Wednesday 2/5/25 | More School Drama | Senator Rob Yundt

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The Michael Dukes Show, streaming live across the world. And it's live around the world on the Internet at MichaelDukesShow.com and across the great state of Alaska on this, your favorite radio station and or FM translator. Good morning. my friends and welcome back to the big radio program hump day, middle of the week, downhill slide to firearms Friday. We could see it. We could see it already. That's right. You could see it from here.

All right. We have got a lot of stuff to talk about today, including the latest on the school debacle. The school debacle. It's kind of crazy. You could see what's going on here. You could see what's... What's happening with all the different stuff, uh, with the, it's, it's. It's kind of setting it up for failure, how each school district now is having meetings that are emotionally tied to the schools and the communities, the areas around them and how they're.

You know, putting out these five schools in Fairbanks that they're talking about closing. And now here in the down on the peninsula. They're talking about closing, what, seven schools? Nine schools. Nine schools down here on the peninsula.

as well and that of course has prompted a huge outcry from the community who doesn't really understand exactly what's going on other than somebody's trying to close their schools and they want to know what's they want to know why they want to know what's happening And I think it all comes back to the point of...

understanding a couple of things. Now, we're going to go over that here in just a bit before we get too far along here. I don't want to get ahead of myself. In hour two, we're going to be talking with State Senator Rob Yunt. Now, we have been, we've enjoyed over the last couple of years, conversations on most Wednesdays with State Senator Mike Schauer, but as... Now that he is the Republican Senate Republican caucus leader, he is a little busy.

I was talking to him on Monday and he's like, yeah, he goes, I, uh, he goes, I got meetings like all morning during when I'm supposed to upset me. They're already doing the early morning thing and everything else. But luckily, luckily. We will be able to fill that gap, I hope, with some other senators and other legislators.

And we'll get a chance to kind of hopefully do a round robin and get some more voices in here. It's been a while. Rob Yunt came on the program when he was running for office, but we have not spoken to him since he took the position there in the Senate. It'll be a good conversation with him, and hopefully, like I said, we'll get some other legislators on board here in the near future to kind of see where they're at.

and see what's going on with them. So I'm looking forward to that and that discussion. All right. What else do we got going on here? Well, we got earthquakes. We got more happening down in Washington, D.C. with our with our new with our with our. Our new freshman congressman, he's actually doing some killer work out there. It's kind of crazy. We've got to talk about this new education working group.

We'll talk about that and the salaries. Somebody noticed the salaries finally and what's happening over there in the. in the, I guess, not just the executive branch, but all the top officials. Iris Samuels over at the ADN's got a story on the salary increases as well that, well, that ought to raise a few eyebrows. I mean, I'm all for people being compensated fairly. Don't get me wrong. I'm all for people being compensated fairly, but I have some questions. I have...

So we'll see. We'll see where that goes. But first and foremost, I guess we'll start with the news out of the South Central area about the. New gaming hall. The gaming hall that opened up in Eklutna. I don't know if you were following this story, but it was fairly interesting. This all happened in the waning days.

of the Biden administration, where the tribal native village of Aklutna got a approval from the National Indian Gaming Commission and the Department of the Interior and everything else for. putting up a tribal gaming hall, but they had a very finite amount of time before the inauguration. Because I think that there was some fear that President Trump might overturn or make some kind of directive on that prior to them getting open.

They literally worked around the clock for like, I don't know, three days, four days solid. Hundreds of people in there setting up these ATCO units and everything else. I mean, it's not the Taj Mahal. By any means. And I think it had porta potties and some other things. They didn't have some running water. There was a lot of things going on, but they got apparently got it all set up and got it up and running. And when they started.

I think the story, if I recall correctly, said when they got started, they can only have like eight people at a time inside the gaming hall, which... I mean, the House always wins, but, you know, anyway, we'll see, you know, we'll see if that plays out. But the state has now filed a lawsuit against the native village of Aklutna.

the U.S. Department of Interior and the National Indian Gaming Commission. They said not against it's not about gaming. They said this whole lawsuit is about the jurisdiction. over lands and so they're asking a court to reaffirm what they already said that the state maintains primary jurisdiction over alaska native allotments because they're saying that the court ruling is It's not like it is in the lower 48, where you have native land and it essentially is under tribal jurisdiction.

And it's its own, you know, independent, you know, essentially its own independent nation that has independent sovereignty status. But in Alaska. But that's now that's not how they see it. And that's not how the law has been interpreted up until now. According to the complaint filed by the state, Leah Tom over at KTUU has got a story up. It says that the defendants, in order to conduct gaming on an individually owned and native allotment, which was leased to the native village of Aklutna.

had to have messed up previously and long-standing clarifications on the law and ignored the recent federal court decision. The complaint states that for 30 years, the U.S. Department of the Interior federally recognized that tribes in Alaska did not have territorial jurisdiction over Alaska Native allotments, even if it's owned.

by a tribe's own member. The Interior denied a pollutant request in 2016 when they asked for a determination that they held the jurisdiction over the allotment, making the land eligible for gaming. And then three years later, they challenged that decision from the Interior Department. And it was, again, redetermined in 2021 that the tribe did not have jurisdiction. Then in February of 2024. The the interior issued a new solicitor opinion. That disagreed with the 2021 court ruling.

And it said that Alaska tribes are presumed to have territorial jurisdiction over native allotments owned by their members. And that left the National Indian Gaming Commission and the BIA. that to conclude that the allotment was now under Eklutena's jurisdiction and eligible. Now, there were some questions about the speed at which... Some of these things happened near the end of the Biden administration.

You know, some of these things, there was an application that was put through and approved and stamped and sealed by in like seven days from the Fed, which is unheard of from the federal government for them to do anything in seven days seems to be. to raise a few eyebrows and make some things going on. But this is this is they've got it. It's the letter of the law. Haven't heard a peep out of the Trump administration about this.

