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 fathom it.
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. Hello, my friends. How are you? It's hump day. It's middle of the week already. It's the downhill slide. We're almost halfway through February already.
I mean, wow, wow, wow, wow. It's time flies when you're having fun or creating an ulcer. One of the two. I'm not sure. Not sure which it is, but it's one of those. Anyway, welcome back to the to the program here. The Michael Duke show. We've got a big show lined up for you today. We're going to cover a whole bunch of new headlines. That have been percolating and somebody is finally saying the quiet part out loud. Somebody is finally talking about the.
The crisis, the fiscal crisis that we have been talking about on this show for years. And it on the one hand, I should be. ecstatic that somebody is finally, I guess, listening to me. No, I mean, I just get somebody is finally seeing what we've been seeing all along. But at the same time. I'm so sad that it took up until this point, it took this kind of problem for them to actually see what's going on. And it is a...
It's frustrating. It's very frustrating. We're going to talk about some of those things. We're going to talk about the latest, now the discussion that's coming out of the Senate about new revenues. I'm going to talk about that. We're going to talk a little bit. We've got more, more fantasy, more fantastical. Caterwalling from the cheap seats. That's not fair. That was not fair. I'm sorry. That was not fair. More parents in the Anchorage area.
saying we just need to fund it no matter what. The schools. It's another multi-author opinion piece that goes over the same talking points that we were discussing yesterday. And we're... We're going to we'll break it down for you. We'll break it down for you. We're also going to talk a little bit about the the new lawsuit.
That the state unions, the employee unions have filed against the governor. I'm a little torn on this one. This is this is there's some weird stuff going on. And you know what? There's a trend. In this administration that I'm not super comfortable with, and that is the state paying for studies and information that they never get, that they never release. And that is a troubling trend. I'll be honest. That's a troubling trend for me personally.
And not that, you know, not that I'm a huge fan of the state employee unions and everything that's going on there, but they might have a point. I want to know what's going on. So we'll talk about that. There's also a new trend that's a little troubling, and that is that the non-resident hiring rate in Alaska is the highest that it's been in 30 years. And that trend seems set to continue, which is problematic, problematic to say the least. Also, the Senate president.
Gary Stevens. The headline in Must Read is, it's not hyperbolic, but I think it overstates it slightly. Gary Stevens basically just got caught out doing what everybody's been doing for a long time, and nothing's going to come of it. But the headline reads, Alaska Senate president caught in a lie about class sizes. Man, we have caught so many legislators in lies about components of education.
whether it's the whole commonly repeated mantra of, oh, we've had flat funding for years and all this other stuff. The problem is that it's a... It's a partial truth. It's not really a flat out lie. It's select. It's well, I feel like I'm making an excuse for him now. It's selective truth. They tell you just enough of the truth.
To get their point across and they don't tell you the full thing. And we'll we'll we'll just we'll discuss that. We will discuss that as we go through. What else was there? Oh, there's this weird story about this former Alaskan who's a cult leader. It's a... cult of trans people that is parent i mean i don't know i don't even know if i want to get into it it's so weird and bizarre at some point i'm like what is going on here um and then if we get through all that
in hour one here. Then we're going to pick it up with state Senator Mike Cronk. You thought I was going to say shower, didn't you? Because it's Wednesday. But no, what we've been doing is instead, because Mike Schauer now as the Senate Majority Caucus Leader, the Republican Majority Caucus Leader, the Senate Republican Majority Caucus Leader. It's a new title. I'm trying to get it right. The Senate Republican Majority Caucus Leader.
which is technically the minority, but it's the Republican majority. You know what I mean? Anyway, so since he's been, he's busy. And so he hasn't been able to spend as much time. But I've been working now with one of the press secretaries there, and they've been really good about trying to get me a hookup with one of the legislators each week.
Which I think is great. I love to hear the diversity of opinion and different folks. Some of these folks I haven't talked to in a long time. So it's it's really good. So Mike Kronk is going to be joining us in our two and we'll see what. So we'll see what he has to say about a lot of the stories that are floating around out there and a lot of the different things that are going on. I think...
Well, we're starting to devolve into two camps on this on the education thing. And what I'm really hearing, and by the way, I heard some of the testimony. that's being floated around in the different education committees and in the boards of education. Somebody sent me some clips of the... Some of the comments and some of the testimony and what really breaks my heart. I'm just going to say this is a pet peeve of mine. This is a pet peeve of mine is when folks put their kids.
up on the, you know, up in the pulpit, right? Up in the testimony area. And it's not because I don't think that kids should be able to speak or anything else. But to me, most of the time, these kids don't. Well, a lot of the parents don't understand. But I don't think that, you know, maybe one out of. A thousand kids would understand exactly how this whole process works. Because they're kids and they're worried about TikTok and video games and whatever else. These are pretty young kids.
And to me, it is such a blatant appeal to emotion. It's such a blatant move to try and emotionally motivate or blackmail. emotionally blackmail in some cases, the legislators or the school board or whoever they're testifying in front of to see. I know they're trying to put a human face.
That will be the argument. Well, we're trying to put a human face on this. There are people who are being affected and these kids deserve a set. But we all honestly know that most these kids don't understand it. They don't understand how the funding works. Why would you put your child in the position to be in the middle of a tug of war over something like that? And I saw it was a clip that somebody sent me that.
of three or four or five different kids testifying about the school funding. And it was all appeals to emotion and there was no facts involved in it. And it was, you know, why would you take me away from my school? And I love my teacher. And I mean, all. Look, but it's so disconcerting that this is the, if we're going to have a rational debate about this, an argument, a debate, however you want to phrase it.
If we're going to have a debate and a discussion about this stuff, take the kid part, take that out of the emotion. Don't. Don't try and emotionally blackmail somebody by putting kids up there and saying this is because I think we can we can we can really we could say it truthfully. That in a lot of ways, this is not about the kids. We talked about that yesterday. If it's for the children, we know that if it was truly about the children.
You would mandate that much more of this money actually made it into the classroom. We would look at ways to reduce some of the extraneous overhead, administrative costs, and things outside of the classroom. And when the rubber met the road and things got really tight, we wouldn't immediately start cutting things that make schools more attractive to children. Right? Because what's the first thing that they're going to cut?
right? They're going to cut the music program. They're going to cut sports. They're going to cut, you know, these things that engage children beyond academics. that are kind of the glue that holds some kids into the school, you know, to motivate them to stay involved because...
Well, they're okay. I don't, you know, they don't really love the schooling part, but they love the music or they love the art program or they love the drama or the sports or whatever it is. It's those extra things that help glue them in there. things that I would argue are actually part of really that classroom, you know, part of that classroom spending. It's the glue that holds them in place to pick up the rest of the reading, writing, and arithmetic. And instead, that's the part.
that they start to cut out. And usually, that's the first thing that they go after. They don't go after consolidating health care or duplicative positions or any of these other things. They go right for the red meat of, oh, you're not going to give us some money? Well, then we're just going to cut the art program for your kids. See how you like it then. I mean, that's not what they say, but that's the implication.
You know, it's almost predictable. You can just write the script that this is what's going to happen. And we see that now in many of the in many of the. I mean, I'm going to get into this opinion piece, but this opinion piece hits all the same points that the last one did. You know, high school hockey, swim, dive, and gymnastics will be eliminated. All school sports, middle school sports will be cut.
Classroom sizes will swell. And then there's a story in the ADN, the top headline story that I saw. I haven't read the story yet, but I just saw the headline and it was like, oh, God. The headline reads. Hello. The headline reads. Deaf community pushes back against the proposal to cut ASL professionals in the Anchorage school district. You've got deaf children and you're going to cut out the American Sign Language professionals in the school district.
How are you going to teach them if they can't communicate? Right? I mean, that's a classroom. I mean, seriously. You know what we should do? We should cut stuff to hurt deaf kids. That'll get their attention. I mean, doesn't it, to you, and maybe you don't agree with me on this whole school thing, and maybe you're on the other side of this. But when you see something like that, don't you just go, that feels punitive. Right?
I mean, we don't even have to agree on whether school funding should be there or not. I mean, you could be 100%, an $1,800 BSA increase person. And when you look at that and you go, of all the things to cut, you're going to cut ASL instructors. from death, doesn't that just feel punitive? Be intellectually honest. I mean, I don't know if maybe this is an echo chamber. Maybe everybody that's listening to this agrees with me. But I sure would like somebody who doesn't agree with me to comment.
on this in the chat room or to send me an email me at michaeldukeshow.com and tell me when they start cutting asl instructors for deaf kids Regardless of whether you agree with me or not, doesn't that priority, because that's a prioritization thing, doesn't that feel punitive to you? I mean, I just... Okay. Anyway, we're going to get into all this and more. Hey, hey, hey, hey. It's time to do it. All right. We're going to be back in just a second. The Michael Duke Show.
common sense liberty-based free thinking radio don't forget you can always join us during the commercial breaks we're behind the scenes on facebook and rumble and youtube all the places Come on out and join us. Facebook.com slash Michael Duke show slash live is one of the places you can come out and be part of the cool kids club, the six o'clock club. All right, we got to go. Back with more right after this. Your mental suppository.
