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Live across the world. Well, that was weird. Live around the world on the internet at michaeldukeshow.com and across the state of Alaska. On this, your favorite radio station and or FM translator. Good morning, my friends, and welcome to Wednesday. It is hump day, although it feels a little bit like Monday. A little bit of a... A little bit of a train wreck here this morning as we try and get things. You know, I got up extra early, too. That was the worst part. I got up extra early.
Did some things, took a little walk with the dogs and, you know, just had a cup of coffee and tomato juice and just, you know, it was great. Right up until about 15 minutes ago. And then I was like, whoa, what's going on? So anyway, enough of my whoa.
what's going on today well it's you and me uh for the first hour here this morning we're gonna i know i know somebody said yesterday do we have to keep talking about schools well yes we do we do have to keep talking about schools i mean i i hate to do it i hate to do it to you but seriously at this point it is the largest budget item in the state, right? $1.2 billion, $1.2 billion in funding.
For 120,000 kids, 126,000, 27,000 kids, whatever it is. And they're proposing to increase it by $800 million over the next three years. So, yeah, we've got to talk about it. We've got to keep talking about it. That's just what's got to happen. And, of course, it's back in the news. It's in the headlines. The Anchorage School Board last night. Packed house. The hyperbole in this.
The hyperbole in this article from the ADN from Emily Gutekunst last night talking about the school board meeting. Wow. I mean, they're just, you know. They're using some interesting language here, and it's really stirring things up. And we have to talk about it because we, quite honestly, we need to counteract some of the things that are going on.
in the discussion and some of the things that are being talked about and the comments that are being made. And we just kind of try and we got to bring a little, we got to bring a little balance to this whole thing. Um, so we're going to talk about that in our one today. That's what we're about to, uh, to, you know, we're going to do it. We are also in our two going to be joined by State Senator Shelley Hughes, who's going to be with us for a little bit here.
Right at the top of the hour, we're going to pick things up with her in our two and we're going to take her till I guess about 40 after. So she'll be on for the first two segments and we might get a chance to also talk with. some of the other Matsu delegation, because apparently she's got to go early because she's about to have a meeting with the Matsu delegation, and she's offered to talk with them and introduce everybody and see what's what, as the case may be.
So we're going to do that as well. I do want to finally. I do want to finally say that I am going to touch a little bit on some of the national stuff today. And I know somebody said this the other day in the chat room. While we were doing the program and they said something like along the lines of because we were touching on something national, which I normally avoid.
I mean, unless it's Firearms Friday. I do national firearms stories simply because there's not enough firearms headlines in the state to do a whole show. And that really is one of the few issues that we can... make a difference on a national scene. But I was making a comment on something that was going on with one of the president's policies or something, and somebody said, well, see, this is why you should focus on the national issues. This is why you...
And I made a decision about, wow, it's got to have been, I guess it's got to have been almost close to 10 years ago. I made a decision to. really not tackle the national issues anymore. I mean, I still am interested in them. I still read about them. I still have an opinion on them. But for the most part, my goal was to make you the listener, to encourage you the listener, to focus more on the local and the state issues. Because I felt like that was how we could make a difference in the state.
that if we you know it because i felt in a lot of ways what we were seeing from the news media from the uh uh you know from the talking heads and from a lot of this the polarization that was coming on etc etc I felt like what we were really seeing was we were seeing kind of the... the the bread and circuses or the pay no attention to the man behind the curtain thing from the Wizard of Oz where we were being distracted by these big national issues that we didn't we didn't really have
any effect on. And that while they affected us a little bit, the big things that we were all stirred up about and upset and excited about. The bottom line is it didn't affect us nearly as much as the things that were happening locally. You know, like the Senate introducing this bill to amend the formula and take out the must transfer and make it 75-25 maybe and all these other things we've been talking about. Those are the things that affect.
us directly now there are some indirect things that happen you know that we we are affected by uh in the national scene but can we really Can we affect it? It may affect us slightly, but can we affect it? And the answer is usually, oh, no. I mean, we can get upset about it. We can be mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. We can shake our fists at the sky. We can do all that stuff. But do we really have an effect on it? Nope. Nope, we really can't.
So that's why I focused on local stuff over the years. But that being said, there is so much fervor and hand-wringing and rending of clothing. over this fight with the Department of Governmental Efficiency. And what I found to be truly astonishing... is the fact that while many of the people who are caterwauling about it agree that there's a horrible amount of... of malfeasance and fraud and inefficiency in government that while they agree with all that,
They just don't agree that we should be tackling it the way we're tackling it. And I guess my question is then, what do you think we should do then? You know, if this is not the way...
then what do you think? And of course, the answer, it seems from the punditry that I've seen, has been, oh, we need to really slow it down and we need to slow roll it. But the problem is... that every time we've tried to fix any of these things, the slow roll has been the way to basically delay, delay, delay, deny, and basically it never happens.
And the news media has been culpable in a lot of this. And what caught my attention this morning was this story out of the Washington Post. It was carried by the ADN. It's so typical because... This is just typical of the story that we're seeing right now on everything about Doge. And I'm going to read you the headline.
Doge is set to cancel government contracts that help veterans, records show. And it goes on to talk about how the Veterans Affairs Secretary took to social media to tout the fact that they... were basically cutting contracts that would save the department about $2 billion without touching the core services. And it goes on to say, you know, the 875 contracts on the chopping block or there's a bunch of contracts, but 875 of them.
help cover medical services, fund cancer programs, recruit doctors and provide burial services to veterans. And of course, then they quote Senator Richard Dick Blumenthal. Good old. dick make no mistake this is just another reckless cost-cutting decision that will harm veterans and taxpayers for your account here's the thing
This is just another example of the statement. Now, do I believe that some of these programs help veterans? I absolutely believe it. I absolutely believe that some of the programs and some of the cuts are going to probably be harmful to veterans in the short term. And I'm sure that some of these programs that were ripe for waste, fraud and abuse were probably helping, whether it was veterans program or something, were probably helping some people.
The problem is, and let me just use it as an example, and I'm not saying that's how it was in the Veterans Affairs or anything else, but I'm saying, let me just say that, let's say a program which is rife for, you know, fraud, waste and abuse. Let's just say that. 60% of the program was being abused or wasted or defrauded. And you're like, this program...
Over 60% of it is not going where it's supposed to be going. And they say, well, you can't cut it because it's helping the other 40%. Well, but wait, that's the... We're wasting what? Well, you know, there's a few people in there who are actually being helped by this program. Yeah, but look at the massive amount of fraud. Oh, but no, but you can't do that because it's going to help these water. Yes, here's the thing.
It's better to get sick from the cure than die from the disease. When you take chemo, your hair falls out and you feel like dog crap, right? But you're trying to kill the cancer that will kill you. So, yeah, this is going to be a painful process. And part of the problem is the time compression. They have to get this done in as quick a time as possible because, again, Like I said, the slow roll is the weapon of choice for bureaucracy.
I mean, we're in a bureaucratocracy. We are not. This is not a democracy or a republic hardly anymore. What we've got in the mechanisms and the wheels and government is a bureaucratocracy. They are in there essentially running the asylum. And their whole point is. They. Their whole point here is that they want to slow roll this because if they slow roll it, they win.
They can outlast the president. They can go to the midterms. They can wait till the next thing. If Congress fails to do their job and fails to act on what's going on, this is going to be a huge problem. But see, the problem is, is that we also have a news media that is complicit. This whole article. Which goes on to talk about how Doge is set to cancel these contracts. Says.
they are you know first of all it characterizes the fact that oh that they're chastising government workers and they're calling them bloated and corrupt and lazy And then it quotes Blumenthal as saying, this is just going to hurt everybody. And then it doesn't go on to talk about specifics in the programs and why they're canceling them. All it says is that they're gleefully cutting and that those cuts are going to hurt veterans. And then they finish up with a Blumenthal quote at the end.
And every one of these cuts is going to hurt somebody. Right? Even as righteous, if you found a cut that was 100% righteous and it was nearly 100% fraud going on in a specific area and they cut it, somebody's going to be hurt on it because there is a constituency or because there is a... contractor or there is a government worker that's employed by that system or something. Somebody is going to be hurt. You can find somebody somewhere that's going to be hurt by these cuts.