The state says the defendants in their lawsuit, the state says they abused their discretion and acted outside of their authority to change the jurisdictional status quo in Alaska. Um, now I don't have a dog in this fight, but I would say that, uh, if, well, let me, I guess I'll just say this philosophically. I am all for.

getting government out of my business, right? In anything that I can do, I'm all for getting government out of my business. That being said, then I would say, okay, if tribes down in the lower 48 have sovereignty on their land, then I wouldn't see why. There should be a different exception for Alaska. Now, maybe somebody can make an argument out there and explain it to me. I'm not that educated on the whole native allotment. But any time that you can get sovereignty.

from a government for your land. I have to say that philosophically I'm in support of that. So I can see why the state did this. You know, maybe it really, maybe it's about gaming, but maybe it is about. Making sure that the state retains control of all these lands, which is what the state is apt to do. The state wants to control all your all your lands are belong to us is what the state would say.

You can't do this. You can't do that. And again, all we have to do is pay our fee to the king to make sure that we can continue to live on our land. That's all part and parcel of the problem. All right. So this is the anyway, this is the big deal. The the lawsuit has just been filed. And the president of the native village of Aklutna wrote a long press release basically saying.

that he's disappointed. He's disappointed that the governor and attorney general would do this. He'd hoped that they would share the excitement for the future, both for the tribe and the community. Anyway, it's going to continue on and I guess we'll see where it goes from here. But again, I would think that anything that would allow us to do more with what we want to do on our own land. To me, that's a plus, but I guess that's just why I'm a talk show host and not in charge of all that stuff.

Maybe if I was king, maybe I would feel differently. Yes, I want to tell you what to do on your land. I'm king. I want to have control over that. All right. Well, we're coming up on the break, so we will be back. We've got more to talk about here, including the latest. We're going to talk about Nick Begich. He's been moving and shaking out there. It's kind of cool to see. And more about the school district discussions.

Everybody's upset. Everybody's upset about the school districts and the closures of schools and more and more. But it's not like this wasn't a foreseeable problem. Let's just put it that way. All right, we got to go. The Michael Duke Show, Common Sense, Liberty-based, Free Thinking Radio. If you missed the show, you can listen to it on your time with Duke's On Demand. Oh, and it's free. Like America used to be. Streaming live every weekly morning on Facebook Live and MichaelDukesShow.com Okay.

on our way over to the chat room to see what you guys are saying this morning. Oof. Good morning, good morning, good morning. All right, all right, I'm up. Yeah, I see that, Bill. I see you're up. I see you're up. All right, good morning to all of you here this morning. Harold says, good morning. No more U.S. Department of Education soon. And Brian says, wow, Harold's actually upbeat. You're saying that to a chat room, Harold, where most people would be like, great.

I mean, I think Harold meant it as a negative, like, oh my gosh, what will we do? What will we do? The ADN, Frank says, yeah, the ADN does a good job reporting from a neutral and unbiased position. Great place to get correct information from. It's one of the many sources that are out there, but I mean, are any of them any good? Hmm? I mean, what would you like me to do, Frank? Would you like me to sky read?

Would you like me to pour some tea leaves out and then do the news from the tea leaves? Because that has more, you know, I don't know. Let's go. You are in charge. Do the tribes pay taxes on their lands? I don't know. I don't know. Jeffrey said, I thought it has to do with native reservations. Having sovereignty over tribal lands, we only have two reservations in Alaska. And it probably does, Jeffrey.

I mean, again, I'll be the first to say that I'm not as familiar. I know that the way that we did allotments and broke things up up here was much different than how they did it down in the lower 48. And I'm sure that was a huge component of it. But there you go. Yeah. It's more. Willie says. It's more about having a law we all follow, not one for you and one for me. Okay, I mean, I could see that as well. I could see that as well.

Must read Alaska, says Donna. I've got must read stories up here. I mean, guys, I try and look at every outlet that I can to see exactly what they've got going on there. ADN, Alaska Beacon, the Peninsula Clarion, the KTUU, Must Read Alaska, The Watchmen, the Alaska Beacon, Public News. Oh, man. Uh, I look at, I try and look at everything, whatever I can do, pull out whatever stories I want to talk about that day. Uh, uh, Willie asked.

And we're probably not going to get to this one too much today, but yeah, the governor appointed, um, John, was it John or Ryan? I think it was John, John Binkley. to fill the vacancy on the permanent fund board. Which, I mean, again, is John Binkley an expert in... in investing and everything else yeah the onion uh maybe i should pull headlines from the onion or the uh what is it this not the sacramento be the uh

Babylon B, whatever it is. Yeah. Anyway, I don't know about, you know, why would he appoint John Binkley to that? Well, it's... um it seems to be the same players over and over and over again kind of in that uh in that area doesn't it it just kind of seems to be the same players over and over and over again um so I don't know why.

but it does make me scratch my head because he doesn't really have any expertise in that field and the field of investing investment banking or, you know, that kind of stuff. That's what I would, that's who I would assume you probably should put in those positions, but we'll see. All right. We are just a few seconds out here. Let's get back to it. The Michael Duke Show. Common Sense, Liberty-based, free-thinking radio.

Like, share, subscribe, ring the bell, do all the things. Here we go. Let's do it. 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. Yes. Yes, I am. All right. So I think Nick Begich must have done. I mean, I know he went down to Washington, D.C., you know, well ahead, you know, while he was still.

running for office. I know that he spent a good two years going back and forth to D.C. and talking with a lot of people and meeting with a lot of people. I mean, he must have made an impression on folks because he ended up on more. committees that i think um what was there was a headline on this the other day in must read something about that he had more freshman committees than um than uh than Anybody, I don't know. Anyway, he's been busy. He's obviously made an impression down there.