Okay. All right. Too many windows up. Too many windows up this morning. Donna says, school districts get a lot of money for disabled kids. Are you in the chat, David Boyle? I mean, that's the... I mean, I didn't even get to that part, but that is true. Kids with disabilities have a multiplicative effect on the BSA. So if the average kid gets... five grand for the bsa the disabled kid could get 30 40 50 100 more than that depending on what how the disability is factored but i mean why would you
Why would you cut? Why would you cut ASL instructors, people who speak the language that the deaf children need to learn and need to communicate? I mean. Come on. Come, come, come on. Come on. David says, for two hours, the Senate Ed and House Ed committees heard emotional appeals, maybe 2%. Yeah. Melody says, right. Why would you put your kids in that mess? Yeah.
The kids, David says, the kids and the ed industry folks got five minutes each at the House Education Committee and the Senate Education Committee. While we... The people got two minutes. So much for democracy. Good morning, good morning, good morning. What kind of oil resources state, says Lesko, can't make money with oil at high prices, can't make money with $80 billion in the stock market, in the bull market? You know how they can't make money?
is when they spend it all. That's the problem. This is not a revenue problem. I've said this for years. This is not a revenue problem. This is a spending problem. Now it's been a spending problem so long that it's actually created a revenue problem.
in addition to the spending problem. It used to be they could have just cut back on spending and things would have coasted back to normal. But we've gone so far afield now, we've created so much dependency, so many programs, so many additional things that The spending problem has now created an additional revenue problem. That's the thing. Okay.
I'm scrolling backwards here. I'm just seeing, making sure. Okay. That's the beginning. All right. I'm back at the beginning. Okay. So I'm just making sure that I got, just making sure that I got this thing. Let's don't talk about cults. Unless it's this one, of course, says Rick. The cult. The cult of common sense. Shouldn't have called it the common sense core. Should have called it the cult of common sense, right?
I mean, they'd treat us like we were crazy anyway. I guess maybe at least we get a cool name. Terry said it's a form of blackmail when they're using the kids. I agree. It's emotional blackmail. Because these kids are not adding anything new to the equation. I mean, unless they're near adult high school kids who, you know, are...
got some intellect and can make some rational arguments or have been taught through the Socratic method and can make, they're all emotional pleas, if nothing else. It's all emotional blackmail. But Melissa says they don't want to listen to the facts. They just want to emotionally get you. That's the problem.
I mean, this is the whole problem on a nationwide basis. I mean, this is the whole USAID and DOGE and all this other kind of stuff. It's all emotion. It's all emotionally charged. There is no... Forget the facts. How do you feel about it? That's where we're at right now. Let's go. How do we get the 70-30 rollback, says Donna. That, it's a good question. It's a good question. We're eight seconds out. I wish I, I.
Oh, I need a longer break so that I can talk more with you guys. All right, here we go. The Michael Duke Show. Common Sense, Liberty Base, Free Thicket Radio Lectures. The Michael Duke Show. Not your daddy. Wait, sorry, not your daddy? Ooh, not your daddy's talk radio. Phew, I was scared for a second. Thought we were going down. Here's Michael Dukes and the show. Okay. We're continuing on now. The Michael Duke Show. Common Sense Radio. A lot of agreement in the chat room.
There's nobody in the chat room, though, who disagree. What I was looking for is, I mean, I was looking for somebody who actually wants that increase in school funding and can look me in the eye, metaphorically, not literally, but look me in the eye and say, Cutting ASL instructors from deaf kids, you know, that's not punitive. Although Donna Ardwin makes a valid point in the chat room when she points out that...
Somebody has got some explaining to do. If they're cutting ASL instructors from disabled children, somebody... Somebody's got some spank because the school districts get a lot of money for kids with disabilities. The formula, if a regular student gets $5,000, let me just pick a number, $5,000.
Then a disabled student, depending on the severity of disability or what's going on, could get 50. 70 80 100 sometimes more than 100 more than that you could get 10 or 15 000 for a disabled kid so if all of a sudden you're saying well we can't have asl instructors for these deaf kids so they're just going to sit there and suffer in silence with nobody can't nobody can talk to them because they i mean what tell me that's not punitive come on
Anthony says in the chat room, there are only 50 states. Who are the two places ahead of us? Because we're 52nd and 53rd or 51st and 52nd in the new NEAP scores. Well, it's all 50 states. It's the District of Columbia. And then there's one for the in Puerto Rico is in some of them, not in all of them. But one of those comparatives is also the DOD schools. So the DOD schools count as one of the 53 whatever.
But the only one we didn't beat was New Mexico. New Mexico came in behind us twice. So I guess we can all be thankful that we're not living in New Mexico. That's the thing. That's the thing. All right. I could just go on and on and on about this because I'm so agitated. While I'm here, I guess I might as well just go ahead and dive into this.
This next. Pleading. It's another opinion piece. It's enough. And boy, tell me that. Tell me that they're not organizing around this idea. Yesterday it was. An opinion piece that had been penned by, what was it, five, six different parents. And today we have another opinion piece, South Anchorage families, your schools need you now. The headline.
Holly Brooks, Amanda Dale, Michael Fulham, Asia Harmeling, Kellen Lake, Sarah McWilliams, Shana Sedner, and Vanessa Vetch. All parents that you scroll down to the bottom and it says. They are all our representative Cologne's constituents and parents who fully support, fully funding our schools. And they're going after they're going after Julie Cologne in this article, essentially.
They're all from her district and they're like, what? She just last session, Cologne voted against the BSA increase in the final funding decision. OK, so let me let me just let me just start at the beginning. Once again, Governor Dunleavy has failed to prioritize education funding. And if the Alaska legislature does not act, drastic cuts are coming. If you haven't spoken up yet, now is the time.
The school district's latest budget projections paint a grim picture. If the state does not increase the BSA, which has remained stagnant for far too long, we will see drastic cuts in our classroom. You notice one thing that I'm not ever seeing in any of these discussions from parents or advocates or anything else? There is no accountability to the boards or the school administrators and school administration for fixing this.
This is not a shocking revelation. What if I told you that next year the schools were going to face a budget deficit? Would you be shocked that next year? The schools were going to be facing a budget deficit. It's not like this is an unknown surprise, right? This has been going on for... I did a search earlier. 2017, school district facing a deficit. 2013, school facing school board discusses.
Potential deficit. This has been going on for years. But they always point to the state. Well, the state just needs to give us more money. The solution is always to go. to Uncle Sugar and say, please, maybe I have some more. And it's never any self-reflection and say, maybe we could do better with the budgets we have. Why do you hate children? I don't hate children. But if we are going to be fiscally responsible and you know that there's a deficit.
You're going to have the problem is we build up all these expectations that all these things are always going to happen. And this is one of the reasons why the people are.
freaking out because you keep telling him it's all going to be okay the state and then then you point the finger at the state and say it's all the state's fault we bear no responsibility we bear no culpability i mean even though We haven't controlled our spending, even though we've grown our overhead, even though we used one-time COVID funding to pay for reoccurring costs when we were warned not to do that.
Or we did some accounting game where we moved money from reoccurring costs and we shuffled money around and we used the COVID money for one-time costs, but we took the one-time costs and we paid for it. You know what I mean? That's what they're doing. There is no... Accountability. It's always that the state has not done it. The state hasn't increased. The state hasn't done this. The state hasn't. We are spending. I mean. $1.242526 billion on 127,000 students. But it's not enough.
So here's a bit of what's at stake, they say. And here's the laundry list of fear, right? Remember yesterday? We are afraid. And by implication, you obviously should be afraid too. So let me spread the fear a little bit more. This is what this group of... All middle school sports and activities will be cut. All of them.
We'll put those children in seats and they'll be there all day long and it'll be gray and dreary. We'll make them read Tolstoy. Right? High school hockey, swim, dive, and gymnastics will be eliminated. Librarians and nurses will be reduced to half-time. Don't get sick. We'll take away your health care. Elementary class sizes will swell to 28 to 35 students.
OK, this one I got to call push why on, because if you are already you've got some of these schools that are at 50 percent capacity, 60 percent capacity, right? Some of them below 50. If you consolidate the schools and put more teachers into a single building, you don't have that problem. You've got a declining enrollment and all of a sudden your elementary class sizes are swelling.
which is part of what Gary Stevens got called on the carpet for the other day. The average PTR, pupil-teacher ratio, in the Anchorage School District, and David Boyle can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe right now the average PTR is 20. One? Twenty-two? This is pie in the scale. Okay. Computer-based instruction will increase due to a combination classes and staff loss.
What does that mean, computer-based instruction? You mean they'll sit in front of a screen and learn from Khan Academy? That might be a plus. I'm just saying. We'll eliminate the gifted program. Additional staff cuts will be made at all levels. Well, you should have let off with that. Increased staff cuts may lead to the elimination of immersion program teachers risking the program's future.
some of these cuts we could live with right but what do they go to first all sports and activities will be cut These are not just numbers. These are real consequences for students, teachers, and families. Many of us left frustrated by repeated funding failures. But frustration alone won't protect our kids. We need action. You know what they don't mention in this anywhere? It's the same thing that was missing from yesterday's opinion piece. You know what they don't mention?
At all. These are real consequences. Many of us have felt frustrated by repeated funding failures. You know what you should be frustrated about as parents? The failures of the kids. The fact that the kids were spending gobs of money and the kids are scoring 52nd out of 53. districts and jurisdictions that they're counting, you know, across the nation. We're at the bottom of the barrel. Not a single mention about scholastic achievement.