And in some cases, it will be all of us will be hurt by the cuts in one way because there'll be some effect on the economy or trickle down or something else. But the bottom line is we can't continue to go the way we're going. We're going from a $4 trillion budget just a handful of years ago. Today, we're talking about, what is it, $9, $10 trillion? With only about $5 trillion in actual revenues being generated. You can't. It is math. You cannot continue.
So, yes, somebody is going to be hurt. Now, I don't want to hurt the veterans. I don't want to hurt the I don't want to hurt anybody. But I don't want my country to implode either. And the bureaucracy is so entrenched and so afraid. And I mean, again, you can hear the caterwauling. Now is the time to get this done.
everybody's going to feel the pain. There's going to be a pinch for everybody. Yes, including veterans. And you'll hope that in the next two years, as these things change, that that pain will be lessened. As they bring in more efficiency and they do better and they cut out some of the bloat and they do all those things. But any, any, any cut is going to be painful.
That's the bottom line. All right, I wanted to start off with that because they were like, well, you should cover more national stuff. I mean, I try not to, but... Damn, even I get frustrated reading the headlines and just all the whining about this. It can't continue. It'd be nice to be all things to all people, but we don't have the money for it. Sorry.
All right, we got to go. We're going to talk a little bit more about the school, talk about wanting more money. Oh, man. Lord. We'll be back. The Michael Duke Show. Common Sense, Liberty-based, Free Thinking Radio. If you missed the show, you can listen to it on your time with Duke's On Demand. Oh, and it's free. Like America used to be. Streaming live every weekday morning on Facebook Live and MichaelDukesShow.com.
Got a little carried away there. Got a little bit carried away, I must say. I must say. All right. Let me go over here. i haven't even looked at the chat room yet today okay um good morning good morning good morning good morning good morning hello hey dad how you doing how's it going good morning uh We have to quit spending, period, says Kevin McCabe. Yeah, I mean, that's the, you know. Yeah. Yeah, it is what it is.
Rick says, hey, Kevin, what a mess down there. All I'm hearing is tax. Yeah, that's all they're talking about now. I'm just, yes, you are correct, MD, but I think we should have at least a half hour per week on national news to talk about. Nick, Murky, Doge, Sullivan, Doge, whatever. Well, there you go. That's, I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm all about it. Media culpable. The hell you say. Good morning.
Yeah, the slow roll, says Bradley, and I agree, is exactly how we got to where we are today. The Usyk Blumenthal, yes. Good morning, good morning, good morning. We do have to, we do have to, even though we don't like. A moron. Okay. Some people in Juneau are the cancer system. I mean, you know, I'm not disagreeing with that. I'm not disagreeing that there's not a huge problem here.
I'm scrolling through some of the comments here. If you live in Alaska, says Jeannie, and you can't get a job, you don't want one. Yeah, exactly. You should have heard them crying on TV. Man, it's terrible. Jeannie said, I went to the KPBSD presentation of the Borough Assembly last night. Pretty interesting. Anthony said, speaking as a veteran, I'm pretty sure I can reasonably say that any cut to the VA can't possibly hurt or impede veterans any worse than the VA itself does. I mean, yeah.
I mean, that's part of the problem, but I mean, just the headline, right? It's just... It helps some veterans. Well, yes, every program helps somebody somewhere. I mean. All right. Cole says, I'm sadly, or maybe he's not talking to me. I'm sadly delusional. I don't know. I don't know what you're talking about here. Bashing VA. What are you talking about? We've been talking about the VA program. I don't know.
Yeah, this whole thing has just been so interesting to watch. But, I mean, if you're serious about getting government right-sized, getting it efficient, doing it, you understand that we're all going to hurt. At some point, we're all going to feel a pinch or a pain. There's going to be a pain point. Every program has got some kind of constituency. Every even one that's, you know, rife with race with waste fraud and abuse is going to be.
Doing something good for anybody. Foreigners taking their jobs. What are you talking about? Are you talking about something completely different than what I'm talking about here in the thing? People who can't read the room. All right. We're going to continue on here. We're going to jump into this. The Michael Duke Show. Like and share. Follow. Ring the bell. Subscribe. Do all that stuff. Let's get to it. Common sense, liberty-based, free-thinking for 80-o.
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. Well, hello. Howdy, howdy, howdy. I'm a cowboy. No, I'm not. But I play one on TV. No, I don't. Welcome to the program. It's the Wednesday edition of the show. I swear, this whole morning has been an interesting exercise. All right. It's going to be interesting to see what happens.
Um, because as I've often said, um, that monkey see monkey do right. And as goes the national level, so goes the state level. And this is what we're. You know, this is where we are in the state today. The state is doing exactly what the federal government has been doing for years. We're just going to run up and spend whatever we can. And if we have to beg, borrow or steal it, we will. If we have to beg, borrow or steal it or print the money or short the dividend or whatever.
We'll just spend whatever. But the problem is, is eventually the bill comes due. And that's what I've been talking about for a long, a long time. is that eventually math wins. Arithmetic wins. That's how it goes. And here we are in the state of Alaska right now, spending more than... Nearly, nearly every other state in the, nearly every other state in the nation. My camera just freaked out. Nearly every other state in the nation.
We're like top five. We're five, place number five or number six as far as per capita student spending. Yet our achievement scores continue to be, I mean, abysmal is a polite way to put it. tragic is the other way to put it. And the answer is always, well, we need to increase our spending by about... 65 or 70%. That is the answer. And that's, you know, the problem is that's not really the answer.
Because we're refusing to do some analysis of what is actually going on and why we are failing our kids. And we can go back to 2015 when we were... the highest per capita per student spending in the nation and still had abysmal scores. And we didn't do the same thing then. We didn't ask ourselves the same question. We refuse to do any kind of self-analysis as to what's going on.
We refuse to ask the question, and I've been saying this for years, there is something fundamentally broken in our education system. For example, let me just... Let me just read this to you here. So here's a little bit of stuff that's coming out of the various news media outlets. must read kdll.org, some of the things. Here's some tidbits. There's a three-year contract. This is the new contract for the KPBSD.
The three-year contract includes a $16,000 raise for Kai Holland, who will make $195,000 per year plus benefits starting July the 1st. He's not eligible for overtime pay, but he will receive a 2% raise each year for him. remaining two years that compounds right so that's that one how about uh how about the other one the district's assistant superintendent executive directors department directors and department coordinators
are all getting a 3.5% raise over the last fiscal year. Those employees will also get a 2.5% raise the following year and a 1% raise after that. Executive directors such as those overseeing the district's finances and human resources departments are also getting a $9,000 bonus next year. That's just one district. Then you go over to the Anchorage School District, and it says on page 87 of Jarrett Bryant's 471-page proposed budget, he and school board president Andy Holloman.
are now asking for $724,000 for the DEI program. This is the same one that the president has asked that all federal funds be withdrawn from. The Anchorage proposed budget seeks to boost the current DEI program from $600,000 to $724,000, and that could put millions of federal dollars at risk. Now, these are all the same people. who didn't want us to give teachers bonuses as the governor had proposed because they want to control the money. See, the problem is, this is really all about...
propping up the education industry as an industry. It's not really about the kids. It's not really about education. And you could see that in the way that they're crafting the messaging and the language. For example. Anchorage School Board makes broad cuts to staff programs in sports in next year's budget. This is the story from Emily Goodykins over there at the ADN about their vote last night. The school board, they voted to slash.
$43 million. The cuts include more than 380 teacher, staff, and administrative positions. Now, what they don't tell you up front. And I'm just going to do this because this is one of my biggest pet peeves. The cuts include more than 380 staff, teacher, staff, and administrative positions. What they go on to say five paragraphs later is district administrators say they are making cuts to primarily unfilled teacher and staff positions and will largely avoid layoffs.
So what you're telling me is you had a bunch of empty positions in your budget, which, coincidentally, bulked up your budget to a certain amount. And if the money had all been there, you would have been more than happy to take all that money for those unfilled positions and use it for whatever you want to use it for. Does that make sense to you? Do you hear what I'm saying?
Do you understand what I'm talking about here? They caterwaul in the first paragraph about how they're going to cut 380 teacher, staff, and administrative positions. And then we're going to have to kill the gifted program and all the high school sports and everything else. It's going to be horrific. And then just a few paragraphs later, they go.