And I think that that, more than anything else, especially when you're the only congressman from Alaska, we only get one representative, and he's in. I think making as big a splash as possible down there does good to raise the visibility of issues for Alaska. So I think that's I think that is a definitely a first. And he's. He's he seems to be doing OK. Must read reports that baggage has gotten two bills passed by the House and he's only been in office for one month.

That's a first for Congress. Begich is the first new congressional representative to get a pill passed this year. Both are bills for native Alaska natives and are bills that his predecessor could never move. She did apparently was part of getting them put together and introduced and everything. He reintroduced both bills the day he was sworn in.

And although the AFN, the Alaska Federation of Natives, opposed baggage during his campaign and wouldn't allow him to even speak as a candidate during their convention, he didn't let that stop him. as he served up some good legislation that gets more Alaska lands out of federal control. Oh, that's music to my ears.

and helps impoverished Native Alaskans with basic needs. First one was H.R. 42. The bill that makes it so any settlement trust payments to the Alaska native who is blind, elderly or disabled would not be used to calculate the actual income that determines the eligibility for other. welfare or subsistence programs, and H.R. 43 to amend ANCSA, I'm sorry.

to provide that village corporations shall not be required to convey land in trust to the state of Alaska for establishment of municipal corporations, which sounds a lot more complicated. But, I mean, he's getting work done. And, again, that whole point of him, he's getting more assignments and more committee seats and working his way. you know, through the hearts and minds, apparently of all the people.

Down there in Washington, D.C. Yeah, he was piling on. He gets assigned additional subcommittees in Congress. So he serves on the House Transportation and Infrastructure, House Natural Resources. House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. And he also he got some oversight and policy making duties. for Alaska Antarctic Research. He's also on the subcommittee for oversight and investigations, the subcommittee on energy, and the subcommittee on environment.

He had also been given, I mean, he's got Aviation Subcommittee, Railroads Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Subcommittee. Oh, there's a lot of subcommittees. And the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee. as well as being the vice chair of the House Resources Subcommittee on Energy and Minerals. So, I mean, he's a busy boy.

He's a busy, busy boy. He's got a lot of stuff going on. That's great, though. I mean, I, again, anything that raises the visibility of what's going on in Alaska, and if he can be a voice, then I'm all about that. I am all about that. So congratulations to Nick for, you know, starting to do some good work in there. I'm hoping that I'm hoping that it continues.

And again, we get that we get that clarification on everything that's going on. Some folks up in the South Central area last night probably felt a little shake, a little shimmy, a little wiggle. There was an earthquake last night, 4.3 Richter scale magnitude earthquake struck about 29 miles west. of Anchorage. It was Peter Creek that reported feeling the ground shaking at about 11.07 p.m. last night. No reports of injuries. I mean, it was a 4.3. It was not a huge one, but we all feel it.

I've got to tell you, ever since the quake in 2018 that rocked our world, the epicenter of that quake, by the way, was... about five miles south of my house and it was uh it was a wake-up call it was a wake-up call uh for sure Ever since then, if I feel any kind of tremor, I'm like, do you feel that? Do you feel that? Do you feel that? So, yeah, we're always on the lookout, but only 4.3.

So in case you were the one to jump onto Facebook and yell first, then, you know, don't, it was only 4.3. It was nothing to write home about, but they are, they are waiting for aftershocks. They're feeling on aftershocks and we'll see where. It goes from there. Finally, the last story before we get into this whole discussion on education, which is coming up here in just a second.

DEA and the FBI say that they have helped with immigration enforcement in Alaska. There is no ICE in Alaska. And I mean, let me clarify. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. There is ICE in Alaska, just not ICE, if you know what I mean. Immigration and custom enforcement operations were unfolding across the state, mostly in Anchorage over the past few days, according to the FBI and the DEA.

The FBI's office included photos of agents working alongside ICE agents to detain what appeared to be at least two people. And another showed a person handcuffed in street clothes with homes in the background. They are working their way through, apparently looking for people who are a danger. Clear and present danger to society. And this, of course, mirrors what's been happening across the country in various locations as the ice has been. basically taking a lot of...

I guess bad hombres off the street. I mean, we've probably all seen the video now about the guy from Haiti who'd been deported a couple of times and was like, we love Joe Biden and we hate Trump. And because he's now, and this guy was a real winner. multiple multiple uh convictions uh or or arrests and and uh prosecutions for various crimes i

I don't feel too bad about it, quite honestly. I really, really don't feel too bad about it, especially when what they're looking for right now is people who have... committed violence or have been prosecuted for committing or convicted of committing violence i can't tell you how many times i kept hearing yeah this guy had already been deported once and they picked him up again

And so they're just making their way back here to continue their whatever's going on. I don't know how big of a problem this is in Alaska, because if you were going to try and come into the country and you were going to try to come into America and sneak in, I just. feel like coming to Alaska, probably not high on many peoples. You know, wouldn't you rather be someplace where you wouldn't die if you had to sleep outside, you know? Maybe someplace a little warmer.

A little less extreme, but it is happening, apparently, because it's happening. There's stories that are Michelle Terrio Boots over at the ADN said stories about. Immigration enforcement happening in Alaska are starting to resurface. The organization ACLU has been planning for months for this, according to Mark Kimmel. And they're.

They're encouraging families to do safety planning and all this kind of stuff because, you know, apparently there's a bunch of people here who are not citizens and are not supposed to be here, I guess. So but anyway, it is happening here in Alaska, even as you've been seeing it on your TV and thought, well, that's not happening here. Apparently it is. And again, I'm I'm I can't say that I'm too busted up about it right now.