It's all about the funding failures. They want Julie Coulomb. She needs to hear from you. She voted against the BSA in the final funding result. Even if you voted for Dunleavy or Cologne, you may not support seeing your child without sports, a librarian, or a school nurse. Call your representative today and tell them Alaska's children and teachers deserve better. Ask them to support, quote, stable multi-year funding, unquote.
Tell me that just didn't come right out of the playbook of the NEA. Stable multi-year fun. They just don't want to fight about it. They just want their piece of the pie. Shut up and sit down. Let them have it so that they can go back to what they were doing. No matter where you stand politically, this is how they finish it up. One thing is clear. Strong schools make a stronger Alaska. Schools that work make a stronger Alaska.
spending more on schools does not make a stronger school. There is no correlation between the amount of money that you're pouring into a school and whether or not it's strong. What makes a school strong is the achievements of the school. I mean I hate to point that out. That is the ultimate achievement of the school in the end, the finished product that then goes out into society to create more children. That is the deciding factor in what makes a school strong or good.
If money equated to good and strong, we wouldn't be at the bottom of the barrel. There's so many. logical fallacies and all these are, this is all a based on emotion. And again, it's being facilitated. by the administrations and the school boards who are allowing all of the... We're going to cut sports. We're going to cut the math program. We're going to cut your art program. We're going to cut out instructors for deaf kids. Tell me.
that that's not intentional. Come on. Look, they got a headline in the ADN out of it. They got a headline in the ADN that said deaf community pushes back against proposal to cut the ASL professionals in the school district. Tell me that's not working as intended. I better move off this topic because I'm about to lose my mind. All right, we got to go. The Michael Duke Show, common sense, liberty-based.
Free thinking radio. If you really disagree with me and you think that the cutting of, if you don't think that's punitive, send me an email and explain to me why. I want to know. 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 weekly morning on Facebook Live and MichaelDukesShow.com. Okay. Oh, man. Districts get 13 times the BSA for intensive needs.
It's about 78 grand per kid. Special needs get 1.2 BSA, which then goes into the formula. Special needs also includes the bright kids and voc ed. Brian asked with his cutback on the ASL, don't they run the risk of getting hammered by an ADA lawsuit? Maybe. Possibly. New revenue is just another term for wanting more taxes. I mean, yeah.
I can possibly steel man the argument. I don't know if that's the opposite of straw man or not. He says, for instance, if there's 30 ASL instructors and only 20 children requiring ASL, one could argue there's room to cut there. On the other hand. You could look at the workload per ASL instructor per student and argued that 30 to 20 is efficient for outcomes of multiple conditions. The problem is that the end result itself is going to dictate which is perceived as the correct opinion. Yeah.
The legislation has no accountability to the people of the state. My boss went off on me yesterday, said Bill, regarding money to schools. He hopes the PFD goes away and the schools get mega funded. Did I mention that he's top 10% and his wife is a teacher? I mean, again. There's no interest like self-interest. Right? There's no interest like self-interest. I'm going back here.
Superintendent Holland points to his predecessors of the problem because they didn't have a vision. Meanwhile, he's been the assistant superintendent and then superintendent for six years, so what's his vision? Uh... Um... Um... Melissa said, we cut activities years ago. It just goes to a pay to play. Not a fan of it, but I pay because my kids loves the sports, so it's not detrimental. Yeah.
I'm just going through here. PTR and ASD is 21 to 25 for K-5. About 31 in high school. Those are averages. Some are more, some are less. Okay. Computer-based instruction, says Jeannie, should be at the forefront. Don't threaten my kids with a learning advantage. I mean, we had computer-based instruction in homeschooling.
A lot of the courses were online, and then we would work with them, and then they would work with their school, their contact teacher as well. I mean, isn't that what they did during COVID? Wasn't it? I mean, I'm just crazy. So let's say the education industry gets all of its wants, says David. What will happen to student achievement? NEA's answer? It will take years for students to achieve better learning because we're just getting the money now and it will take years for that.
Superintendent Holland said he's down to $300,000. This is, again, that lie oft-repeated is the truth thing. David's mentioned this before. The KPBSD superintendent said that he's down to $300,000 in his unrestricted fund balance, which by law shouldn't be able to happen. The state deed shows more than $11 million in the account. Does he really know what the hell is going on? Yeah.
I'm scrolling through. There's a bunch of comments. There's a bunch of comments. The state courts told us in 2007 that we could sue over poor performance. But which conservative would sue, says Rob? i don't know rob but maybe somebody needs to stand up and do it because they're taking your pfd they're going to take your pfd to try and shore all this up you should be getting something for your money at some point
Put all them chemicals in my body. All right. Did anyone go to the KPBSD bleeding in Homer? I did not. I was thinking about it, but. This is not a job, my folks. This is a lifestyle. I'm literally, it's a lifestyle. I know Jeannie said she went, but we'll see. We'll see what's going on. All right.
We're going to continue the Michael Duke show, common sense, liberty based, free thinking radio. Make sure you like subscribe, ring the bell, share it with friends. Let's let's talk about that. I mean, do you am I wrong? With the punitiveness and all... This is... 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. I mean, it's just a pinch. It's not, you know.
Okay, what do we got? I think I probably should get off of this. I should probably get off of this bandwagon. Because it just agitates me at this point. But all I'm saying is do your own research. Don't buy what they're what they're selling. All right. I mean, somebody in the chat room just said they had an argument with her. I guess not an argument, but their boss was ranting yesterday that they should just take the PFD and mega fund education. OK, what happens then?
Game that out for me. What happens? You give them everything they want. They get an $1,808 increase to the BSA, which is, by the way, pegged to inflation. That's what they want. So that means that every year after the first three years, because within the first three years, it goes up about $800 million in state funding over the first three years.
And then every year thereafter, there's an automatic 50 to 60 million dollar increase, which just goes on as the years progress because it's based on a percentage. Right. So it's compounding. So tell me what happens after that. Just paint me a picture. What happens after that? They get everything they wanted. Do you think one-time funding is going to quit? Do you think the requests for one-time fundings are going to quit? Do you think then?
We'll get the educational outcomes that we've been looking for and that we deserve. I'm just asking. I'm just for a friend. Well, the legislature is finally saying the quiet part out loud, folks. It's interesting. The last few days, you've been seeing more and more of it. And now the headline reads, Alaska Senate leaders suggest new revenue measures to address looming budget.
iris samuels and sean mcguire over at the adn right james brooks over at the alaska beacon says alaska legislators say the state's fiscal picture is among the worst in decades what welcome to the party pal i mean what welcome to the party pal this is i mean have we not what i mean you just you're just noticing this now that it's just the Lyman Hoffman, the state of Alaska is probably facing its largest fiscal problem in 30 years. You know, you're just noticing it now?
I mean, we've been talking about this for how long and you're just noticing it now. The ADN goes on to to talk about. Budget analysis predict that without additional revenue, the state could face a $500 million shortfall during the coming year. even without increasing the state's education budget, which we know is almost $400 million in year one, even with...
I mean, yes, I'm vindicated. This is what we've been talking about. But why does it take this for you to figure it out? Hoffman went on to say the fiscal crisis is driven in part. by the legislature's effort this year to significantly increase education funding. The crisis is not driven by that. It's worsened by that. What's driven it is the runaway, uncontrollable spending. that this and past legislatures have been on. Hoffman has served in the legislature for 38 years. You, my friend.
might be part of the problem. I mean, all through the teens, we had billions of dollars, billions, B, billions of dollars. In the CBR. And instead of being fiscally responsible. We just spent from savings. We didn't control our spending. We just said, oh, we're $3 billion short. Pull that out of the CBR. That'll be fine. Don't worry. It'll all work out.
He said, Hoffman said the Senate majority has already discussed new revenue measures during a retreat before the beginning of session. He said, I'm glad to report that new revenues are on the Senate's list of things that need to be addressed this year. Oh, I'm so glad. that new revenues are on your list. I'm so glad you at least discussed it. I'm so glad that that is your thing. Andy Josephson.
who chairs the House Finance Committee, said the House majority had not collectively discussed new revenue measures. Doesn't mean that they're not going to. But then, of course, he went back and blamed the governor. We could entertain new revenues, but we're also aware that the governor vetoed the tobacco tax bill and the Turo tax bill, so I don't think we want to spin our wheels. Back in 23, you'll remember Dunleavy.
introduced legislation to bring in revenue from carbon sequestration. Remember, that was going to save us. Hasn't raised a dime. Not a single, no income for the state yet. He also said a couple years ago that he would introduce a sales tax. In the final weeks of the session, that never happened. So how are they going to do this? Well, Gary Stevens says they're going to probably increase oil taxation on oil and gas company.
And Rob Yunt has proposed a new piece of legislation that would apparently close the Hillcorp loophole. Yeah, the same Hillcorp that everybody's trying to work with and negotiate with to get all this gas shortage thing figured out with. How do you think that's going to play? I mean, because you saw what happened last time.
