so it's gone up. 30 million bucks, 30, 25 million bucks. The deficit in a single year, which again tells us one thing. You're not making the tough. decisions that need to be made to close that gap. And somebody's got to do it. Somebody's got to be the adult in the room. I mean, if I see again one more person whining about...
how they're going to close our local school. They're going to close the school that my kids have gone to, that I went to. I'm sorry. That happens. Change is inevitable. And by what really kills me is when they're putting the onus on the kids, you know, and you see these kids crying about, I'm going to miss my school. And I'm just like, I changed schools when I was in grade school. I didn't ever.
I never got upset about it. It was just, it is what it is. Why are people so emotionally tied to this? What is the most efficient? What gives us the best results and the best returns? Isn't that what's most important? Or do we have to have an emotional tie to a specific building to have a specific, I mean, it makes no sense whatsoever. Anyway. All right. Well, we got one final we got one final segment here that we're going to get into. So I guess we might as well start on down that path.
and get things squared away. I do have David Boyle's article. I was not expecting to stay the full segment on that piece, but... David Boyle's latest article talks about legislators pre-filed bills on education that don't necessarily have to do with funding, but have to do with actual subjects and topics and things that they want kids to learn. And some of it might be a little surprising to you. Like, really? We'll continue to talk about that here in just a moment.
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Okay. All right. The genie said, but before the end of the meeting, the school board meeting, this is for the KPBSD. Virginia Morgan had balanced all but 86,000 of it. I'm interested to know if that's the case, if it was that easily balanced during the meeting. Why did the finance director not propose a budget that was only $86,000 upside down? I mean, is it more, is this again, is this more posturing?
Is this more posturing for them to come in and say, oh, we need more? Was that what this was about? I don't know. I'm interested to see. Um, uh, what? Parental abuse, but what is going? All right. Melissa Burnett, president of the Fairbanks School Board, says Fairbanks is absolutely making those tough choices and has been for seven years.
I don't understand how much more tough you get outside of five schools, nine in the last four years. I mean, you guys have been making some hard choices, Melissa. There's no doubt about it. And you have brought your deficit down, which I think is laudable. I'm really frustrated watching these other school districts where the deficit just continues to go up year after year after year. And I understand that employee cost drives a lot of that.
that 75 to 80 percent of all costs in these districts are personnel costs and that there's baked in stuff that you can't get away from but at some point You have to cut something outside of personnel to make sure that's make up for that. Or you may have to lay off some personnel to make up for that.
You can't just keep having a deficit that creeps up year after year after year and expect that people are going to be like, where are the hard choices to bring this back in line? You guys are doing a pretty good job there in Fairbanks, Melissa. I'm not trying to run you down. Yeah, the Anchorage School Board makes Fairbanks look like responsible adults. Exactly. Yeah.
Anthony says, easy solve. If you don't want the government to close your particular school, buy it. Just because you love it doesn't require the rest of us to pay for it. I mean, that's kind of a hard, hard way of saying it, but he's not wrong.
okay, you love the school. How do we pay for it? If you really love it, start a charter school, get other parents together, start a charter school, put a charter together, get it in there, raise the money, do what you need to do. I mean, if you really love it that much, do it. Leela says, I changed schools four times in elementary. I never missed the building. I did miss my friends, but with school consolidation, that probably wouldn't be a problem. Yeah. I mean.
you're going to still see probably the same group of folks. And if you're anything like me, most of my friends were people that I rode on the bus with, right? People from my neighborhood and community. I still had other friends, but you know, and they're still going to go to the same school that you are. For the most part, right? I mean, it's crazy.
Um, is the BSA increase asked Timothy just to cover for law students? Well, I think part of it is that's part of it, but part of it is just a money grab. They just, they just more. Um, Jeannie says Zen Kelly was insistent that they use the $1,808 BSA, not the $1,000 that Liz Hayes outlined, which again. Makes me concerned. Zen Kelly is the president of the school board. Again, Liz Hayes is the finance director of the school board.
But, I mean, I like what Liz Hayes has been saying. I mean, again, she says, we're going to have to make the hard decisions. I like that. I like that. Anyway, Fari says, according to the internet, we spend over $18,000 a student. What does it actually cost per students to educate children these days? Well, it depends on where you're at.
If you're out in some remote far-flung village propping up a building that is built for 50 students and you've only got 10, then it's costing you $100,000 a student to educate them if you're breaking it out that way. an actual cost per student, not counting buildings. And I mean, that's the thing. We've got a lot of infrastructure that's been stood up that we don't, I mean, it's, you know, I don't understand.
Again, we're already spending more than most states. I think we're in the top five, four or five in the nation as far as per capita spending. And yet we're down at the bottom of the heap as far as scholastic achievement and doing a good job and actually producing a good product. I mean, at some point you got to be like, um... Maybe we should do a better job with what we have before we start throwing more money at it. Yeah.