Oh, but they say that they're making cuts primarily to unfilled teachers and staff positions and will largely avoid layer, which means that these positions are on the books and. baked into their budget. And if there had been enough money, and when the money comes back around from whatever the state does end up giving them, They will happily reapply it to those empty positions and then funnel that money to spend it on whatever they want to spend. I mean, does that not blow your mind?
As a business owner, hell, as an employee, if you went to your boss and you said, you know, I've been doing a lot of hard work and I really would like a raise. And they're like, well, we'd love to give you a raise, but you see, we've got this unfilled position over here that we have to keep funded. And so we're just holding out.
till we find the perfect person to fill that. And so we can't fund you. We can't give you a raise because that funding is already allocated to this empty position over here that you're doing half the work to cover. But, you know, we're just. I mean does that make any sense whatsoever?
This came to me this morning because they've been talking about this. You know, the headline reads teachers, massive teacher layoff, massive this. And then always buried somewhere in the article that says, you know, they've really got over 200 teaching positions that are not even filled. 50 60 70 administrative positions that are so they got over 300 positions that aren't even filled and yet they use those numbers to say we're going to cut
But again, that just means that they've been allocating the funding to those positions. And that's what they're using to bulk up their budget. This is all theater. They have known they have been living in deficits. For years, they have known that their enrollment is declining and their entire revenue model is based on enrollment. So the fewer students enrolled, the less money they get. Yet they've been growing the budget. in the other direction, and they know, they know, it's foreseeable. It...
is astonishing. And yet the parents, oh, we've got a whole, I mean, we got picture after picture of parents in the audience just... You know, you've got to save our schools. You've got to, whatever it takes, whatever it takes to say you, you, whatever it takes for us. There's just no thought. The school board took no public testimony on Tuesday's special meeting, but last week members heard an outpouring of testimony from students, parents, educators, and community members.
who implored the board to save various programs. Many had expressed concerns about how the cuts of about 295 teaching positions in the district would be a fatal blow. That 200, again. Most of those teaching positions were not filled. Do you not see? That this whole thing, and I'm not saying everybody's involved and it's some kind of massive conspiracy. There's a lot of people out there who are just emotionally driven by, I don't want my kids down. And they don't give it any analytical thought.
And they don't read between the lines and they don't see the part where it says, well, making cuts primarily to unfilled teacher and staff positions. If you've got unfilled positions and they haven't been filled and they're not needed, why are you budgeting for them? If you can't fill, why are you, that money should go back into the kitty.
you know what we should just bring the whole thing down we should just we should just let them do whatever they want to do go ahead spend it into oblivion go ahead go ahead give them whatever they want because when the wheels come off the bus What are they going to do? I mean, they'll eat each other. It'll be World War Z around here. Go ahead. You know.
People not giving a second thought. Oh, I'm worried about Johnny and going to school. How are we going to pay for it? I don't know, but somebody has to pay for it. It just won't be. Okay. You people. Every one of you. You know, these people who look you in the eye, these guys making 400. thousand dollars in wages and benefits um i mean what was it kai holland now he's going to be making 200 grand as the superintendent of a of a smallish school district you know and these other guys
$200,000, $300,000 a year to come back and just tell you that they need more money every year, even though they know that the enrollment's declining. This is... It's just madness. This whole thing is just crazy. If you've got over 200 positions. teachers or administrators, and my understanding is closer to 280, 90, just under 300. If you've got that, and they're averaging, what, 80?
I'm just breaking stuff around here. $80,000 a position. What kind of huge slush fund is that? What kind of, I mean, if you've got 300 positions at 80,000 bucks a year. You do the math. All right. I got to go. I'm about to lose my mind. to lose my mind all right let's do it we're gonna be back the michael duke show common sense liberty-based free thinking radio All right. Bye. What is that? Common Sense. Regularly heard on American radio. I mean...
I'm a little bit at wit's end. Let me just put it that way. A little bit at wit's end. That they can look you in the eye with a straight face and cry big crocodile tears that they have to... That they have to cut the funding. That, you know, that they have to cut the funding for the children, for the music programs.
The music programs and the gifted and talented programs. And it's because of those mean people in the legislature that just won't give us our money. I mean, not that they didn't have any warning. that there is a declining enrollment. Not that they didn't know that there's going to be escalators in the costs of everything. Not that they weren't aware that they already had a deficit. And, hey, MD, please don't sing. Why not? My love. All right. I'm scrolling backwards here.
Harold says he gave up on offering a solution to our broken education system. Why? Because Alaska's education funding isn't funding classrooms. It's everything but. I agree. I agree, Harold. That's the thing. I mean. That's the thing. We can offer solutions, but nobody, you know. Our schools are being weaponized. Okay. DEI is dead. They will lose their federal funding, says Jeannie. I mean, I hope so. I mean, I would hope so.
bashing the schools. I'm bashing the administrators. That's not the schools themselves. Yeah, we should be reducing the number of schools, Pete. I agree 100%. Rob Myers on YouTube says, ask ASD how many teachers they have that aren't in the classroom. Do you know? By any chance, Rob, if you ask this question, I'm just curious. Jeannie says Kabuki theater, theater fraud. That's exactly what it is. It's all Kabuki theater. School district cacistocracy. Oh. Oh.
What is Cole? I don't know what Cole's going on about. All right. And if we don't give them defined benefits, they'll leave. Yeah. Frank says, bring it down. It will never happen. Give us an example of a public school system. I wasn't talking about the public school system, Frank. I was talking about the state.
I'm just at this point, I'm just like, you know what? Give them whatever they want. They want to spend us into oblivion. They want to tank the economy. They don't give a crap about any of the, you know, they could give two shits about the whatever. Just let them burn it to the ground and we'll be standing around to pick up the pieces on the other side. At this point, that's what I'm talking about. That's what I'm talking about. Yeah.
Harold was correct. Harold makes sense. Although Harold's not going to stick around because I'm not talking because I'm bashing the schools, apparently. No, I'm bashing the administration, the same administrators that you've bashed. I don't understand why you. He just says it to stir me up. That's what it is. It's not been a four-year decline in scores, Cole. The decline in scores has been going on for 15 years.
And the recent influx of Filipino teachers who second languages and everybody. I don't know. You guys are so on this whole, you know, they can't hire people. They can't hire Americans to fill some of these positions. So they got to do something.
That's a problem, Cole. I don't think it's a big conspiracy that they're hiring people from the Philippines to... go to the bush because they can't get normal regular people americans to go live in the bush they can't they just don't want to hire them i mean they want to hire them but they don't want to go Remember the guy from Fairbanks that played ukulele and did the nobody cares but me? Yeah, that's my buddy Russ, ukulele Russ. Nobody cares but me. All right.
H1 visa teachers are not the problem. They're a symptom of the problem. Exactly. 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. Uh, it's, uh, man, there's madness in the chat room today.
Uh, let me go back over here and tell you about some of the things, uh, some of the other behind the scenes baseball. I've been doing a lot of talking here over the last few days with some of the, uh. Some of the folks out there, some of the folks behind the scenes. And what I'm sorry, I'm looking for I'm looking for my notes here on this. OK, so.
We were talking the other day about why, you know, and I was mentioning that Will Stapp had some good things to say about the education funding bill that was in the legislature, right? which was rolled out of education by the majority. They called it out of the Education Committee without a vote of the committee.
because Maxine Dibbert has been out for medical reasons, and they didn't have enough votes to get it out of committee. They wanted to get it out of committee, so they used Rule 49, 48, 49, whichever one it is, and they rolled it out of committee. which just incensed the minority, obviously, because they're like, wait, we don't have any. And they pushed it into House Finance. So then we'll stop. voted to discharge it from the House Rules Committee about an hour after they started hearing it.
He made some very valid points on some of this stuff. They advanced the bill out of the committee onto the floor. He made the motion to advance the bill, according to the Alaska Beacon and James Brooks and Corrine Sepp. He made the move to advance the bill, saying there's no point in debating it when there's no money to pay for it. He said. There is no way that the state can make that type of promise to pay for a service without ending the PFD program and imposing new taxes.