Kathy Giesel tried to do it. Brad talked about it yesterday. Kathy Giesel tried to do it. And they said, boy, it's a real nice gas field there. It'd be a shame if somebody stopped investing in it. Right? I mean, they kind of got you by the short and curlies at that point. I mean, they kind of got you over a barrel. Well, sure, you can go ahead and change the taxation structure so that we get taxed at the same rate as everybody else. But, you know.
We probably would then take that $100 million. We just would not invest that in exploration anymore. So, I mean, good luck when the lights go out. Right? I mean, it's a revenue problem now, but nobody wants to talk about the root cause, which of course is the spending.
I mean, it has been the spending for years. Maybe now that at least they're admitting the same thing that we've been talking about for years in this program, maybe one day they will admit that the problem is the same thing that we've been talking about for years on this problem, on this program, the spending. You can't continue to spend more than you take in and expect that it's going to go on forever. I mean, I'm a high school graduate, and I figured that out. Right?
You do that in your normal life. You spend more than you take in and see what, you know, do what you got to do. And Donna points out it's an LLC. It's not a loophole. She's true. It's right. They took advantage of the law and the corporate tax structure, and they made a limited liability company instead of a C Corp or an S Corp. Good for them. I'm not complaining. I just think it's ironic that they're going to try and...
We're going to level the playing field. And again, Hillcorp's going to go, great. How's that gas import facility looking for you now that we were going to buy that? We're going to buy that with our other company over here, Harvest, right? We're going to... be a shame if that got slow walked that got mothballed i mean you know um
There's the problem, Michael, says Ron. You didn't go to college. You're right. I actually did go to college for a year and then said, why would I? No. And I left. And I went on to become a human being and an adult and never looked back since. People who make money from government spending are unlikely to admit that government spending is the problem. Well, thank you. Well said, Rob. Exactly. I mean, the lunatics are running the asylum.
Why would that be a problem, right? Why would that be a problem? Yes, Lyman Hoffman, 38 years in the legislature. Yes, I mean the man who lined his pockets last year with the fiber cable bills that came through the legislature. There's some... there's some interesting things going on there in the whole hoffman tree with the cable companies and the telecommunications and i mean it's a dirty dirty business my friends
We could get into that all we want. But we're going to be joined by Mike Kronk up next. Senator Mike Kronk, dead ahead. The Michael Duke Show. Mark makes an interesting comment. It kind of simplifies the problem. I mean, it's kind of a simplistic thing. But at the same time, there's a nugget of truth in it. He said...
Funny how all us older people were taught by moms with a high school education and we built supercomputers. And now a second grade teacher needs a master's degree and kids can't read when they graduate. I mean, it's a little bit of an oversimplification, but it's not wrong. They will come back for more. Yeah, that's what it's all about. We know what it's all about. We know. That it's all about more. Every time. And like I said, game it out. What happens if they get the full BSA increase?
Do you think that's going to slow down their appetite for spending? Do you think the one-time funding will cease? Do you think that they, I mean, you don't, I mean. Do you think that's what's going to happen? The lunatics are running the asylum. That should be a headline for Doge. Yeah. Anthony says, I'm willing to entertain the not 0% chance that Alaskans being 53rd in education may be a correlation to why our government officials seem oblivious to math and the laws of entropy.
They're in their offices taking out their socks so they have toes to use to tally numbers. Maybe. I mean, again, it's either intentional willful blindness. Or it's scary ineptitude. It's one of the two. That's really, you know, that's really the only two answers there. Scary ineptitude or intentional willful blindness. Okay.
Does anyone support President Trump's idea to shove all of the Department of Ed's dollars to grants to states for their K-12 education? What would Alaska do? Just spend it wastefully? I mean... I guess you'd have to look at their track record, and their current track record ain't so great. So, yes? Question mark? Yes? Question mark? Mm-hmm.
But yeah, Bradley points out that whole thing with Lyman Hoffman. If you look deeper into this, is Willie in the chat room? I haven't seen Willie this morning. Is Willie... keppel in the chat room willie was following this very closely um and and he was giving giving uh some folks some of the backstory on this the lyman hoffman angle When you look at things like the broadband bill, the bag bill, the broadband assistant grant bill that was in the legislature last year and how they weren't...
allowing, this is why they didn't want to include Starlink on it and everything else. And you look at the family ties and everything that's going on. You realize how many people are getting paid at the corporate and at the community levels and village. the businesses that are being supported by that bloated federal money. I mean, it, it is really mind blowing. It really is mind blowing when you look at that. The conflict of interest that's all involved there. It's spooky. Spooky.
I don't want to go to any of it, says Cindy. I think she's talking about the budget presentations. Or participate in their online budget app. It's all to check the box that they tried to communicate. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. They want to justify it in the long run. So, well, we try to do our best. I mean, they remember they used their budgeting app game thing last year and they, you know, everybody chose let the state pay. That was an actual option.
Let the state pay. And people were like, oh yeah, let the state pay. Uncle Sugar should pay all day long. So. All right. Well, where is Mike? Let me see here. I'll send an email. All right. Here we go. What? But Lyman did not get them king crab dinners for a year. I don't know what that means, but other than maybe he's paying for things.
All right, we gotta go. Yeah, no, Timmy, I'm with you. Timmy says, Starlink is all you need. With a few terminals, entire villages will have internet for less than $3,000. Yeah. Yeah, I'm with you. 100%. There are so many solutions there. That was one of them right there. Okay, well, we're waiting for Mike Kronk to join here, and we might as well just get started. Here we go. The Michael Duke Show. Common sense, liberty-based, free-digging radio.
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 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's 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 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. And live around the world on the internet at MichaelDukeShow.com. Hey, how are you? Are you all ready to go for today?
Y'all ready? Let's get into it. We're trying to get Mike Kronk on the line here. He's having a, I don't know, he's having some kind of issue here trying to log into the program.
And, uh, I guess I got to, uh, uh, okay. I guess we'll do this. Um, i guess i'll get my phone set up for this see how it is i mean this is the technical issues where if i had an engineer i don't know where i'd put an engineer this studio is only four foot by eight foot but i mean i would put an engineer in here if we could get it done We'll see if we can get Mike Kronk joining us here on the program in just a hot second. And we'll see if, you know.
All right, we'll do that now. Let's see if Mike Kronk is going to try and call in here. And there he is right there. Let's see if we got to be with us, sir. Are you with us, Mike? Hello? Hello, can you hear me? I can hear you. Okay, let me call you right back. This didn't work because I just tried to hook my phone up while you were trying to call. So let me call you right back. Hold the line. We're going to get my Kronk. We're going to get...
We're going to get him back on the program. I mean, we're a professional radio outfit here. We can do this, right? We can make this happen. Hey, look at that. It actually worked. Okay. Good morning. Good morning, sir. I'm sorry. I didn't. The link has been working for months, so I don't know what happened. But welcome to the program. State Senator Mike Cronk joins us to discuss.
Well, a little bit of everything, a little bit of everything out there. So, Mike, it's been a while since we talked. How are things going down in Juneau overall? Give us your overall 1,000-foot view on this. Actually, for right now, it's actually been going pretty good. You know, being on the Senate side is, I would say, quite different than being on the House side. You know, there's half the people and it seems like.
the expectations may be more streamlined. I want to say efficient, even though it doesn't appear that we've done a whole lot, but obviously things have to go through committees and stuff before we really start getting and stuff. It's not. Yeah. The vibe is really weird right now, to be honest. The vibe is weird. Okay. That's not something I hear from a legislator. The vibe is weird, man.
um well well i mean the vibe seems to consistently be um hey uh we need more money shut up and give it to us and uh you know we'll talk about uh we'll talk about uh you know you know accountability and other we'll talk about all that stuff later just give us the that seems to be the vibe right now is essentially uh education sucking up all the oxygen in the room although
I was talking about it this morning. There seems to be some cracks. Somebody is finally talking about what we've been talking about in the program for years, that there's a fiscal crisis here and we're kind of out of money and nobody really has been talking about it. Yeah, there's I mean, definitely, you know, I, as you know, former teacher myself, I did teach a few math classes and, you know, I pretty good at adding subtracting.
and there's definitely a revenue issue that we have available to spend um as well as the education thing and i'd much rather try to work on solving this education thing so we can actually work on energy issues, you know. And, you know, obviously, hopefully what we do doesn't screw things up. It actually helps what's going on. Well, I mean, look, Mike, the bottom line here is that.
They're looking for an increase of, it's almost $400 million in the first year, plus another $300 million and change in the second and third year, all total. So, I mean, almost by the time it's all said and done, it's over $700 million in the first year. three years. And then a $50 million to $60 million increase every year thereafter into perpetuity. We're already $500 million in the hole before you even start adding stuff.
How is that going to work? Explain to me in small sentences, because I'm just a high school graduate, Mike, but explain to me like I'm a fifth grader, how mathematically that's going to work out, please. Well, with what's being proposed in whatever bill that is, HB69, that is literally impossible. I mean, I guess you can shoot for your dreams, right? But that number is, you know, we've had lots of conversations the last...
over the last couple of days with different school districts. And obviously I was part of the education negotiating last week, you know, and we had really good conversations. I don't want to downplay. three days of like wasted three days it wasn't wasted three days we really had good conversations about funding and outcomes and how we make things better so it was very productive and you know as a former teacher school member
Those are the kind of things I want to hear. We didn't come up with any.
you know set things in stone but i i really want to you know give my you know thanks for everybody that's part of that to actually come with an open open mind and and have those conversations but um right now you're right the the the there's a math problem and um the number they're asking for is simply you know pie in the sky it's not going to happen um now can we find a smaller number that works that um with the policies and you know and
the safeguards there that you know we're we're growing in education i think we can do that but we will still have to figure out uh how to make up the deficit. Right now, because I'm sitting on finance in the Senate, and I want to say that the last number we looked at was about $191 million deficit right now. Okay. But again, that's assuming zero spending increases, right? So 200, just under $200 million.