But I don't think it'll be the I don't think it'll be the big deal that many people expected it to be across the across the country here in Alaska. It might be down there, but not up here. Yesterday, I mentioned it. The Anchorage School District had sent a message to families, speaking of deportation and immigration and crackdowns by ICE and everything else. The Anchorage School District sent a message to family.

in the district talking about their new stance on immigration, or their stance to the president's stance, I guess I should say, on immigration. Obviously, the president ran on a platform of, you know, rounding up and deporting folks who were here illegally, doing bad things and everything else. Well, that apparently has caused some concern. District employees said they received calls from concerned parents and community members as a result of all the announcements and everything else. And...

The people are asking, is it safe to bring my children to school? If ICE agents were to arrive at the school, would you give them information? Would you give them access to? Again. Maybe this is a bigger issue than I expected. I just didn't think that this would be the place where a lot of folks would just want to run right up to if you're not here legally. But the school district says we're not going to cooperate, apparently.

I mean, I'm kind of summating it and making it sound a little more flippant. But they said the school district does not ask for a child's immigration status during enrollment. Nor would they share it, they say, with law enforcement should they learn it except in rare situations like an immigration officer with a warrant or a court order.

ASD remains committed to following established protocols when interacting with law enforcement, including federal immigration authorities, while complying with all applicable laws. We're steadfast in protecting the learning environments and the rights of our students and families. Unless, of course, you won't tell the parents what the kid identifies as or uses a different name. I mean, that was going on last year, right? Remember? Well, we won't tell your parents what's going on.

So, I mean, look, I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy here. That's all I'm doing. I'm just pointing out that it was OK last year not to tell the parents what was going on. But now we won't tell the government what's going on with the parents. So it's all I mean, it all makes sense now. It all makes sense. And, of course, the one thing that they don't notice on this whole deal is that they don't mention is I think Dan Bongino has been saying that Trump is a very transactional president.

You know, it's like quid pro quo. You do this to me. It was like the thing with Columbia, right? Columbia slaps back and says, we're not taking these immigrants back. So Trump says, OK, well, here's your tariff. And two hours later, they said, OK, please, we'll take him back.

And, you know, same thing with Mexico and the same thing with Canada. And, you know, it's he's very transactional. So if you start slapping back at the president and he says, you know, they say, well, we're just not going to cooperate and we're not going to tell you anything. And he's like, OK. Well, all those federal funds that you got as a school, okay, but they're just not going to come to you anymore. He's a very transactional guy.

And I see that now. I see what Bongino was saying over that now. And it's right. It's very quid pro quo. It's very tit for tat. And so, okay, you don't cooperate with us. No more lucre for you. Now, it's so small here in Alaska, and it probably would never come to that. But if it really did, I mean, imagine Los Angeles Unified School District saying, we're not going to cooperate at all.

And then I could just see the president saying, OK, no problem. No federal monies for you. Have a nice day. I mean, you're. What are you going to do on this? But schools, man, there are so many questions about what's going on with schools. And now, of course, we're hearing more about the closures. It's starting to make big headlines throughout the state. And the latest, of course, is the...

is the KPBSD possibility of closing nine schools now in the Kenai. I know Fairbanks talked about this earlier in January. And late December, talking about closing, I think, five schools up there. This is going to be an issue. We'll have to continue with this here in just a second, though. We're going to discuss at great length. And then Rob Yunt, Senator Rob Yunt, will be joining us at the top of hour two. Tomorrow on the program, we're going to be talking food security.

With Al, I've forgotten Al's last name. He runs the Anchor Point Greenhouse. And he was, he taught food security and growing and agriculture for years. And we're also going to talk about the Compass program as well. So that's all coming up tomorrow. I should get better notes, shouldn't I? Back with more of the Michael Duke Show. Common Sense Radio. Running on 100% pure beard power. Oh, also some coffee. We dip our beard in coffee. Nice beard. The Michael Duke Show.

Okay. Okay. Man, I stayed up way too late last night. I'm scrolling backwards, scrolling backwards here. What do we got? Has there ever been a governor for the state of Alaska that met your standard? Who's run for governor or who has been governor? That's a question. Run for governor. That's the thing. I mean, I remember I initially supported Bill Walker. He was saying all the right things and talking all the right stuff.

And then on his second go around, he lost his mind. So I don't know. I don't know. Terry said Nick did his homework. Yeah. Yes, he did. Cindy says so proud of Nick. This is his time. Eight committees. Yeah, it's kind of crazy. It's really going well over there. I don't know what's... He's doing some amazing work. And like I said, obviously laid a tremendous amount of groundwork. there for that um good morning good morning good morning uh rock and roll um

I'm going through here. Change your vote if you could. I'm not sure what Henry means by that. He said they had an earthquake a couple of days ago in the mid-Kuskokwim. Sounded like a freight train. Those are the scary ones. When they make noise, that's when it gets a little freaky. Yeah, it's crazy. The 2002 interior quake was the one that changed the landscape up here. November 3rd, 2002, it was 7.9 and lasted a long time.

i remember that quake as well i was in the house in um in fairbanks and uh yeah that was that was a spooky one although the one that i felt down in here in the in the when i was in the matzu That one felt more violent. They were different, but it definitely felt more violent. Crazy. Crazy. Brian says all those illegals coming up because they hope they can just disappear into the Yukon Charlie. Well, yeah, I mean, I guess I just.

I wouldn't think that Alaska would be the first port of call for people who wanted to try and come into the country and, you know, assimilate. You'd think that going into a bigger city or someplace where it's a little warmer or easier to live would probably make more sense. Kim says my landlord would beg to differ about illegals.