Because the high end of that figure is $800 million a year by the end of the three-year period. The low end is $644 million a year. He goes on to say... He said, I don't have the money. I don't see how I can support the bill without having the money. I'm interested to hear what the majority's proposals are to be able to fund the bill, but I will absolutely bite.
I know this is a big priority for you guys. So, Mr. Co-Chair, with the permission of the committee, I'm going to go ahead and see if I can move the bill. That was the motion he made to move it out of committee. And then, of course, Bryce Edgeman. said that there's always a question in the legislature of how to pay. But of course, he goes back to the classic, the classic deflection.
He said, I think in this fiscal year, we're looking at a lot of things with the same question. We always in the end make it work right just to all come together. I always posit the cost of doing nothing. What's that cost? Well, the cost of doing nothing is nothing. Because if you don't have the money, I mean, the cost of doing nothing could save you millions of dollars in the future that you don't have now or in the future. What's the cost of doing nothing? Think of the children. And again.
So then they tried to get it out on the floor. But let me give you some background here. This is what I wanted to get started. The motion to discharge from the Finance Committee. By the House rules, if a motion is made to discharge a bill in committee and it fails, then the bill dies. So staff's motion put the majority in a quandary.
They could either vote to let the bill out of committee or they could kill it. But the majority knows both that they can't afford it and that the governor will veto it. But amending a bill in committee is much simpler and more hidden than on the floor. They can roll out the committee substitute with a ton of changes on it and without anyone voting on a one.
On the floor, that's not possible. So now they're stuck in one of two places. Either they can amend it in the Rules Committee, which is highly unusual. That's what they did with SB 140 last year. Or they can do it all on the floor where every amendment has a roll call vote and is wide open for everyone to watch. And this is what they tried to do, because once it got out on the floor.
They tried to call for a vote on the floor to amend it to give the minority a chance to make some of those amendments because they got nothing in committee. and they were like no no no no no no no so they keep putting it off keep putting it off because they don't want this is the thing they're trying to play kabuki theater they know that their campaign promises during the election cycle were lies. It was all bunk. They got elected on, we're going to pass education reform.
And now they rush this enormous bill in, knowing that the governor is going to veto it and knowing that they'll be able to lay the blame at his feet for when it fails. It's like they know. They know what's going on here. When they made the motion to hear the bill on the floor. Everybody made an objection, spoke on the bill, and then removed the objection. But there were two that didn't speak. And that was Neil Foster and Nellie Jimmy.
who, by the way, are both fans of the PFD and know that the only way to pay for it, the bill, is by cutting that self-same PFD. Politics, man. Politics. It's a dirty word. And this is where we're at right now. Everything that's going on is all about... The posturing and everything else. I mean, that's the thing. They know that they can't get this bill out of committee. They can't get this bill across the finish line the way it is because the governor is going to veto it.
They don't want to put his policy changes in it. They don't want. They just want to control. They want the money and nothing else. And if they could get this across the finish line the way it is, they would. But if not. They'll take the L and they'll blame the governor. And they'll blame the minority and they'll use it as the long term, you know, for the next year's bid.
And they'll paint the Republicans and Dunleavy with the bad feather. They just hate children. That they just hate children. It's not because we don't have the money. That will never be discussed. It's because we hate the children. So, yeah, there you go. All right, we got to go. The Michael Duke Show, common sense, liberty-based, free-thinking radio. We'll return in just a moment with State Senator Shelley Hughes. Back with more after this.
Okay. How about we just own hating children and move on? I mean, is that it? Is that we just hate kids? Is that what's, is that, is that? is that the only solution if we don't agree with something it must be because we hate the children um Sorry. There we go. I see Shelly who's just popped into the finally popped into the green room there. But I don't see her. I don't see her face. I do see her microphone.
uh popping up but not her not her lovely shining face this morning all right we'll let her work through her camera issues um uh There we go. Next segment, can we get some ear candy, says Franks. I don't know what that is. Terry says, Dunleavy's solution isn't any better, unfundable and too big. I mean, I agree.
I think at this point we need to start talking about consolidations and efficiency and doge and et cetera, et cetera. But it seems like everybody's agreeing, well, that school funding needs to be increased. Well, do it in one time fact. I mean, again, this idea of tying it into a long term solution and just having it be repeated so you don't have to have this conversation anymore and then tied to inflation, that doesn't help anything.
The Alaska farmer says I should reach out to Mike Kronk. We had Mike on the program here a couple weeks ago. We're going to try and reach out to him again. Huh? Ranking the states from the most to the least corrupt published January 23rd, 2015 in Alaska just happens to be number two. Alabama is the only one that's worse. I've actually seen that list and I've seen an updated list and we're still in the top. That's just, you know.
That's that's where we need to go. All right. I see that Shelly Hughes is finally we got camera. We got lights, camera, action. She's already down there. Let's see if we can bring her on and see what's going on. Good morning there. How are you? Good morning. Can you hear me? I can hear you. Are you all ready? Yeah, I'm all ready.
Okay. I went in on that other, another link in my calendar and it said Michael Duke show. So I don't know what that was an old link or something. Um, no, there's only one. Well, there was a link for the video. That's for the video after the fact.
um that's for the video okay well whatever here we are we're all good we're all good and we're ready to go here we are okay uh well i'll pull you back into the green room and you hang out there and just uh we'll be right back to you don't go anywhere State Senator Shelley Hughes will be joining us here, and we're going to do it.
Ron says, each time I hear someone say it's for the children, I can't help but picture Michael Jackson standing in Neverland with all those kids standing around him. Oh, man, that's an ugly. That's not what I did not need that in my head today. Thank you, Ron. Um, all right. We are, well, let's just do it. Let's just, let's just quit the fussing around here and we'll continue.
The Michael Duke Show. Common Sense, Liberty Base, Freethinkin' Radio. Like, share, subscribe, ring the bell. Shelly Hughes, our guest. Up next, let's get to it. Here we go. don't understand. Check out themichaeldukesshow.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.
Time to get a new perspective. We know just what you need, and we've got just the cure. Open wide and prepare for a steaming hot cup of freedom. I just don't fathom it. The Michael Dukes Show, streaming live across the world. Live around the world on the internet at michaeldukeshow.com and across the state of Alaska on this your favorite radio station and or FM translator. Good morning. Hi. How are you? Yep.
I'm rushing through it. Why? Because we've got a very short time this morning to speak to our new guest, State Senator Shelley Hughes, who's going to be with us till about 40 minutes after the hour. She's actually going to introduce us to some of the Matsu delegation. She's having a meeting this morning, so she can't be with us the whole hour. But we want to get some things. We want answers. We want to know what's going on. We want to know what's happening.
And so we're going to bring her on board and we're going to talk with her. Education, obviously, is going to be part of the soup du jour here, as well as the new formula that's being proposed for the PFD. and more and whatever else that she's got on her plate this morning so let's get started shall we and get things kicked off state senator shelly hughes our guest this morning here on the program good morning senator how are you doing this morning
I'm doing fine. I do want to let you know you're kind of breaking in. I'm hardwired. So I'm not sure if it's, I don't think it's at my end, but some of your words are cutting out. It's probably because I was really loud and I was peeking out for you. So no big deal. I'll slow it down a little bit.
Senator, good to have you on board. Thanks for coming on. We just spent the last hour talking about a big chunk of it about education, and it's sucking up all the oxygen in the room. We know that. We know that's what's going on. So can you give us a quick update here before we go any further on the problem with the education funding that we're talking about, the lack of the policy changes that are not being discussed?
and how we're going to pay for it all i mean i know that's a lot but maybe you can give us your thoughts on this whole situation right now as we go through um yeah i i will try to do that but i'm going to back up because i just want to point out that um we what we have with our majorities right now is a real focus on public employees just overall when you think about the big priorities pensions and um 1800 bsa
It's all about supporting public employees. And we need good teachers. We need people to do work in our departments or executive branch.
say we don't, but it's focused on a really small part of the population. And I think one of the things that the minorities are bringing to the table is we need to focus on the private sector and back up and that's where the you know the pfd in fact you may or may not be aware but to to get to that 1800 bsa the proposal is to to not do a 25 75 i don't know what the percentage is but to even take another 326 million from that
which would um take the pfd from a 1400 to a 1000. that's 84 that's what it is we've we've been following this okay thank you for doing that that math i've been i i never sat in figured it out exactly um yeah so and and part of that our senate finance has been a little bit more realistic and and basically saying the 175 million that we put outside the formula is what we have this year
and so of course 175 isn't enough so that's where they want to go after that 325 from the pfd part of that then um adding to the 175 and then the remainder of that 325 would be uh for the pension i'm assuming is what they're they're thinking. So it's all about public employees and not much about regular, most of us out there that are working hard and trying to.
make a go of it so there there's that well then and that's a big factor that i mean that's ben carpenter and rob meyers have both been pointing it out here we've been talking about on the program for the last year there is a total disconnect in the legislature between the public and the private sector
As long as the public sector is protected, everything's golden. They don't care what happens in the private sector. As long as they protect the public sector, whether it's employees or programs or whatever, that's golden. The state's doing great. It doesn't matter if the private economy is in the toilet because they receive no revenue from the private sector, so they don't care. So that's my point there.