All right, we've got to jump back into it. We're 15 seconds out right now. Thank you for your comments. We're going to continue in just a moment, and we'll be... Well, let's get to it. Let's go. Here we go. The Michael Duke Show. 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. Okay. Welcome back.
I guess I'll get off that particular portion of the topic here this morning because I think the horse is dead. You may dismount, right? We'll stop flogging the horse now. on the way through here on school funding. But I just, again, I hope there's some adults in the room when all this comes down. I hope that there are some adults in the room that will work on this and go over this.
I want to talk a little bit here. I've got two more stories. We'll save the good news story for last year. I got that? I got that? Did I get it? Okay. And we'll go over to David Boyle's story. David is an education advocate. He's a contributor to Must Read Alaska. He's a friend of the show. Comes on quite frequently to talk about education issues. But he dove into some of the pre-filed bills. Now, the next tranche of pre-filed bills is coming out on Friday, this Friday.
But there was 80-something bills pre-filed and five constitutional amendments and some other stuff. A lot of them had to do with funding and everything else. But David focused on education bills that didn't necessarily have anything to do with funding.
and uh i mentioned this earlier but i want to i want to get back into it because i just i just the irony on this is so thick you could cut it with a knife right on parts of this story but we're going to start off the very beginning there's a bunch of bills that would affect the k-12 education system and again not funding bills but bills about actual instruction Like what kids should learn, what should they be taught, et cetera, et cetera. Senator LV Gray Jackson has filed SB 20, Senate Bill 20.
which mandates CPR education in public schools. Right now, the lifesaving CPR stuff is only encouraged. by state law to be in the education curriculum. It doesn't have to, it's not a mandate. She wants it to be, if you're going to graduate, you've got to learn CPR. It also mandates training. students how to use an AED, an automatic external defibrillator, right? The jumper boxes for your heart. So, I mean, that kind of training is good.
Don't get me wrong. I learned CPR when I was a kid. Um, not, uh, from, uh, I think I got, I learned it from the boy scouts. I didn't learn it from school, but I mean, they did teach it, uh, in school and do some things. So I, yeah, we, it was great. but to mandate it as part of the, like, you can't graduate if you don't learn CPR. What about, you know, reading and math and, you know.
Writing skills and accurate thought and logic and rhetoric and reason. What about those things? I mean, I'm sorry. I understand that this would be a good thing to learn. But to mandate it at the expense of some of the I mean, we already have a, you know, 25 percent failure rate and we were only three quarters, three out of four graduate. The fourth one doesn't.
And of the three of the four that are graduating, a lot of them, over half of them, have to take remedial math to be able to get into a basic math class at the university. So until you up your game on some of the basics, maybe you ought not to be putting all this extra stuff on there, like mandating that they learn CPR before they graduate. I mean, again.
Not that I don't want every kid to be able to learn CPR, but to mandate it as part of your graduate. I mean, I just feel like that's a little. First of all, it's it's. kind of misaligned second of all it's kind of nanny state-ish i don't really you know anyway that's it so that was the first one and then there was the one that is so dripping With irony, so dripping with irony, that I just don't even know what to say. Bill Wilikowski, Senator Bill Wilikowski, has introduced SB-22.
Which is entitled, An Act Establishing a Financial Literacy Education Program for Public Schools. The irony. Of this legislature, or really of any of the past decades, two decades legislatures, mandating that the kids in our classrooms be taught financial literacy.
is astonishing. Now, I'm not against it. Don't get me wrong. But the fact that we've got legislators who have done nothing but write deficit budgets for the last... 10, 12 years now, who have not made any substantive cuts or hard decisions, have done nothing but grow and increase the size of government at the expense of the private sector over the last decade.
The irony of that, I hope it's not lost on you. I think it's good to teach kids financial literacy and discipline. I mean, I wish I had gotten more of those classes. When I was growing up, I wish I had been taught more. I probably would have been much better with money in my earlier years and probably be further along today than I am right now because we struggled. I struggled right out of high school and into the first five.
five, eight, nine years of my marriage, we struggled because I was not financially literate. I got there. But it sure would have been nice to have a basic foundation. So I'm not against SB 22. I just find it ironic that the legislature is going to establish a financial literacy education program.
David Boyle had some things to say about that. He said, here are some of the required topics for the SB 22 curriculum. Number one, making a budget. He goes on to say, I suggest Bert Stedman, Kathy Giesel, Lyman Hoffman, and Loki Tobin could be the instructors.
on making a budget. He said, number two, the basic principles of retirement accounts. She said, I recommend Senator Giesel be required to take this class because she's filed a bill to bring back the defined benefits retirement system to state employees. She said, number three is types of savings and investments. David says, I suggest all the legislators who reduce the PFD should be instructors. This is not a good idea, David.
And number four, the basic principles of money management, including spending. All members of the House and Senate Finance Committee should be required to enroll in this class. Well, but see, they'll be the first to tell you because I've seen comments like this from people on the finance committee. Well, those accounting principles, those budgetary principles that you would use in a business or in a household budget.