Does that include the supplemental, which I guess I heard is somewhere in the 230 range, am I right, on the supplemental for last year? Has that been factored in there as well? That I'm not positive yet. I think I may have missed the supplemental meeting at that time. I was in a different meeting.
I can't quite answer that one. I don't know. But I can definitely find out. Right. So, I mean, if it includes it, then we're at double that. But if it doesn't, we're still almost $200 million in the hole to begin with. And that's with... Flat funding, essentially. Just status quo. That's what we've got. Now we're talking about education. We're talking about defined benefits.
It looks like maybe the gas issue may not be maybe the legislature is not going to act on that, which I guess is good in one way is that it's not going to cost us any more money. But I mean, the size and the government grows. Just with based with its baked, it's got baked in escalators, right? I mean, the budget goes up every year by 100 to 150 million dollars just based on.
Other formulas, not the BSA, but other formulas that are baked into it, including salary increases and employment costs and other things. So, I mean, we're behind the power curve. How much more? Can we afford to spend? I mean, in your mind, as you look at this, we're almost $190 million in deficit to begin with. How much more can we afford to spend this year?
It's a good question. Good question, Mike. I don't know. I know, you know, and I may say some things here that people don't agree with. You know, obviously, I'm not speaking for my caucus. I'm speaking for myself.
you know as a as a former educator and a school board member i know we do have legitimate issues uh with some school districts and their funding right you know and and i don't know i mean i know you've watched what fairbanks has done i mean they They've... when you know helter skelter they they have proven that they are working towards making the cuts to you know um to right size what they have and um you have to really you know respect them i took my hat to the school board up
Melissa and Morgan and all those, they made some tough choices. And, you know, at least that's a sign that people are acknowledging that, you know, we need to right size things. And I represent, I think about nine school districts, you know. Most of them are remote, obviously, besides Fairbanks. And it's just the overall cost of, you know, the high energy cost, the huge increase in insurance cost.
Obviously, you know, employees always cost money. They're probably going to cost a little more money every year.
those those costs are real and you know my discussions I mean you know especially even with the governor it's like can we target funds some of these things outside the BSA which we can do but those conversations are always come back to oh we really need the BSA right you know because it's more of the catch-all fund we can spend that however we want and you know deferred maintenance is real i mean there's nothing we cannot not argue the deferred maintenance issue that whether it's schools or
or other state buildings so we gotta figure it out um i think maybe that's part i think what you you may have just you may have just hit it on the head that this may be part of the problem like you were just talking about well we just want the bsa one because One, it's set it and forget it. We don't have to fight about it for future years. And two, and I think more importantly, we can spend it any way we want.
And that is part of the problem. I mean, they took out the mandate in whatever it was, 2014 or 2015, that 70 percent of those monies were supposed to go into the classroom. And even before that, they changed some of the classification of what qualified as in class. They had like principals listed as in-classroom spending and IT guys as in-classroom spending. But I think that's part of the problem.
That's the thing they want. And here's the thing that nobody's talking about. And I spent the last two days reading through opinion pieces on the air, you know, debunking some of the arguments and everything else. But, you know, the one thing that's not mentioned. In any of these arguments for fully funding the schools and owe the children and all this other stuff, the one thing that's not mentioned is the achievements.
Now, as an educator, when you look at Alaska and see that right now we're currently fifth or sixth in the nation on per pupil funding, and yet we score 52nd and 51st out of 53. on all the standardized metrics. I mean, what does that say to you? And nobody, nobody wants to talk about that. The governor talked about it in his speech, but none of the people who are arguing for full funding, none of the parents, none of the opinion pieces, and certainly the legislators.
They basically said, we're not going to talk about that. That has nothing to do with it. Just give us the money, and then we'll talk about that later. yeah yeah no and you're right as a former educator it does concern me you know and i was i was a big driver getting the reads by three app paths and do i think we funded it correctly no um
but it was the policy needed. And right now, I'll be honest, I've talked to many school districts and they're like, our reading scores are going up. And somewhere, I saw one school where there was like a 17% increase in their scores. Well, that's good policy, right? um and and that's what you know i'm focusing on is okay we're gonna put policy in place that works and you know i will argue a little bit about the you know we're number six in spending i believe it was something like that
My question is, why aren't we number one? I said, you know, we have schools in Arctic Village and, you know, and cake and all across the state. We really should be number one in spending when you when you look at. how much money it costs to actually operate our schools and all that.
Well, it's all about averages at that point, right? I mean, they'd be spending $98,000 per kid in cake, but when they average it out across the state, it's like $20,000, $21,000 per student, right? So, I mean, there's winners and losers in that. argument because somebody's
You know, some kids getting 100,000 bucks a kid, some other places getting 5000 bucks a kid, and then it averages out to 20,000 when it's all said and done. But you're right. But even Mike, here's the here's another point. Even when we were number one back in 2015. We were number one per pupil spending in the country. We're still at the bottom of the barrel for achievement. Nobody's talking about outcomes. They all want to talk about the funding.
And, and I think that is backwards. Uh, but that, yeah. And, you know, and I think, uh, you know, I'll just be, I am pretty straight sure. I'll be honest. You know, I think.
what is needed you know with superintendents and stuff I think and I'm not going to speak for them but you know just my my take on it is is they've been kind of silenced right you have you have the NEA that is just you know ruthless on and on what position they are i mean you look at you this is a bsa or nothing you know versus okay let's have a conversation about yeah you know we need more money but
Okay, we're going to give in and say, hey, we actually want student outcomes. We want to educate our kids better. You never hear that, right? And again, I was a teacher for 25 years. I refused to join the NEA. And most people I know that are in the NEA.
only join so they have that insurance coverage in case they were ever sued it wasn't like they joined because hey this is just a great you know entity that i want to be part of it's like i want the insurance coverage um so our voices are kind of silenced out there And I just said, hey, I'll be your voice. I'll say what I have to say. I don't care. It doesn't matter to me. I'll fight those battles. But they've been silenced.
you know behind the doors they want they want uh the policies in place so they can't deviate from that it's like hope this policy is in place this is where we're going to work for and One of the other things like on the Reads Act, I'm just going to throw this in real fast, you know, people are like, why are we funding the Reads Act when we have teachers?
you know teaching reading well i'll be honest i i started my career as a kindergarten first grade teacher and you know through my university classes and my student teaching nowhere were you taught to teach kids how to read Okay. It's a science, right? Nowhere. So I'm sitting there, you know, I'm talking to my student. I was like, I had to get, you know, a couple of expert teachers to come down and teach me how to teach kids how to read. So that is kind of.
education in a nutshell it's like you're you're really a generalist right and you kind of figure it out as you go well i mean that even leads to more questions we're going to continue here in just a second state senator mike cronk is our guest The Michael Duke Show, common sense, liberty-based, free-thinking radio.
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 gonna be pissed. You're a bad, bad man. The Michael Duke Show. All right. State Senator Mike Cronk is our guest here. And I want to I want to get back into that. I mean, Mike, you said something that I think is was was pretty salient to this whole point. And I think maybe the key here, the NEA.
And it may not just be the NEA, but it's the education industry as a whole. They're looking to get one thing, and that is solid, stable, predictable funding. which in and of itself doesn't sound bad until you realize that then it precludes the power of the legislature or maybe a legislature without the political will to actually then have to justify that spending.
for future years. Let me ask you a question. If the funding ferry came down tomorrow and said, okay, sure, $1,808 BSA increase, sure thing. You get it. It's get it. It's locked in. It's got the it's pegged to inflation. You got it. Do you think that next year that there wouldn't be a call?
for one-time funding on top of that would that be enough or would there would one-time funding continue on top of that 700 million dollar bsa increase i'm not sure there's enough michael i'll be honest i would expect people to be back asking for more um Yeah, I don't know if there's an answer, you know, and everybody obviously wants money, but, you know, some of us have to be that, you know, fiscally responsible, you know, do our best, right, to be fiscally as responsible as possible.
you know i i just refer back you know i started teaching in 92. I'm sitting here looking around and, you know, I was in Northway. That's where I grew up. And I'm like, there's going to be a day where we can't afford this system. Well, I'm pretty sure we're at that day because if you look back, all the REA schools, the majority of them are all built in, you know, about 75, 70.