And from that, we can pivot to education because that's what you were wanting to talk about. So the things that for our young people going through the school K through 12, what we need is we need to prepare them, right? We need to prepare them for the workforce. We need to make sure they can be productive citizens.
after graduation and be set what to go on for additional training or into the workforce whatever that might be and so that's that's where our policy focus really is um career tech is going to be important that there's um a lot of great data out there when kids take career tech their the graduation rates shoot up And this isn't, we don't live in the same era that we did where, you know, you had to go to college to make decent money. You can make really decent money in the trade.
Career check is really important and then targeting money towards things that will actually give us academic outcomes, that's going to help prepare people for the private sector as well.
that's where the focus i believe the negotiations are going to start up again i know you may have heard the house minority on the floor weren't happy that they were being left down those conversations but my understanding is that they are going to resume and hopefully we will get some good policies in there because the minorities care about the kids too, but we want to make sure. that the money is being spent properly that's actually going to help the kids.
And I would argue that the minority cares about the kids even more because they care about the outcomes. It's not just the monies that go into the systems. It is the outcomes. And when the latest NEAP score shows that we're 51 out of 53. dropping four positions from where we were previously, everybody should care about that. And yet the majority, they don't want to talk about that. They just give us our money, shut up and give us our money, we'll do what we do.
That's been the reaction. Am I wrong? You know, they believe that if you put the money in the BSA, you know, that... the schools will fix the academic problem but there's so much data showing that doesn't happen. The research shows that money giving in general to a district doesn't correlate with academic improvement.
but when it's targeted it does so i i really think we we should pay attention to that i want to talk about classroom size also um so during the reads act that i i worked on um for a number of years before we got it through i I actually, I remember getting some language in there and I wasn't sure if it made it in. And I went back a month or so ago and it's like, oh my gosh, it did survive. And what it was, it was that deed, the districts would report to deed.
the ratio of teachers to students and administrators to students. And so that survived the READS Act. And so we got that data. Anchorage has a ratio of eight.
18 students to a teacher and yet i'm getting reports i got an email over the weekend from a parent that their young child i'm not sure what one of the primary grades was in a reading group with 43 kids well that that's that's not good 43 kids and reading this that's not that doesn't fly right but is that a money problem or is that administration problem is that a leadership problem is is is that
um then we came to find out that um at least we know there are 600 certified teachers in the anchorage school district who are not actually um have classrooms of students, they're supervising teachers or something, and then there are more certified teachers that are working in the administration. So the problem to me is a leadership problem where they're not managing their operations correctly. You should not have 43 children in a reading group.
And so anyway, those ratios are really revealing and our ratios actually across the state are really good. I think that I looked at all the schools in Anchorage as an example and one of the high schools. had i think 23 to one that was the highest ratio in the anchorage school district and a lot of the a lot of the districts across the state had like 12 to 1. so really good ratios it's just how are the districts choosing to use those teachers you're talking about you're talking about
And you're talking about student to teacher ratios, not teachers in the classroom, but total number of teachers. The problem is, is that number is disguised because how many of those teachers are not actually classroom teachers? That's the problem. And that's how they hide it. And that's how they hide some of this stuff. Sarah Montalbano, who was with the Alaska Policy Forum when she was on the program last.
basically came in and said she did the study to figure out how many teachers versus administrators there were, classroom teachers, not just certified teachers working, but teachers in the classroom. And in many districts, it was two and three to one. In some districts, it's as many as four to one, four administrators to one teacher. That's backwards. And that's why.
The costing in our education system, quite honestly, is out of control. It is. And that's happening nationally. You know, one of the interesting things, too, as far as what the governor is proposing.
to allow parents to have more options as far as charter schools and correspondence schools. That actually, the NEA is fearful that's gonna decimate the... neighborhood brick and mortar school but the research on that also says at minimum it improves the academic outcomes in the in the brick and mortar school and it doesn't decimate them arizona as a case in point it's had
options running for quite a few years and they've actually built more brick and mortar schools. They have more neighborhood schools.
10 years later than they they did when they started their program so it doesn't decimate them it improves them it improves them in more than one way just naturally through competition and but but also there's something that people need to think about one of when a teacher in a classroom has one child that's very disruptive and taking all that teacher's time and attention it's very hard for that teacher then to help the other students correct and
That child, that disruptive child, when you have other options, that often is a child that the parents recognize is not a good learning environment. They remove that child from the brick and mortar school and put them in a. better suited learning environment for that child. So now that teacher has a more manageable class.
so you have that combination of competition stepping up their game and also making sure students are in the best suited learning environment so you actually see academic improvements in the neighborhood schools when you offer more options. So that that doesn't seem to be resonating, though, with some that just want to raise the BSA or not interested. They fear that the more correspondent students and charter students.
that it's going to hurt the neighborhood school, but it's not. Right. Well, but again, this goes back to the problem, which is the education industrial complex. And that's what it is. It's a protectionism. of the actual education industry versus actually delivering a good product that's what that's what's being focused on here uh this is the whole genesis of the
Shut up and give us our money. We'll worry about policy later issue that it's simply a money issue. But we know that's not true. In 2015, we were. We were funding students to the highest level in the nation on a per capita basis in 2015. And yet we were at the bottom of the achievement in the NEAP score. We were at the bottom. We were in the bottom of the barrel. And it's continued. And in fact, we went up a little bit here two years ago after COVID, and now we've cratered again.
And we're still, what, number five in the nation on a per-student basis of spending? This is not a money issue. $1.2-plus billion for 127,000 students. This is not a money problem. This is a problem with something is fundamentally broken or flawed in the education system. And whether it's curriculum, teaching styles, too much administrative overhead, whatever, those are the conversations we need to be having. But instead, we're just having a, why do you hate?
children just give us the money. And of course, the big question is, how do we pay for it? Now, you mentioned the PFD. If we pay for everything that's in the budget and you saw the ledge finance. report early on that Alexi Painter put out. They said that if we just funded everything to where we were today and we just continued to fund at a base level of what we've got going on, it will consume 98% of the POMV draw.
So if you add another three, four, five hundred million dollars on for education, defined benefits, whatever bells and whistles the legislature decides to put in, the PFD is gone. And then we're already seeing people are talking about. Taxes. It's going to be taxed because there's no political will to cut. How do we pay for this? And how do we turn the discussion from strictly an issue of budgeting and funding to an issue of policy and efficiency?