There must be. I mean, obviously, if they're running raids and doing things, there obviously must be an issue. It's just not something that I've seen, you know, that I, of course, you know, it's not like I run in those circles. So there you go. Good morning. Good morning. Sarah Vance is in the house. Kevin McCabe's in the house. I'm still scrolling through. Fairbanks closed Midnight Sun, Two Rivers, and Pearl Creek last night. Oh, so they did close three of the schools. Well, there you go.

Uh, they did not close Hunter or Barnett. Both were also on the chopping block. Isn't Barnett like a magnet school now or a chart? Is it a charter school? You know, Al Poindexter. Thank you. Thank you. He I'm looking at his email and he didn't put his he'd he sent me anyway. He only said Al. He signed it. Al. And I'm like, Al, you told me your name before. Why didn't you put it? Anyway, Al Poindexter is going to be on the program tomorrow. Thank you, Bill and DeShana.

Both of you guys came to my rescue. You guys are amazing. Timothy says, whenever I hear food security here in Alaska, it always comes down to a farmer wanting more subsidies. That's not what Al's advocating, which I thought was interesting. We had a long conversation about this the other day off the air, so it should be good. You know, I mean, I think I think it's good. I'm still scrolling through here. The photo. Cindy says photo headlines should be kids holding puppies.

For the school closures, the kids should be holding puppies and everybody has a sad face, you know? Oh, just, um, I know I can't get Donna says she says she can't get past the amount of money that they pay the superintendent of the Kenai borough school districts. One hundred and ninety seven thousand dollars more than the governor, more than the borough mayor. That's a lot of money. That's a lot of money for sure. Oh, they left Hunter and Salcha open, said Rob.

Barnett wasn't. I'm glad they left Salcha open because how are you going to truck those kids in 40 miles or whatever it was? It's a. Well, we'll see what happens. We'll see what happens. Thank you for the intel on that, guys. Let's get back to it. Here we go. The Michael Duke Show, Common Sense Radio. The Michael Duke Show. Not your daddy. Wait, sorry. Not your daddy? Ooh, not your daddy's talk radio. Whew. I was scared for a second. Thought we were going down. Here's Michael Dukes and the show.

All right, welcome back to the program. I guess they voted on that last night. I missed that story. It's probably because... I know people in Fairbanks will be shocked. I refuse to subscribe to the E at News Minor. I just, it just, ugh. Let me see. Let me see if I can dig out that story real quick. Three local schools were shut down at the end of the current, will be shut down at the end of the current school year as the school district board voted in favor of a decision.

That will have far reaching impacts, according to the news story here. So the three stories that are the three I'm sorry, the three stories, the three schools that have been shut down. The school board voted last night in favor of closing Pearl Creek, Midnight Sun, and Two Rivers schools up in the interior. Now, they kept the Hunter School.

which is right there in downtown and the Salcha school, which that, I mean, again, That the transportation costs alone of hauling all those kids in all the way from Salcha to, I guess, North Pole would have been the closest school. And some of those kids that go to Salter School don't live just in Salter. They live out towards Birch Lake and other places. So it would have been, I mean, the cost of that would have been pretty significant.

So even though it was on the chopping block, I think that was probably a good call. But they've closed three schools now. And that's after they closed. uh, the Eilson high school in the last go around. So these closures are happening now to hear the education advocate advocates talk. Um, the, uh,

The reason why they had to close those schools is, of course, the state's not been doing their job. State hasn't been stepping up and fulfilling its responsibility by giving them all the money that they wanted. And that's just the one thing that many districts are not talking about, although I will give kudos to the Fairbanks district because they did talk about their enrollment problems.

is that a lot of this is being driven by enrollment issues. In Fairbanks, they had a 15% decline in enrollment in a single year. That's a significant... drop, right? And that just exacerbates a problem that you already know is going on. Already know is going on.

You already know you're struggling. You already know you're going to have a deficit. Again, school districts have been running deficits in the states for years, and then they act like, I'm just shocked, shocked I tell you that we have this multimillion-dollar deficit. What are we going to do? And so Fairbanks just did theirs, and now the Kenai Peninsula borough is about to do theirs. They had a meeting last night.

where they outlined a bunch of different scenarios, foreclosures of up to nine schools in the KPB. Jake Dye, Chloe Plesnack over at the Clarion have got this story. They said it's and it's mentioned several times in here that it's because they're facing a 17 million dollar deficit. Now, one of the things that's not noted anywhere that I could find.

In this story, maybe I should do one. That's it. That's the only. OK, I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't lying. One thing I could not find anywhere in this story is talk about the declining enrollment. We have an enrollment decline that's been going on around the state. And it's, you know, it is a big driver. in what's happening here this is this should not this is should not be shocking to anybody that all of a sudden when you have fewer students and you were getting you know

$20,000 or $15,000, $18,000 a student, whatever it is you're getting with the formula and all the extra add-ons and bells and whistles, and you lose a big chunk of them, it's not surprising that you continue to have a problem. But you cannot... have a champagne appetite and live a champagne lifestyle on a beer budget. Why haven't we been closing this gap over and over?

Why haven't we been working on this year upon year? They say that they've drawn down their fund balance, which is their, you know, kind of their rainy day account. The KPB said that they've run it down to where they basically only have, let's see, the district faces a significant deficit spent down its unassigned fund balance to less than a single... Days operating costs. OK, I just got to say. I would find that hard to believe. Because.

There are accounting principles and rules, there's statutes in place that prevent organizations like this usually from drawing down to that point to where they only have a single day's operating costs. I think that may be hyperbole. I think maybe somebody is talking. I'm just I'm speculating here because I don't know for sure. I didn't serve on the Kenai Peninsula borough. I've not been paying attention too much to their meetings or anything else. I've been busy. I just got here. Right. But any.

governmental operation that would draw down its fund balance to less than a single day's operating costs could trigger a lot of problems, legal and otherwise, in my estimation. because most of these places are required by law to have a certain amount of money on hand, you know, a component of the balance. But this is how they're framing it. We're so out of money.