They're 50 years old right now. How are we going to build new schools? 30 to $50 million. How are we going to do it? We can't. We do not have the money to do that. So we are in it. a predicament and then you go to the deferred maintenance and we talk about of across the state we talk about you know hey we need more revenue so we can you know increase funding for this stuff but
Nobody has a vision of what's happening for the next 30 years. It's like, how about we're going to put some of that new revenue towards deferred maintenance? I know we can't dedicate funds, but. We had better start figuring this out sooner than later. And we're not having those conversations. We're just thinking new revenue, more spending. Look, if you've listened to this program, you know, you just touched on my one last nerve when you talked.
about deferred maintenance because I've said it once and I'll say it again every time, there's a special place in hell for the guy who thought up deferred maintenance because that is one of the most pernicious. and evil things, in my opinion, that any...
governmental entity or really any entity can do. You're basically saying we've set aside money to maintain the assets that we have now, but we've decided that something else is more important in that funding. So we'll just defer it to a later date. And you're basically. robbing people of one thing and pushing it on down the road. You sold them a bill of goods when you said, we'll build this building.
whatever the building is, and we'll keep it up. We'll maintain it. We'll, we'll do it. Your tax dollars will maintain it and everything else. And then the next year, oh, we were going to maintain it, but there was another program that was more important there. It is, it is terrifying. And I mean, Fairbanks, when I left the borough assembly, it came out 18 months to 24 months later that the that the Fairbanks North Star Borough had a quarter of a.
billion dollars in deferred maintenance problems. Quarter of a billion for a community that's 100,000 people. That is insane. But that's where we're at right now. Correct. Across the state, you know, and that's why I really don't want to see any new infrastructure per se buildings wise built, you know, that's owned by the state because. good god we can't keep up with what we have why should we build something new at this point um it's a re like you guys know it's a real problem and yeah you know
But we're not doing that. We're just raising new revenues so we can have more spending and hey, let's add 60 more million dollars a year for defined benefits. Okay. Don't get ahead of me here. We're 12 seconds out from returning to the radio. Mike Kronk is our guest. Please like and share, subscribe, ring the bell, do all that stuff. If we don't get more folks involved. we're just going to continue to have these problems let's get to it here we go 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 to the program. The Michael Duke Show continues. Our guest today, State Senator Mike Cronk. Mike, what's your district again? I keep forgetting to ask. What's your new district? It's R, so it's 35 and 36. Thank you. District R. All right. It takes me years to remember what they are, and then every 10 years they change them again. All right.
Let's let's continue on. We were just talking about education and I asked you a question during the break. And essentially, my question was, if they got everything they wanted, would they stop asking for more? And your basic answer was.
There's never going to be enough, which is a little depressing considering the fact that we're already upside down and we're projected in the governor's 10-year forecast to be upside down over half a billion dollars a year every year moving forward and just increasing. So let me give you the magic wand, Mike. You're a former educator.
You've been involved in the political scene for a while. You've seen how the sausage is made. You've been on both sides of it and everything else. If I gave you the magical wand that allowed you to fix it, what would fix this educational problem? In your opinion, again, your personal opinion, I'm not looking to throw anybody under the bus, but what would fix this problem from your perspective? So thanks for the question.
i you know what i would do i i i let's just say i was that person the magic wand i i would you know obviously powwow with all my superintendents because you know i i believe in You know, we hire people for a reason, right? They're experts in their field. And I would pull in all my superintendents and I would say, OK, we are going to fix this system.
and and this doesn't include a union negotiating this doesn't include any of that stuff we we are going to focus on children obviously and we are going to work on not only the funding but but the outcomes how do we how do we better our schools how do we have you know i believe what we've failed as a country is we've lost our expectations of of you know the success right because i know the teachers i had drove me um every day
uh whether it was in sports not maybe not so much academics because we were all you know just just trying to get by and and do you know stay eligible to play sports and stuff but they they drove you to be the best right and that's what we need to get back to america needs to get back to hey We need to strive to be the best. If your expectations are low, well, that's what you're going to achieve.
So I guess with a magic wand, I'd pull all the experts together and say, okay, let's work on solving this issue. And I think more people would be willing to say, okay, yeah, you do need more money when reality sets in, but we know we have all. these policies and you know and the expectations are there to succeed and you know and again society has changed you know teaching you know in 1992 is so different today uh we don't have the same kind of kids i'll just be honest um a lot
you know before you had a lot of kids that came to school prepared and now you have kids coming into kindergarten and that's why people talk about early education um you know maybe back 30 years ago maybe that wasn't as important but i'll trust me the the last class i had in kindergarten as a PE class, wow, I was blown away at how unprepared they were for education. So there's a lot of things that we have to focus on and update.
in order to be successful and we're taking on the role of raising kids it's unfortunate but it's it's it's real you know and those are the things we won't talk about we won't talk about how kids are unprepared or maybe they're hungry That really factors into the kids' education. And that is parents' responsibility. It truly is. But we can't mandate that upon parents, unfortunately.
And so we have to do the best of those kids. So if I had a magic wand, I'd bring everybody together in a room and we would begin, you know, working on how we can reform our education to do better. Well. And that's simplified in a nutshell. Yeah, I mean, it is simplified, but I mean, I think you bring up a valid point that the parental engagement is key to student success. We know that, right? I mean, that's why. That's why homeschoolers.
consistently score better than kids who are in brick and mortar school because the parental, I mean, the parent teacher ratio is one-to-one, right? Or the pupil teacher ratio is one-to-one because the parent is the teacher. So that's always good. The engagement is there. And we've got...
you know, observable data from charter schools where charter schools, the parental involvement is key. It's huge because they're the ones that put the schools together and do the boards. And I mean, it's all parental involvement. And yet we continue to have this pushback. from the education industry.
that, well, we shouldn't have charter schools or we shouldn't or we should be defunding. We had a teacher the other day basically say all students should go to brick and mortar schools. There should be no correspondence school because they don't like the competition. But the problem is, is that if parents want to be engaged.
And I think post-COVID, that's what we're seeing here is a tremendous amount of parental engagement for parents who all of a sudden discovered that the system wasn't what they were told it was. It wasn't doing what they were told it would do. And so they started doing for themselves. If the parents want...
to do this super engagement through charters or homeschooling or anything else, shouldn't we play into that? Shouldn't we lean into that if that's delivering better outcomes? Shouldn't that be part of the solution? Yeah, Mike, absolutely. And I didn't touch on that. You're right. You know, and I'm a firm believer that competition breeds success. Right. I mean, I challenged myself even in school, you know, if I didn't get good grades because I was lazy, you know, the bottom line.
But I do believe the other thing that we've been hearing, which is it's really frustrating to me because I've had I have four daughters, right? And two of them went to boarding school at Mount Edge come for four years. rock star education um one of them had attended a charter school great and ultimately all four of them went to brick and mortar school and so you know we're hearing these conversations down here and
they're not, they're being pushed off like those aren't public schools. And I really get frustrated with that because homeschool and charter schools are public schools. They are absolutely public schools. And, you know, I'm a firm believer in a parent gets to choose however they want to educate their kid. I, you know, yeah, I was a, you know, brick and mortar teacher, but I believe in that freedom.
and choosing what's best, how to educate your kid. Again, can we, you know, I think one of the big things on homeschool is, you know, oh, well, we just don't know. Are they being educated? We don't know that in a lot of things in life. We can't tell people how to live, but I believe most people are making the choice that's best for their kids when they decide what to do.
Right. Well, first, why don't you look in your own backyard? If you're worried about whether homeschoolers are being educated, how about you look at your graduation rates and your brick and mortars? How about you look at the recidivism and the rate of ancillary education? that's required to get graduates up to a basic college-level math class. You've got 60% have to have additional training in math just to be able to take a 100-level math class. So stop.
looking at everybody else and start looking in your own backyard. That would be my suggestion. Now there's been several suggestions to try and fix some of these issues. One of them, which I think makes a lot of sense, we have 53, 54 different districts around the state, which means 53, 54 different health plans and pools. Representative Vance has talked about...
pooling up and creating an enormous health pool out of that, and that that would save, I think the number was upwards of $50 million a year if we just consolidated the health care plan. There was another discussion about... whether or not we should consolidate school districts because 53 districts means we've got 53 superintendents and, you know, 106 sub superintendents because there's usually two of them. And then, you know, it's this duplication of effort that is just.
consuming mass amounts of overhead i mean some districts have only got 30 40 kids in it you know some have got 8,000. Why don't we consolidate some of these districts? Are those things that you think would work? Are these things that could help in those situations? Personally, I do. But, you know, it comes back to, you know, and again, I'm kind of one of those people that, you know, I'm looking out 30 years later, right? I, you know, realistically, that's.
what i have left in my life but i want to make sure we have a place here that's left for our kids and grandkids right so it makes sense to do that but when you start looking at and you know this from talking with a representative carpenter and stuff when you start looking at trying to find those efficiencies across whatever spectrum it is you know one of the great examples i would say is hey How does America save money? Well, you know what? We get rid of the IRS. We just say a flat tax of 10%.