Yeah, good question. Representative Elam from Kenai brought in, he had a little cheat sheet that Ledge Finance put together, and it showed that with the HB69, the $1,800 BSA. um increase showed the pfd i think being gone by 2030 or 2031 so i mean it just it it wiped wipe wipes it out i do want to mention um you know the focus of the system
that we seem to see with NEA as opposed to the focus on the child, which is where I'm coming from. You know, I care about every single student across the state and want them to, you know, have access to a... you know, a great opportunity to learn because it's a game changer. It's a life changer. You know, I've told people before, you know, I was under the poverty level when I had little kids and it was education.
you know that that brought me out of that so it is a game changer and it's part of the american dream is at what education can do for people and when we're not giving the kids the best opportunity we're robbing them of that and i also say you know, the size of our state and the challenges and everything, I actually wouldn't mind if we were the highest cost. And we probably should be just, you know, per student based on our geography.
you know what it costs to heat and all that the school buildings and things like that but if we're we should be the top in the nation right so it's not okay to be spending so much and be at the bottom of the barrel so i just want to make that point also um what the other side is arguing is um that we aren't in in the one of the highest spenders they're saying we're below average but i and they're basing on an icer study and
i haven't looked at the icer study but i heard part of a presentation and i believe their methodology something is off because they basically are saying how much more anchorage is they're doing a cost of living adjustment and frankly it is it is cheaper to live in anchorage right now than it is to live in chicago or la
or New York. So I think they're boosting and just and then, you know, they say Anchorage is way more expensive. So if you live out in the village, it's really, really expensive. So we got to factor and multiply up for that. Well, I lived in villages, Michael. And yeah, a gallon of milk is ridiculously expensive, but you know what? It's not expensive getting around. You're not burning gas in a car.
And most of the high, a lot of the housing, a lot of the housing is subsidized. So I'm not sure really it's that much more expensive for someone that lives in a village. Yeah, their heating bill is more expensive in their groceries, but I think it kind of balances out. And I don't know particularly, but I'm just saying that the study that says it's so much more expensive here than the lower 48, I don't see it. You know, I just don't see it when I travel. I think it's expensive everywhere.
All right. Shelly Hughes is our guest. We're going to continue here in just a moment. Don't go anywhere. We've got to take a break. When we come back, we'll be with her until about 40 minutes after. We'll continue the Michael Duke show. Common Sense, Liberty-based, free-thinking radio. Back with more on Shelly Hughes right after this.
Listened to by more staffers in Juneau than any other show. Because their bosses told them to. And after what they just heard, oh man, they're gonna be pissed. You're a bad, bad man. The Michael Duke Show. Shelly Hughes, our guest. We're in the commercial break right now. Shelly, I have questions here. First and foremost, how much is enough?
Right. I mean, how much funding is enough funding? Is it just all the funding? I mean, just all the funding, just, you know, five billion dollars, all the funding. Is that the question? And really, nobody is asking. I mean, Will Stapp is. And there are some legislators who are saying, how do we pay for it? But there's no answers. It doesn't appear to be any answers coming out of the other side. What are you hearing?
Well, I think that the Senate finance table is going to hold the line as far as not doing what they want to do there. Yeah. And I know in the other segment, I didn't actually get your question. How are we going to pay for it? um it it would break the bank and it would the kind of taxes it would take would drive people out of the state it'd be just not good it goes back to your government your budget
has to be affordable for the private sector. And we're getting to the point where it's not and our budget doesn't. And, you know, we've been talking this whole fiscal plan thing that we've been. drumming for years this is really the time to do it you know we had kind of these these situations back in the 90s and then around 2015 and we kept talking about the need to settle these certain things you know fix the spending cap
And we didn't do it. And had we done it back in the 90s, you know, it would have softened what happened in 2015 and again where we are now. The question, this is the time to have that conversation again. Do we have the votes for something like this to happen? I don't know if I'm not hearing it, but I will say I think the Senate finance table is not interested and they understand that it would not be sustainable what the House majority is talking about doing.
Well, and even the fact that the governor's talked about it and several legislators in the minorities have talked about, well, we could see some kind of funding increase. But again, the current spending. that we have right now, even just keeping it quasi-flatlined, just with the baked-in escalators, just with the things that are in the budget and the contracts and everything else, just with what we have.
The 10-year forecast shows that we're hundreds of millions of dollars in deficit moving forward. I mean, at some point, somebody's got to say, we really can't do anything. except find more efficiencies, either we're going to have to create taxes, the PFD is going to be taken away, we're going to have to add taxes to that, or we're going to have to cut. And there's no appetite to do the legalizing.
I've got a bill for you. Okay. I've got the bill. I've got a bill. And actually, Senator Kaufman, he's got the spending cap. And we'll be talking probably more. My bill was just filed. But it is, it's basically... Doge, but it's measured and steady year after year after year. And a couple other states have done it. Texas has done it. It's the Sunset Commission. And it is what we need.
Had we put a spending cap in place in the 90s and had a sunset commission, we would not be where we are right now. We would not be where we are. the sunset commission is it sets up an independent objective audit team bringing in business people people know how to run a lean mean machine understand finances efficient operations and they're editing agencies on a steady basis. They're not within the legislative branch, they're not within the executive branch, they're kind of quasi-independent.
You can't just have them floating out there because of our constitution. So it's like the railroad. It's attached to the executive branch, but it runs its own show. So so would the Sunset Commission. But it's actually dozed with teeth because I was listening to national news because some of the things that are happening at the national level.
and that Congress could undo. So the Sunset Commission, actually, after they do their review of both performance and finances and make their recommendations about an agency. they they've provided in bill form their recommendations to the legislature and the law would require that the legislature then to hold hearings on that and um if the legislature did not pass a bill that agency would sunset, thus the name sunset commission. So it's basically doge with teeth.
all right hold the line we're we're coming up on it here we got to go the michael duke show continues common sense liberty-based free thinking radio uh we're gonna jump into it right now The Michael Duke Show. Not your daddy. Wait, sorry. Not your daddy? Ooh, not your daddy's talk radio. Whew. I was scared for a second. Thought we were going down. Here's Michael Dukes and the show. Okay, welcome back to the program. It is the Michael Duke Show, Common Sense, Liberty-based, free-thinking radio.
We're continuing now. Shelly Hughes is our guest, and I see that she's got the full, she's bringing the full gamut of folks in there. Oh, look at that. Kevin J. McCabe. in here uh saying hi she's about to have a meeting with uh she's about to have a meeting with the mat-su delegation i saw delaina johnson in the background and then oh jubilee hey what's happening what's going on hey look it's everybody it's all the ladies
All right, so Delaina Johnson, Jubilee Underwood, Alexi is also there. And, of course, Kevin McCabe, as I just mentioned. All right, so before we let you go here. How lucky am I, right? I know, really. I mean, he's in a whole room full of folks right now.
All right. So maybe we can round robin this. We don't have to have them all on camera because we can hear everybody. But maybe we maybe we just ask this final question about education then. And because here's where it sits. We all want the kids to do well. I don't think that there's any argument. They can paint us in the picture of saying we don't care about kids. We don't care about what's going on. You know, yada, yada, yada.
But is the solution simply a funding solution or do we need to fundamentally look at what's going on with education as a whole and see how it works? Hey, it's Kathy Tilton just joined us in the room. Maybe we can round-robin real quick here. We've got about eight minutes before we've got to get off the air here. But, Shelly, we'll start with you.
I mean, what is the fix for this? Because we were just talking about deficits for the next 10 years at the rate we're going. What is the solution for this?
education quandary that we find ourselves in? And then maybe we can just go around the room real quick. I think we have to hold fast and get the policy changes in because this has to do with the future of our... the strength of our communities aren't on our economy our gdp we we have to hold fast and get that policy in there will be a bsa increase you know they're paying
Some districts are 25% of their budget is going to health care. That's something we need to tackle. And so others, I'll move and somebody else can come sit there and give their answer. So we're going to bring our former Madison School Board president. Okay, we're going to round robin it here as we go. Jubilee underway. And announce yourself as you go through here.