We've spent down all of our excess. We spent down all of our savings. We've only got a single day's operating costs. I mean, this sounds like the full-on panic that they want you to feel, right? It's a $17 million deficit is what they're facing. And without savings to draw on, the district says it's considering to cut staffs, to cut staffing, to cut programs.

to cut sports, and build enclosures. This was the quote, though. This is from Board President Zen Kelly, who said, Maybe I should apologize to the board for not bringing up these school consolidations last year. OK, I probably. Yes. If you knew you were facing a multimillion dollar deficit, everything should have been on the table. Remember, this is the same organization that had that program. The I.

What was it called? The I plan program, the I choose, whatever it was, where they allowed the public to take a shot at the budget. And of course, 90% of them chose let the state pay for it. They took that out this year because you can't count on the state. But that's what everybody chose. Oh, let the state pay for it. State doesn't have any money.

I mean, I hate to tell you that, but they just don't have any money. But he said, I should apologize for not bringing up these school consolidations last year. It's gut wrenching. I keep hoping that our legislature and our governor will step up and do their job and we can stop having these kind of. that rip our communities apart. They did their job. It's on you to do yours. You got a $170 million bump last year. It was one time. Yeah, I understand. It's not as stable as a BSA increase.

But you knew that you were going to have a deficit and you've been refusing to have these hard conversations because nobody wants to make the hard choices. They also talked about time compression as a weapon. The timeline, according to Kelly, is very compressed. The board needs to complete to balance the budget by April 30th to provide the KPB assembly.

Again, this goes back to the whole thing of why don't we just move our whole clock forward one month? That would fix it. If you'd moved your fiscal year forward a month, it would fix all of the chat. No, but again, it's working as intended.

Kelly Sizek, who's a school board member, said the district needs to move forward with closures because the continuing decline of the district savings shows that larger changes meet. And of course, no mention of the potential decline for enrollment, but it's there. Nobody mentions that in this whole thing. She said we were in a hole last year. We were in a hole. We knew we were going to be in a hole this year.

Even if Christmas comes early and we get this BSA increase, we will still need to move forward and begin to cut our budget so we don't have to be in a single position. So even if they get the BSA increase, they're still going to have to cut the budget. i guess i assume kelly's gender i don't know if kelly's a man or woman but my bad on that one but even if the bsa comes early

We still need to move forward and begin to cut our budget so we don't have to be in this position every year to go through this drama. This is all drama. He's 100% right. Drama and trauma. all because somebody in there doesn't want to make, and it's not just them, it's every school district. Nobody wants to make the hard choices. All right, we got to go. Rob Young coming up next, The Michael Duke Show.

Okay. Man, the last two segments went pretty quick, huh? I mean, again, nobody's talking about the enrollment drop. I mean, quite honestly, I didn't have enough time to really flesh out my thoughts on that comment. But that comment right there is what just kind of blows my mind. We were in the hole last year. We knew we were going to be in the hole this year. Okay, so why weren't more hard decisions made in the past? I'm just asking for a friend.

And they say, even if Christmas comes early and we get this BSA increase, a half a billion dollar increase. We still need to move forward and begin to cut our budget so we don't have to be in a position every single year to go through this drama and trauma for all of our communities. 100%. But even if it comes, even if the money comes, they need to, I mean, that's just shocking.

They're closing a bunch of different schools. Nine schools were on the chopping block. Homer Middle School, McNeil Canyon Elementary, Moose Pass School, Nikiski Middle and High School. I'm going to butcher this name. I do it every time. Nikolaevsk School, Paul Banks Elementary School.

They're just holding a fundraiser, but, you know, hey, just shut the school down. Seward Middle School, Sterling Elementary School, and Tustamina Elementary School. Those are the nine schools that they're talking about closing. And everybody's got a dog in the fight. Everybody, the whole last segment of the story is about the community outcry. And people like, we don't, we need, bye. my school. I understand.

I understand. What I don't understand is why they're pulling the, why wouldn't they consolidate schools that are in the more urban or centralized areas first before they start plucking the schools out from the periphery? That's what I don't understand. You know, maybe there's a method to their madness. Again, I haven't looked at it. I'm just my initial reaction is, why would you pluck students out from these? Because, again, transportation costs, right?

transportation costs are going to be a big thing. It was like, why did they want to try and close Salcha school in Fairbanks when that was going to be a, you know, 60 mile round trip, 70 mile round trip, 80 mile round trip for some students, depending where you had to pick them up. Um, you know, every day where the transportation costs there, you know, but just this idea that they knew they knew, but this quote from Sizek is like,

We were in the hole last year. We knew we were going to be in the hole this year. Yeah, why didn't we, why haven't we been doing this? But the school board president saying, you know, I should apologize for not bringing up these school consolidations last year. Yes, everything should be on the table. But then to go on and say, we hope that the governor and the legislature will do their job.

They did their job. Just because it wasn't the champagne budget that you wanted and it was a, you know, a mid-tier near beer budget, then why? But they did their job. They gave you, you know, a significant chunk of funding last year. We've increased education funding 35 percent over the last 19 years. One point two billion dollars. It's the largest budget item in the budget.

For 120,000 students. But they didn't do their job? You knew this was coming, but they didn't do their job? If you knew it was coming, why aren't you opening up your... Why aren't you... opening up your budgets and making those hard decisions now. You know there's a deficit this year. You know there's going to be a deficit next year. You know you have declining enrollment.