Oh my God, what would happen? All those people would lose their jobs. CPAs wouldn't be able, you know, then you start snowballing and I know how important. um jobs are in remote places right and in a school district's a big you know that's a big employee of our smaller areas and and and stuff like that so it makes it
Very hard. But is it about the kids, Mike, or is it a jobs program? Right. I mean, that really I mean, that's a hard question and I'm not trying to be mean, but that's really the question. Is it about kids education or is it a jobs program? I'm not disagreeing with you. Yeah, I agree. I want to do what's best for kids and I do. personally think consolidating some school districts would actually benefit some of our different places because I do believe they'd be able to offer more.
um you know if we're saving costs and i had i had numerous people in my office these last two days that want to be in the health pool they they want to be like They are tired of having that choice. We just need to be so we can save money. Right. And so there are people looking at how do we save money overall as a state? Because the bigger that pool is, the more we're saving. Right. And you get a small school district is fighting for health care. That's minimum.
five thousand bucks an employee right um so how do we you know do we just make that decision and hey everybody's in alaska care i i think that's the decision the legislature should be looking at seriously uh that's the first step at least
Mike Kronk is our guest. We're up against the break. We got one final segment dead ahead. We've been on education, but I do want to talk about some other things. Mike mentioned the defined benefits and some other stuff. And I want to talk about his priorities outside of the, I mean, education sucking up all the oxygen. in the room, but we do need to talk about some of the other priorities as well. So we're going to continue with him.
In just a moment, don't go anywhere. The Michael Duke Show continues. Common Sense, Liberty-based, free-thinking radio. We return with more right after this. Don't go anywhere. Running on 100% pure beard power. Oh, also some coffee. We dip our beard in coffee. Ha, nice beard. The Michael Duke Show. All right, Mike Kronk is our guest. I don't want to beat a dead horse, Mike, but I want to come back to that because, see, that's always the argument.
of uh you know anytime we're trying to do something with for efficiency we're seeing that at the national level now with doge and everything else is that well people will lose their jobs well welcome to the party pal. That's what happens in every industry around the world. When things have to change, the biggest cost factor or cost center in any budget, be it private, commercial, personal, governmental.
is always the labor force, right? That's always the biggest cost sector of any budget. And so when you're... When you're out of money or you've got to make changes, that's where you can make the most effect in a budget is by reducing workforce, doing things like that. And yes, that means some people would lose their jobs. And I know each one of those is a personal tragedy or a problem, et cetera, et cetera. But for the long-term health of the patient,
If you got gangrene to the elbow, sometimes you got to cut the arm off to save the body. Right. I mean, it just it's what happens. And so getting sick from the cure is better than dying from the disease. And what we're doing right now is the argument is, well, we just need to keep it. even though it kills us. We need to keep it right up to the end. And that's part of the problem. We are not supposed to be a jobs program. Government does not create. Government consumes.
And so if you're not a net producer, you're a net consumer. And if you're consuming everything in the room, at some point it's got to stop because mathematics says, no, it's not. You can't divide by zero. Sorry. And that's where we're at right now, right? And so any discussion on this is going to immediately go, well, people will lose. That's what happens sometimes.
Yeah. And I think, you know, Michael, probably a better way to do it is just to start, you know, obviously going, you know, to alleviate the initial pain is you start working slowly at chipping away at it. Right. And so it's just not such a. impactful uh issue at the time you know so yeah no i i totally agree uh you know i
You just watch government, whether it's federal government or, you know, even being down in the trenches down here, we're watching it. You know, we have to put a brakes on it. You know, I want to make sure, obviously, our people are well paid and we can provide the services that we're supposed to provide. But we do need to be more efficient. I mean, government's probably the least efficient entity of doing anything. I think we firsthand know that.
How do we get better? That's the question. And I think we've had a lot of people ask those questions and you kind of get shoved off to the side about it. And unfortunately. Does it play into politics? Absolutely. You know, people want to be reelected versus, hey, we've got to make some hard decisions and let's just roll with them. And I like for me, I'll make those hard decisions because if if I don't.
re-elected you know um life will go on and you know it's just it's just the way it is but making hard decisions is what we should be doing that to better our state you know and again i'm a i'm looking down the road you know 30 50 years from now are we are we doing what we need to do today to prepare that because i i don't look in the past but
We should have had a lot of this stuff settled 30, 40 years ago. You know, we should have had a lot of stuff built so that we're not sitting here trying to figure out how to build it on the infrastructure that our state needs. And now we're scrambling. We just don't have the money and it's not going to happen.
Well, it seems like that's the thing. They're now saying the quiet part out loud, like all of a sudden, just out of the blue, the news media and the and some of the business as usual Republicans and leadership in the legislature is saying. Um, wait, we have no more money. I mean, we've been talking about that on this program for the last five, six, seven years that this crisis was coming and it was getting faster and it was accelerating and nobody.
Nobody, nobody was none of the legend. Yep. Nope. It's all fine. Don't worry. This is fine. Fine. Just fine. I mean, the house is on fire, but I'm just sitting here drinking tea. No big deal. And, and now they're finally admitting it and it may be too little too late. Right. Obviously, I don't want to paint any gloom and doom picture because we absolutely live in the most amazing place in the world. The only reason I'm actually sitting down here in Juneau is how much I love myself.
But we do have to come to grips with the reality that, you know, we just cannot continue spending. We're expecting oil revenue to take care of us. And, yeah, we're going to get increased production, but that doesn't necessarily equate to increased revenue. And, you know, are we going to just be, you know, oil and then taxes of whatever kind we can dream up? Well, that's going to make believe, right? We have to solve our.
are issues, especially energy issues, because the way I look at it, maybe the rate of return isn't as great in revenue to the state, but are people keeping more money in their pocket that they will spend in our economy, especially in the private sector? sometimes that value is way more than a revenue generated by the state. And you look at examples like Fort Knox up there, people knock on what's the revenue back to the state. Well,
And what's the benefit of having them in your community, you know, the largest tech? You know what I'm talking about. No, I know what you're talking about. Exactly. But the problem is, Mike, this is not gloom and doom. This is. reality this is a reality check we're not trying to down talk or downplay the state we're talking about the reality of there is no more money and when you can't squeeze any more blood out of the stone what do you do
That's not doom and gloom. That's a reality check. And unfortunately, we got to get back to it here. Let's go continue on The Michael Duke Show. We're broadcasting live through a series of tubes. Allowing all of these entities to provide streaming stuff going on the internet. Well, it's kind of hard to explain. Sorry. Streaming live every weekday morning on Facebook Live and MichaelDukesShow.com. 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, one final segment here with Mike Cronk, State Senator, District R. We've been talking about education. I'm going to get off that dead horse for a minute because there's other issues. Mike, you mentioned it.
The defined benefits bill is still going on. They're pushing that hard. No real fiscal note that I've seen that is really comprehensive. The estimates right now are somewhere between 60 and 100 million dollars a year. additional costs for a defined benefits program and that doesn't count the potential for again more unfunded liability we still owe
Well, we still have a seven billion, almost seven billion dollar unfunded liability from the first tranche of defined benefits. And now we're talking about adding to it again in an era where we have no money. What's happening with this bill? You know, it's over in the house right now.
I would have kept up on it, but it was my office been a revolving door with every, you know, whether it's unions and our school districts in and out the last couple of days and it's all week long. So I didn't get to watch what discussions they were having.
there i i believe chuck cop was was presenting the bill over there um it seems like there's a desire to pass that but i think there's a you know a reality with the rest of us that you know i'm not going to add that kind of money and i've been very clear to them and and we i've had lots of discussions with people about this topic that are their players right they're they're in the position of hey we have defined contribution and they're none of them
i shouldn't say none of them there's a few people that want the the benefits but the other ones were like just to improve our defined contributions right we'd much rather have or hey can you can you help us with insurance if we retire you know at 48 until we hit medicated or medicare age okay those are real things that we could probably work on right you know and and
No, no, no, no. It's defined benefits for everything. This is the time. Well, you know, we'll see how that goes, right? I mean, because you still got to get it by the governor. I mean, you can... We can waste two months talking about it in committee meetings, pass it on, you know, Senate and Allison. It goes nowhere. I don't want to waste time. I didn't come down here to waste time. Let's solve the issues we can solve. And I don't think that's one.
you can all rally behind and get passed. So, well, good. And I know the governor's not a fan. So the hope is, of course, is that if it does pass the House, that it gets vetoed. And I don't think that, I mean, you can... look at it and tell me but i don't think that there's the horsepower to override the governor's veto on this do you think that they have enough votes to do that you know i don't want to speak for anybody but i
I don't know, Mike. Well, I'm just asking you to read the room. I don't want you to speak for anybody, but I mean, just read the room and tell me, do you think that, I mean... Just, you know, based on your estimation and been in the legislature long enough, can you count the votes and say maybe or not close or no, it's not going to happen?
I would probably say, no, it's not going to happen. I mean, if it passes, I think if the governor vetoes it, it's got a good chance of being upheld of his veto is good. I just don't see how we can afford it. You know, and I was just sitting in finance. We were doing a retirement thing the other day. And, you know, as you know, I literally had to stop and ask, you know, Senator Shedman, I was like, this.
is extra money the state's been paying towards defined benefit because yeah so we've been paying extra on top of what we pay an extra 200 and let's just say 50 million a year i think so i said again i'm you know math teacher it's like so we hadn't been paying this, we would owe like $12 billion right now. Because yeah, not 7.1, we'd be in the hole. And then we have those big like a $4 million payment. So if we hadn't been doing this, this is the fine benefits that we have.
we'd still be like 12 billion in the hole, not 7 billion in the hole. Right. No, it's a huge problem and it's a liability and it's an unknown. That's the worst part. The problem with defined benefits is you cannot predict what the benefits will cost in the future. But because you've defined them as you're going to get this as a retiree, you're on the hook for it. And that is the scary part.