Jubilee, what are your thoughts on this? I mean, what is the solution to this education quandary? I mean, I agree with Shelly. We've got to have both, not just funding, it's policy. changes as well i got to get to the root of the issue you know if you have this is kind of a silly analogy but if you have an electrician come into your house and you're gonna pay for it
him to diagnose what's going on. He's not just going to come back to you and say it's $5,000 repair. You're going to want to know what's the root cause of the issue is what I'm paying for going to actually fix, you know, the issue that I have. So I feel like that's kind of what's going on. We're trying to find the root of the issue so we can we cannot have to come back to the table in this arena and have this kind of conversation. We can.
fix it forever so not so not not slapping a fresh coat of paint on a giant water stain we're looking for why the water stain is there i mean essentially that's what it comes down to in the long run and and and how do we pay for it how do we pay for it yeah Well, we need to boost our revenue in the state to pay for a lot of things. So, yeah, well, that's, and that's a, that's a negative. All right.
let's who's up next we're going to bring alexi up or who's coming up next here okay kevin mccabe all right let's bring kevin up kevin um you just walked out you know yeah Over and above the policy issues, Mike, I think the problem is the lack of honesty in the discussion.
whether you're the Anchorage School District who's basing their budget on zero increases from the legislature so they can tell everybody what a huge hole they're in, or... um the folks that are just complaining without showing us what what the actual issue is so um everybody says we need more money everybody says it's all terrible even we to a certain extent when we're talking about policy
conflate or inflate or emphasize numbers that maybe we just need to be honest with each other, transparent and find out where exactly we are. Yeah, no, I mean, I think we need to do some self-analysis here. This has been part of the problem with the education system as a whole. We keep throwing money at it and keep getting bad results. Nobody's asking the question of why are the results bad? It can't simply be a money issue at this point.
no i 100 agree it has we have to have an honest conversation and you know the big 14 13 buttons from last year or the red shirts or all of that kind of stuff all that is is emotion it's not true and, and, and, uh, honest data. Yeah, no, I agree. I agree with that. All right. Uh, who else we got? Kathy, Delaina, uh, Alexi, who's, who's coming up next? We're going to get.
uh we're getting we got the round robin it's oh there we go lexi so hey oh yeah bring it up bring it up there you go so in good morning so in your opinion Again, the question is, how do we pay for it? And is this the only solution? Is it only a funding issue? What is your take on this? I think we're going to sound like broken records, but we're going to have a BSA.
And they're going to figure out how to pay for it. And I don't know what that looks like and what those metrics look like. But I think that we, you know, the bottom line is, is we care about children and we know that this has to be taken care of. We want to be a part of the conversation. we want to um have a say in the policy we need policy reform on all of this and um i think that's that's our big message right now is that we want to be a part of the conversation we want to know
you know, how this sticks and how this is going to look for the state of Alaska. And so that's... That's kind of my answer on it. I don't really have a whole lot. I mean, we're all going to give you the same shakedown right now because we're all frustrated and we're all wanting to see some change. Well, and I would love to have you and Jubilee both on.
to talk about this in a deeper way and have a deeper discussion on it. So we should plan for something like that. But all right, well, I appreciate your take on that. Kathy Tilton joining us here. former majority leader. Morning, Kathy. All right. So you know what the question is. I mean, it's, you know, how do we pay for all this? Because there's a lot. I mean, we want a lot, right?
All we're hearing during the election cycle is how they're going to put a chicken in every pot and how we're going to do this. And education was a big deal. So how do we pay for it? You know, how do we pay for it? That's a really good question. And that's what I ask everybody when they come into my office. No matter how old they are, people, young people come in advocating. And I haven't really thought about what that means to say that, you know, you need this big of an increase.
reminding them that you're talking about billion dollars which you know i remember when i first came in the legislature a million dollars was hard to say but let's let's think about a billion dollars and it's not something that you just say let's just do this and um you know there's a lot of a lot of things to think about when you
When you think about the BSA and you think about the makeup of our state, you know, it's hard to know what the right number is across this whole state. And some of it, I think, is that it's not necessarily what the base student allocation is. I think we got it. We need to think about it.
like Shirley talked about the healthcare costs, but also bringing down energy costs. That's not just affecting school districts, that's affecting everybody in the entire state. So the problem isn't just confined around the schools, it's about how are we going to have How are we going to bring down costs of power across our state? How are we going to help?
to get some affordable health care and stuff like that, you know, and to just throw some more money at it, which hasn't happened in the last eight years. Last two years, we we tried to do some reforms. We tried to. you know say okay here's the reforms we're looking for um then you know then we can maybe feel okay about adding to the bsa but
That didn't work out. And so if we're not willing to make some changes so that our students are getting the education they deserve and, you know, coming out work ready and life ready. Well, it's hard. You know, I don't want to just throw.
some more money at it right well but they act like the one-time funding hasn't happened i mean yet there's been a 35 increase over the last 18 years in education funding as a whole and that includes one-time funding and bsas and everything else there hasn't been much of an increase to the bsa i agree but i'm 175 million dollars in one-time funding every you know last year that was that was nothing to sneeze at right
Nothing to sneeze at at all. And that's what I'm saying is that we did last year give some funding to help with some of the challenges. But it was one time. But that's because we don't know the answer to what it really should look like.
as the bsa and i don't think that increasing the bsa gets us better results and we are we already know that right the school districts say they're going to shut down schools they say oh we're going to shut down five schools you know as a threat and then they shut down one or two
Right. Well, and is shutting down the school a function of the fact that the state's not funding it, or is it mostly a function of the fact that they have declining enrollment and they have fewer students that they need to service? That's the thing. We're not getting a true and honest accounting of what's going on. Yep, exactly. I'm going to step out here. We're getting ready to start this meeting. Delaina is going to come up. Delaina Johnson.
Good. We'll get we'll get Delaina Johnson's comment here before we wrap things up. It's been a hot minute since we've talked to Delaina. So you've got that. You know, you've heard you've heard all the answers. You've heard all the questions. I mean, how do we do it, Delaina? How do we pay and what's the solution in your mind? Well, I think solution is a pretty big word. I think when you talk about education, you can't talk about it in a vacuum because education is...
You know, it's a whole, just like you can't talk about education in the budget. alone because as soon as you start talking about a minimum of 200 million dollars and then three three billion dollars or i'm sorry one billion over three years that means you're going to have to prioritize and so education It's not a solution per se, it's a prioritization. And I like to look at what Matsu has done with their school choice, and they've done a tremendous job stretching.
the dollars that they do have and making sure that the way that they provide options has has made it work for the people in the district. So, you know, maybe I'm a little prejudiced, but I'll say that I think Matt Sue's got a lot. uh can people learn from oh yeah the solution is really belongs to the parents and the teachers and finding what's right for the kids not us in our
I retower talking about how much money something's going to cost. Right. No, the modeling from the Mat-Su, I think, would be a good idea because you guys have done a great job down there with CTE and everything else. I would agree. The Mat-Su has a lot to offer the rest of the state as far as school district exams.
Samplers of what's going on. All right. Well, Delaina, thanks so much. We need to have you back on the program for a longer conversation as well. I guess we'll finish up here. Thank you, guys. Shelly. Still there. Thank you, Shelly, for coming in. Thanks for allowing this round robin to happen. That was kind of fun. We should do this more often. We should put you guys all in a room and give you a single computer and then you guys can all fight over it and do that.
Thank you. I'm in big trouble. I'm in big trouble from the delegation because it cut into our meeting time. It was a pleasure to talk to you. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. Thank you for coming on board. We appreciate you being part of it today. Thank you so much. Shelly Hughes, our guest, along with everybody else. All right. Okay. So, you know, I...
Boy, this is one of the reasons why I quite honestly hate the short... little 148 character tweets you know for answers because those that's this is a topic that i want to get into that i really want to dig into with some of those folks in there but here's the bottom line i have to go to break
That's the bottom line. And when I get back, I'll give you more of my thoughts on this. I just looked up and realized I'm really, I got to go. All right, my friends, we're going to continue. Don't go anywhere. The Michael Duke show, common sense, Liberty base, free thinking radio. One final segment and your thoughts when we return.
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. Okay. Yeah, there was some... I saw George. Did you see George? Did you see George in the mirror? He came in and sat down, didn't say anything. I have never been able to get him on the program. He in fact told me that.
he came, he came, he came in, he called me when we talked, I was trying to get him on the program because I just don't do that. Uh, which I thought, wow. Wow. Um, I would love to have a longer conversation with everybody about that. And, you know, the problem is, is that there was a lot of good words said there.
But in and amongst all those good words, there was not a lot of answers. Right? It was Jubilee who said, well, we need to create more revenue to pay for this, which not the answer I was looking for. quite honestly, because more revenue means taking of the PFD or taxation of some kind. And it's a little frustrating.
But they're all seem to be kind of on the same page here. We need to have policy discussions. We need to have some self-analysis as to why things are not turning out the way that we want them to. you know, as far as academic achievements and everything else. And there was, it seems like everybody was on the same sheet of music, but no real solid answers.