You know all these things are true, but you keep waiting for the big state god in the sky to drop you a half a billion bucks in your pocket. Stop it. Make the hard decisions now makes it easier. All right. I see that Senor Yunt is in the chat room here. He's in the green room. He's ready to do it. And he's large and in charge. Hello, my friend. How are you? Good morning. How are you?

you know i'm a little wound up this morning in case you couldn't tell um i just i just wanted to check in to make sure your audio and video is good and i'll put you back in the green room we're about 90 seconds out from restarting for hour two okay you're a little bit early which is good i'd like to see somebody okay so and then i i do have a meeting at about 7 45 that the team added if possible and so okay um no if you don't go right up to the wire and then no okay yeah we'll do it that's fine

We'll let you go a little early. We'll let you go a little early. Uh, and then we can make fun of you when you, uh, when you leave the room. So that'll be fine. Perfect. That's how it's supposed to work. Yeah, that's exactly. I'm always supposed to talk about politicians behind their back, just me and a thousand of our closest friends on the internet. So I'm talking about them behind their back, but you know.

All right, hold the line, Rob. I'll be right back to you. Rob Yant, our guest as well. Yeah, it's, I just... I don't understand this attitude of it's all on the state to do this. You know that you're in deficits. You know that that deficit is going to continue because you know that the enrollment projections are down.

How how is this a surprise to you? And again, you keep waiting in anticipation for that big paycheck in the sky to drop. And it's just it's not going to happen because the state doesn't have any money. What is going on? All right. Hour two dead ahead. Senator Rob Young. Here we go. Back with more of The Michael Duke Show. Whoa buddy, put that thing back in its holster.

You haven't gone anywhere. I don't understand. Check out the Michael Dukes show.com for information on how to get access to the podcast. Welcome to the party, pal. The Michael Duke Show. The greed and the entitlement is astounding to me. What more could you want from a low-budget radio program? This is a dumpster fire. That was just BS.

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

of this hump day middle of the week downhill slide i can see firearms friday from here we're looking forward to it uh we're gonna be doing that uh we're doing it but we got to get through today first Had a fun first hour talking about education and all the stuff out there. But hour two is going to be even funner. That's a word. I made it. It's a word. Funner. It's going to be even funner. State Senator Rob Yunt.

Joins us this morning. Normally, I know everybody's like, well, but where's Shower? Look, Shower is a busy guy now. He's the Senate Republican caucus leader. And he is he's in meetings right now. He literally is in meetings right now. But I have promised to try and work to see if we can get other folks on. And we haven't talked to Rob since he ran for office. So this is a good opportunity to catch up with him.

to see to see what he feels like to see how the whole thing's going and to get his feel uh after the first few weeks of the session fuse first uh three four weeks of the session see where he's at and talk a little bit about the big elephant in the room of course which is education and more so let's bring him on the program

He's got a little bit of a static on his end, he says, from my, I'll try and talk a little quieter. Maybe it won't break quite so loud. Rob Yant joins us. Senator Rob Yant joins us here on the program. Good morning, sir. How are you? Good morning. How are you? Yeah, things are going well. Good. I appreciate it. Must have been quite an education to be on the trail, to go out there, to try and run for that office, and now to actually be there.

Was it everything you hoped for and more, Rob? Was it a dream come true? Tell me how it's been. What's your impressions here in the first few weeks of the session here as you go through? We're off to a good start. When I say we, I'm talking about the team and I. I've been coming down, trying to defend affordable housing for probably the last 13, 14 years with the Mat-Su Home Builders and the State Home Builders Association.

Got to see a little bit of the operations down here from the other side of the table. So I knew a little bit about what I was walking into and, of course, four years of practice there on the assembly. But I'm really fortunate. I got a good team around me. My chief of staff's been in the building before. He's a super hard worker. I mean, I'm in here every day from, I get in about 6, 630 in the office and leave around 8 to 10. He's usually in here when I'm in here. He's an animal.

And then we've got another young man who's new to this environment, but he's very, very, very technical, good writing skills, unbelievable with technology and everything. So it's been good work. I would say for a freshman. Senate office, we're off to a blazing start so far. We got about eight bills right now that we've got over and legal that we're working on things that I think will, you know, create a positive impact for all Alaskans.

what we're really focused on as a freshman senator i like to ask this question as a freshman legislator you know any legislator but as a freshman especially i always like to ask a couple different questions one is What's been the biggest surprise to you now that you're on the other side of the door, so to speak? You've come down, you know, you've lobbied, you've come down, you've talked to people, you've advocated for things. But as an elected official...

What's one of the biggest surprises for you since you got started that is kind of eye-opening for you? I guess I'm really, really, really detailed with my schedule. Everything I do is time blocked, right? So I'm very big on, I'm never late for appointments. It's important to me. Down here, that's out the window. That's out the window. There's just some things that you can't control, right?

if a four session goes longer than you thought it would or committee or whatever it may be. And I'm on four committees. I've not talked to anybody else that's been on four committees or that is on four.

And so for me, scheduling is a big deal, and that's been... kind of out the window a little bit so we just make up for it by working long days well that that actually led to my second question which sounds like you might have already answered it what's the biggest irritating thing you've discovered down there and it may be because the same thing right

Yeah, it all works out. I mean, at the end of the day, we're going to get it all in. And so, yeah. Rob, let's talk about the elephant in the room. There's two elephants, actually. The biggest one, which I think that a lot of people don't understand, especially people who haven't been following it, but most people don't understand that the state of Alaska is broke.