They don't apply to government. It's too big to fail. Too big to fail. It doesn't apply. They love to say that, but arithmetic don't lie, right? It still does apply just because you pretend it doesn't, doesn't make it true. Um, anyway, so it's a, Again, the irony of this class being mandated is what I'm all about it. Give it the financial literacy, do it. Then Gary Stevens of Kodiak introduced SB 23, an act requiring the teaching of civics and comparative government.
I mean, should... I mean, what? Aren't they teaching civics already? Social studies, history, aren't we teaching that? Stevens has pushed this subject for many years. Most of the subjects listed in the civics curriculum should already be taught in our K-12 schools. Here are some of the required subjects. One, the founding history of the U.S., including documents. I guess that means the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
I mean, we're not teaching about that already? The principle of federalism. Again, we're not teaching about federalism and anti-federalism? Civil liberties and civil rights. What? These are things we're mandating. This is not going on. The constitutions of the United States and Alaska. Well.
If we're not teaching, if we are not teaching these things already to the students in school, then we're doing something wrong. I mean, I taught my kids. I didn't personally, but I made sure that all these topics were included in their. lessons when they were homeschooled are you telling me that we have to have a bill requiring them to teach this when they are they not teaching it now number five political parties campaigns and elections
That would be interesting. That would be very interesting. I mean, it would seem that you would have to have most of these in our current system. I don't know why. One of the interesting things, though, and I... I'm kind of a fan of this, quite honestly. The bill would also require students to pass a 100-question test made up of questions from the U.S. Citizenship Test.
They have to pass a hundred question test that's made up of the same test that US that foreign nationals have to pass to get US citizenship. By the way, in 2018. Only 36% of Americans could pass the citizenship test. Only 36%. I think we should be testing. Yeah. I mean, I think. Because, I mean, how many questions? I think the citizenship test is like 300 questions or something. So you're only getting 100 of them. I'm kind of a fan.
I gotta be honest with you. I'm kind of a fan of this part of the bill. I'd like to see it. Um, because you got, I mean, If you don't understand how your country and how your government functions, how can you be effective in helping to mold it and shape it and have a how can you even have legitimate opinions? I mean, everybody's opinion is legit, but how can you even.
I'm gonna stand by that. How can you have legitimate opinions if you don't even understand how the system that you're in works? Right? How can you do it? And Anthony makes a valid point, too, on that financial literacy. He said, so the institutions that is billions of dollars in the red, hundreds of millions for the different school districts, they're going to teach the next generation how to balance their checkbook?
I know, right? It's just, it's so nutty. All right, we're out of time for today. Tomorrow, Rod Pyle is going to be joining us. We're going to talk about space. Oh, I forgot about that. So excited. Rod Pyle, old friend of mine, is going to be our guest. We'll talk about that. Friday, it's Rob Pincus and Yehuda Remmer, the Pew Pew Jew. We got to go.
If you're listening on K-Pen, I've got a post up on Facebook on K-P-E-N. It's Facebook.com slash Chet FM asking if you want to hear Charlie Kirk after my show on K-Pen. So go out and check that out. All right, my friends, we gotta go. Be kind, love one another, live well. Okay, sorry, I forgot to do something there. Yeah, it's crazy. I went through some of the questions on a citizenship.
test about 15 years ago and i was shocked i don't know if i would have passed it i may i may have barely been able to pass it there's a lot of questions there that i was like wow i didn't i'll have to study up on that it was it was an interesting interesting thing Um... Um... in kodiak says tracer i just heard over on rumble i just heard from a very reliable source that there's no requirement to have taken and passed civics in order to graduate from high school well
If that's the case, that's very disappointing. You know, Fat Ray says, Quoting Henry Ford, it is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning. Exactly if they understood how this all kind of stuff works. I mean, this is, yeah. Oof. Um, let's see what, um, I'm sorry. I'm just going back through here.
Lasko says, do you ever question why the state has no money? Oil prices have been high. Every other oil region in the world is washing gas. Also, the permanent fund is doing terrible. and the managers took $800 million in management fees? Yeah, Lesko, I ask that question all the time. I ask that question all the time.
Anthony said, my half-asleep brain hurts. She wants to require the kids learn IEDs. I was like, holy hell, how bad is it out there? It's AEDs, but I get your point. I can see how you could mishear that. the state had a balanced budget in 2023 randy if that's your definition of a balanced budget you definitely need to go back to school for financial literacy
Drawing money from savings is technically balancing the budget, but a truly balanced budget puts money away in savings. Pays for everything from the income. That's a true balancing of the budget. For the long-term, sustainable, long-term balanced budget. But, you know, you do you, boo. You do you. All right, we gotta go.
Thanks for coming in, my friends. We will see you tomorrow with Rod Pyle. I'm excited to talk about that. We'll be back. The Michael Duke Show, Common Sense, Liberty Base, Free Thicket Radio. Radio Skin. And now we are slimy lizard internet people. It's the Michael Duke Show.