I guess Shelley had the most solid answer talking about her sunset commission as a way to help try and trim the size and scope of government. But I mean, is that is that really going to is that really going to go anywhere? Lynn says no, the revenue, when she was talking about revenue, it means growing the economy through resource development. Okay. Well, I mean, I...
I applaud resource development, but that's a long tail, right? Growing resource, growing revenues through resource development is a 10 year plan. If not longer, generally speaking, maybe five years, depending on the industry, but usually it's a 10 year plan. That's when you're going to start to see the revenue. The next 10 years are already ugly, nasty. Right. And I'm just really I'm just really concerned that we don't seem to have.
While they were all basically giving the same type of messaging and they all said, you know, I'm going to agree with what everybody else said. We don't. We really need a unified message on this, which is the system is broken. It's delivering a substandard product, and it doesn't necessarily have to just do with funding. Because again, 2015, number one spend, yada, yada, yada, bottom of the barrel. You know, we were number one in spending, number zero in...
academic achievement. We know it's not necessarily a money issue. What's wrong? Why is it not working? What's going on? We know that we're doing well with homeschooling. We know we're doing well with charter schools. So what's working there and why can't we just exemplify that? Why can't we consolidate school districts or at least pull the health care or do some of these other things? We really need we they really need a. A plan, a plan of attack on this. And it was, you know, it's good to see.
And, you know, we outside of the government, outside of funding and priorities and policies. We need to find a way amongst ourselves as parents and citizens to get the parents to be more parentally engaged. Because that's a big component of it. I mean, you know, student success is in a lot of ways directly tied to parental engagement. So these are all. These are all part and parcel of a bigger issue. I mean, I enjoyed that round robin, don't get me wrong, but I...
And I know it's hard when you have like a one minute to answer something. I really had hoped for a little bit of a deeper solutions on this. So that's where we sit. That's where we sit. Angie said, that was fun. You know, that was fun. All right.
Resource development, says Lynn, to follow up. Whoops. Resource development won't have immediate results, but we need to allow the wheels to start turning. I know, Greg. You know, what was the old comment? What's the old Confucius saying? You know, the...
The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time to plant a tree is today. That's what we need to be doing, is we should be planting those seeds. We should be. But we've got to live within our means in the meanwhile, and that's part of the problem here. All right. Let's get to it. Okay. Alright, we gotta, uh, we got one final segment here.
And I was just telling the chat room that, I mean, I appreciated talking to all of those legislators at once. I mean, that would be kind of a fun thing to do occasionally. Get them all in a room and... i don't know pass a phone or a tablet around or something and get a you know get a conversation going with everybody but part of the problem was is that while they all had a very similar message there was no unifying solution
to this problem and look i don't expect them to solve all the world's problems but this is the number one issue that we're facing in the state at the legislative level right now the the defined benefits is number two but The the education increase is number one. I just I want them to come up with a solution and a solution that they can all gather around and rally around and have it as a battle cry.
Because without a unified message, without a unified solution, a counterpoint, if you will, to what the majority is pushing, we're just going to get more of the same. You know, it was like Kevin said, Kevin McCabe, he said, you know, it's like that. It's like the school district doing a budget without any state funding in it so they can point at the state and say, look, look at how badly they're treating us.
And he's right. There's that element of theater to it. I mean, when they cut forty seven million dollars out, does that did they not include any of the BSA increase? Did they not or any of the BSA at all? I mean. Is that just local and federal funds? Because if that's the case, then it is a bit of theater, right? Now, they did say that if they got the increase, let me go back to the article here to make sure that I don't misquote it.
An increase in the state's per student formula of $1,000 would generate $71 million for the district. Well. I mean, great. But again, the question becomes, how do you pay for it? And in so paying for it, what are the unintended consequences? What's the ripple effect? from paying for it there? Does it create a deeper cut in the PFD? And what is the ripple effect of that? Does that cause more people to leave the state? Which, one,
That accelerates declining enrollment, which creates more of a problem for the school district. And then does that in turn down the road create a possibility of a tax coming in of some kind? And if a tax happens. What's the ripple effect of that? How many people will be driven out of the state because they're living on the raggedy edge of survivability and they decide, well, if there's a tax, then.
it's better and easier for me to go live somewhere else where there may be a tax, but I also may not die if I don't pay my electric bill.
or the cost of living is somewhat cheaper, or I can get a better job, or I just need to leave because I can't afford to be here anymore. And the ripple effect of that, of course, as we talked about yesterday, is the fact that now you have a smaller pool of people after those folks leave, a smaller pool of people of which the burden of government cost is then spread on that smaller pool of people.
which in turn causes the fringes of that pool of people to feel the stressors, and they will eventually leave, which causes the pool to shrink even more. And that burden to be spread on a smaller, you see what I'm saying? Can you smell, can you smell the doom loop from here? The answer to this is simple. in concept, but difficult in execution. The answer to this problem is we must live within our means.
which means we must shrink the size and scope of government, that we must spread the burden of government out to a larger slice of the people in the state. So that everybody understands the cost of what they're actually getting. And that we must care about the private economy. Because eventually, if not now, eventually. The private economy is going to be the revenue source for the state, in part or in whole. That's really, I mean, that's really the solutions that we should be talking about.
I agree with Brad. Nobody wants to cut anything anymore. There is no political, but it is the solution. It is the answer. We're beating our heads against the wall. How do we get more revenue? How do we do this? How do we do more? Because all they want to talk about is increasing the spending. And we already had that. You want to know why pre-COVID we were having such a hard time with our recession, right? We had a recession.
And it was slow. We couldn't get out of it. We were having a hard time getting out of it. Why? Because we were continuing this huge, massive government spend. That's why. Because we weren't paying attention to what was going on in the private sector. And we had a chance. I mean, we had a chance back in 2014. When that first ISA report came out that said if we cut the spending in the state back to $4.1 billion, I think was the number.
And ICER had done a mathematical formula that said, if we cut it back to $4.1 billion, we can hold it there and live within our means and then just adjust it up every year as we went forward, and we would be able to live within it. And every legislator that came across my microphone and talked with me, oh, yeah, yeah, no, I think that's a good target. We should do that. And yet, what was it? It's almost $5 billion. 4.1. Are you kidding me?
And then the next year it had to ratchet back because it was based on a scale. So the next year it was $4 billion or $3.9 billion. And we asked the same question. Can we get back? Well, I think we can. I think we can. And it was over $5 billion. Nobody wants to be the bad guy. Nobody wants to be the guy that says, or the gal that says, sorry.
We just can't have that program or this thing or the other thing anymore. We've got to cut back because we have no more money. We burned through $18 billion in the CBR. Over the course of just a few years and emptied it out to nearly nothing. And yet that appetite never changed. Never changed. And once we draw into the PFD and the PFD is gone and they are mandated to have a balanced budget, what are they going to do then? I think you know. I think you know what's going to happen.
All right, my friends, tomorrow's Thursday. Be kind, love one another, live well. The Michael Duke Show. We'll see you tomorrow. Have a great day. Okay. Rob Myers just said, we had resource development for revenue in the 70s. The result was government growing exponentially. Yeah. Yeah, no. Great point. Great point, Rob. Absolutely great point. All right.
i just i just can't i just can't imagine simple doesn't mean easy said fat ray lifting a heavy weight is simple but difficult yes yes i hear you All right. We got to go here. We're going to continue on. Everybody be nice to each other, man. Everybody gets so heated. cole be nice i mean you're new here but be nice or be gone or be gone lynn says the real solution is to combine school districts cut administrative positions infrastructure allow backpack funding and change the formula
Now, is that going to happen with the current makeup? I mean, I don't know. I don't know. I don't think so. But you're right. I think those are all components of what needs to happen. Absolutely. All right. Well, I'm done. I'm going to go. The show gave Harold gas. Somebody sent Harold some gas X. I mean, we knew he was full of hot air, but I mean, you know, it's.
Just the other end. It's fine. Don't worry about it. It'll be fine. Take a Pepto or a Tums or whatever. You'll be fine, Harold. Walk it off. Rub some dirt on it. All right, my friends, we got to go. We will. Man, why are people getting so snotty here? I just realized that Harold is... Let's not be snotty, okay? Seriously. Holy cow. All right. I'll see you guys tomorrow. I just can't deal with you people. Be kind, love one another, live well. We'll see you tomorrow.
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