Yeah. Like I said, I've told the people, I'm totally game in improving our defined contributions, making it the best possible we can do. And most of them were pretty satisfied if we would do that. You know, you got you you do have the unions that are just gung ho behind the defined benefits. And, you know, that's the avenue they're going down. I'm not you know, we're not in the leadership at this time, you know, in the majority or, you know, so we we have to. I can see what they do.
Mike, those are really the two big things that are, again, sucking up all the oxygen and taking up all the discussion time. But what else are you working on? What else are you focused on? I haven't given you a chance to talk about something that's near and dear to your heart or passionate about.
What other things outside of that? Or is this where your focus is lying right now? Where are you at? Well, I mean, I think part of it is just coming over into the other body, you know, in the Senate and, you know, and. you know no matter what anybody says building relationships in the building is is is really how you're going to get things done um especially if you really focus on you know having you some of the things that i i want to focus on um
But, you know, I really, truly enjoy working over in the Senate. And it doesn't matter which, you know, if you're in a majority caucus or minority caucus or, you know, everybody has been... really cordial and workable. And I know we're early in the session, you know, and, you know, I'm sure things will tighten up, but I'm really, you know, you know, being, you know, majorly from rural Alaska, besides West Fairbanks there, you know, I mean.
you fish and game food security are a really big you know issues for me you know obviously we have salmon issues across the state that's not specific area specific at this time um and those are important right you know that's that's people's lively livelihoods of filling their freezers and having that that
to each. And food security. I told somebody the other day, I'm more of a, I don't specifically target my area because if something's good for... you know the mat too it's good for alaska right and something's good for for ukdiavik it's good for alaska and so i'm kind of just kind of sitting back and and just watching how things go out and and trying to trying to be an influence in the right direction of of some of these issues you know like education you know and take
take the you know bull by the horns and and say hey let's let's let's do what's right here let's you know versus just you know not being part of it and then you get what you get right i'd rather be inside in this conversation of of you know solving the issue in what's best. Again, nothing's perfect. You're never going to have.
everybody that you know supports what you do or what you say but um in the back of my mind i just don't want to make sure i'm trying to do the best for alaska for the next you know 50 years what we do now you know you know what's the old saying what you do now echoes eternity right so that's kind of my my philosophy of being down here the the biggest issue
Um, that I think overall, I mean, setting aside all these other things, the education that defined by, you know, yada, yada, yada. The biggest issue is the fact that we in this state have had a consistent spending problem for the last 30 years. We've always spent more than we take in, essentially, and especially in the teens when we burn through 16, almost $18 billion worth of savings and everything else. What's the solution in your mind moving forward?
The fact that we have half a billion to a billion dollar deficits as you move forward, it just gets bigger and bigger on the 10-year projection. What's the solution here? Is it strictly new revenues? Do we cut back? Do we have the political will to make any cuts or efficiencies in government? What's the solution to our fiscal? And it is a crisis. I mean, I'm not, again, trying to be doom and gloom. The truth hurts sometimes. But what is the solution to our current and future fiscal crisis?
Well, it's a tough question. I mean, I do believe in being efficient at what we do, you know, so I think that's one of our first steps is to is to make sure that everything we do in government is efficient. You know, obviously we do know, you know.
things do cost more you know as we you know salaries go up right so we're always going to have that kind of that little increase there but you know our department's too big are they or you know maybe some are too small i don't know i think we we need a ultimate deep dive into everything and and look at you know the it's like it's just been a a volcano it's been brewing for so long again a lot of these decisions are way before my time and i don't want to again i don't want to you know
badmouth anybody for the decisions they made and all this stuff back in the past. But we have set ourself up. We're like at the apex of, OK, what do we do here? We literally have to rein in spending. And there's a lot of people say, hey, you know, I hear it every day on the show. We got it. Well, I ask people all the time, please, where do we cut?
I'm on finance. Where can I cut? I will be the first person to sit there. I mean, I know Ben Carpenter dug into it, and there's lots of those positions that are just sitting on the books. Okay, that's a good start. you know, we really got kind of negated as trying to do that, but where can we legitimately cut, you know, we're talking if we're near $500 million in deficit, where do you cut a half of them?
billion dollars out of a budget that doesn't drastically affect somebody's life at this point right now. Well, it's all going to affect somebody's life. I mean, one way or the other, whether we cut or we don't cut, it's going to affect somebody's life because either the state's going to crater into a smoking hole.
And that's going to affect a lot of people. Or we have to find some efficiencies and we have to cut some government. Maybe we have to institute some new taxes, which is also going to affect people or whatever it is. Whatever happens, there's going to be an effect doing nothing.
And hope is not a strategy. And that's what it seems that the legislature is working on right now is the hope that we get another oil boom, that oil prices spike, that the market recovers, that something else happens. Hope is not a strategy. No, I agree. And you know, one thing is, you know, people.
you know hey trump is opening up our state and stuff but realistically you know when oil prices go down it's good for yours in my pocket but it's not good for the state's pocketbook at all right and that's the reality of the next three years you start looking at the revenue here and you're like Like, oh, my God, in the next three years, we really are. We're in trouble. And if we don't clean house, if we don't make some changes, if we don't do something again.
It'll be a smoking crater. And that is the state of Alaska's budget and what happened. We've got to make these hard choices. And people are just afraid, it seems like, to make these hard choices or suggest them. There's no political will. Mike Kronk, we got to go. Thank you so much.
coming on board it was good to talk with you and we look forward to doing it again here in the near future thanks mike hold the line for just a second mike folks we're out of time we'll be back tomorrow the michael duke show Be kind, love one another, live well. I'll see you then.
Okay, Mike, I'm sorry I ran you right up to the top of the hour. That was unjust of me. So let me give you the final bite at the apple here. Last two minutes. Final thoughts on anything that you want to tell the folks out there, people listening on the podcast. Give us your final thoughts here.
Yeah, I would just say, you know, make sure everybody has an open mind of what we're doing down here. It's really not an easy job, to be honest with you. Every time you make a decision, it does affect somebody's life, right? But ultimately, I... you know whether again i don't look at you know whether you're democrat republican you know how you vote on stuff i'm not going to criticize people over that because you know they're
doing what they believe their voters sent them to do right but we ultimately need to work together as a unit whether it's the legislature and then the governor's team of of sitting down and actually having those conversations of how we do better for the people of alaska are we going to have a alaska 25 years from now that our kids and grandkids want to be or can be let's just put it let's leave it at that they can afford to be here
um that should be all of our you know discussion focused around the future of our state and and we do have immediate things that we need to you know talk about and you know i somebody asked me yesterday what would you do I said, well, we need a fiscal plan and we've had it, but we've ignored it, right? It's time that we look at that fiscal plan and we start implementing some of those things in there. maybe there's some things we don't like but you know what it's what we have to do we have to
You know, I believe in making hard decisions, you know, and I'll live with those hard decisions. But we have to do that as leaders. We are the leaders. We were elected to lead Alaska. Right. Well, that's your job is to make those hard decisions. And austerity is.
austerity is never popular but the the bottom line is austerity is a reality in the state if we don't get our poop in a group here and do what needs to be done we can't samuel says going into further in debt so we don't hurt people's feelings i don't know if that's a good plan. That's exactly right. Yes, people are going to be hurt. People will lose their jobs. Things will change. Maybe there'll be taxes. Maybe there'll be. Yes, it's all going to happen.
But something has got to happen because otherwise the alternative, again, is the smoking crater in the ground. We don't want that. no and i agree and obviously we know our first pool of money where it comes from right it's that pfd right and so that's kind of the the backdrop for everything is no one wants to say it but where is it going to come from well i i think we all know where
exactly it's coming from that's the tough thing i said you guys want me to add money to the budget and i'm taking money out of people's hands i said i i represent a very remote you know district you know not that it's not important to urban people i i don't want to you know portray that but I said, you know, people, I don't want to say they have to have it, but they count on some of this, you know.
to for their cost of living and stuff and even if it was a you know if even it was a 25 75 p of d that's still 1400 bucks in your pocket that help you know get through the long winter or whatever you spend it on i really don't care it's your money that you know i don't to micromanage that stuff but you know are are we to that point where that that's the next pot of money that goes away um it's looking like that right so it's and i said we
And then where does it go from there? Where does it go from there? Once the PFD is gone, what's the next step? Well, buckle up, sweet lips, because the free ride's over, right? Now you're going to pay taxes. Correct. Correct. Yeah. All right, Mike. Well, thank you so much for coming on board. Obviously, it's a tough discussion, but what we need is we need more people who are willing to have those hard choices and those hard discussions and say, this is going to hurt. Sorry.
You know, we're going to pull the splinter out. It's going to hurt. Sorry about that. But, you know, it'll be better in the future. That's what we need. But, you know, we're having a hard time getting people to really say those things. So I appreciate you coming on board and sharing with us. Thank you, Mike Kroc. yep thank you all right uh all right folks we're out of time for today um yeah i mean we got to keep up the pressure and you know we've got to
We've got to say the hard part. We've got to say the hard part out loud. This is going to hurt, yes, but getting sick from the cure is better than dying from the disease. That's really the best way to put it. We've got to do these things. All right. Appreciate you guys being part of it today. We will see you tomorrow. Be kind. Love one another. Live well. Radio Skin. And now we are slimy lizard internet people. It's the Michael Duke Show.