I mean, we are right on the verge right now, right? We're starting this session with a $200 million deficit. And the deficits are projected on the 10-year plan to be even larger.

as we go forward because government by its very nature grows um and we haven't even talked about the other white elephant in the room which of course is the education funding which will add you know two three four six eight hundred million dollars a year to the budget but nobody is talking nobody is really there was finally an article in the adn yesterday about the the deficit

The fact that we don't have any money, that it's going to be a difficult year. We've been talking about that on this show for the last two years because we were looking at the governor's 10-year plans. What is your reaction to that? Were you aware? Is it worse than you thought? Is it about where you were at? And what are your thoughts on where the state is right now and how we get out of this mess?

Yeah, there's a lot of things to touch on there. First, I want to back up and say, I don't think it's going to be a tough year. I think it's going to be at least a tough couple, three or four years. It's important for people to understand that. Obviously, if you look at the races, the election, Donald Trump won by a mile in Alaska, right? He won big. It wasn't close. So...

Most people have voted for economic freedom and economic prosperity, right? But in a state where most of our revenue comes from oil, when you pull up to the gas station, And gas prices have dropped because basic supply and demand economics and freedom and easy to permit and stuff down south, they're going to increase production. We know that, right? So when you pull up and gas is cheap, that's a big win.

When you go to the grocery store and your food is cheaper because shipping costs less to get it to Alaska and all these things, everything that we use in our world is manufactured. The biggest expense on that is typically energy or one of them.

our living expenses probably are going to come down that's a good thing right but on the flip side of that they come down because the cost of energy comes down and in this state where most of our revenue comes from oil um you know it can make it rather tough to budget

you know to for the state budget does that make sense so what's good in your personal life can be very bad in your local government life and that's what people really need to understand um most alaskans got what they wanted myself included i absolutely voted for donald trump um freshman representative here jubilee underwood did not believe me then i i posted in 2011 on facebook that

Donald Trump would be our next president. She actually went back and found that post. I have no idea how these kids do this stuff. I can barely turn my cell phone on. So finding somebody's post from 14 years ago is beyond my capability. But Jubilee did find that.

um and so you know we got to look at the positive side of it as well right i think um cost of living how much money we're wasting sending overseas taking care of americans first and foremost is is going to be it's going to be a great four years for that but if you think oil prices are going to hit 100 bucks a barrel 120 it's just not going to happen right it's supply and demand he's gonna he's gonna drill baby drill right and so

the prices of oil probably come down. And right now the projections for the state budget are based around 70 bucks a barrel. And my question to everybody is what happens when oil hits 50 bucks a barrel, 60 bucks a barrel? Right, right. Because I do believe in my heart those days are coming.

I do. Will they stay there forever? I can see oil hitting 49 bucks a barrel at one point. Yeah. I don't want that to happen. Although it's really nice when you pull up to the gas station, right? So what we have to understand is in one part of our life, we're going to. win big. We're going to win big, right? And that's with cost of living and those things coming down. The only year of deflation that we've seen in our entire life was the last year on there.

you know, President Trump the first time. He'd done such a good job of balancing different things, extra supply in energy. you know, certain types of tariffs. I'm not a big tariff guy, to be honest with you, but there are some that will work and bring work. But anyway, we've seen deflation for the first time ever. That's the greatest thing in the world when you're a resident. It'll bankrupt the government. It'll bankrupt the bank.

But deflation is great for me and you, right? It's great for the citizens. And so, you know, we have to balance that.

You know, we're going to see some challenging times. What we need to do, what we really need to be focused on, and you'll see some of this coming out of our office in the near future. I got legal working on bills now, but we need... to work on increasing our revenue right we have a state with more natural resources and minerals than many countries the state of alaska has more natural resources and minerals

and opportunities to create revenue than most countries right we probably ought to consider doing just that because the days of of oil just you know paying for everything are probably behind Most days are probably behind us. It is behind us. It only accounts for 20% of our revenue now. I mean, we're drawing most of our revenue from the permanent fund earnings is where most of the revenue is coming from now. So that's already changed. And I agree that we...

need to expand resources. But the problem is that has a really long tail. It takes a long time to set that stuff up. And we're talking about a crisis. We're talking about, like you said, the next few years are going to be very hard. So, I mean, revenues, I mean, where are we, you know, where else do we go outside of revenues? I mean, outside of resources, I think resources are a great long-term plan. But where do we go beyond that? And for as far as resources go, do we revisit?

the mineral wealth tax? Do we revisit that? Because that's a net profit tax. We're not making very much off that. Are we going to tax now timber, other minerals? Because oil was really... I mean, we wrote a hot deal on oil. We got a good deal on oil. Mineral taxes and other things, not so great because, again, they're net profit resources. It's not like it's a full severance based on just tonnage.

How do we make all that work and how do we make it work in the short term? Can we make it work in the short term? Yes, we absolutely can. Can and want are two different things. So we'll see.

60 individuals in the legislature here that are going to have a say in that. I hear about a lot of amazing programs around the building that people want to continue to fund or maybe uh start to fund and i and i hear them and i think that sounds really good and then i ask how are we going to pay for it right so um we cannot borrow nor would i ever allow

us to borrow i mean you see when i was on the matsuburl assembly we didn't borrow a single dollar in four years we did not borrow one cent we didn't bond a dollar right so we we can't borrow for operations it's illegal right We're down to almost nothing left in the CBR. So we better put our big kid pants on and work together as a team. And that's really what I'm focused on.

It's the team side of this, the team building side of this, and trying to help everybody understand we're in this together. I don't care what community you come from. I'm from the Mat-Su borough, and I'm going to have tough conversations with our school board about things that they need to do.

right and by the way i think we have the best school board the state i'm obviously biased but they are amazing but we have tough decisions to make on all fronts and we have to work together to get there and so that's that's what i'm really focused on is

putting out good ideas to create revenue in the next two to five years because you're right it's not going to happen overnight but we better take advantage of the fact that we've got donald trump for four years and he wants to allow us to do all these things he will allow us donald trump is going to take the red tape away and allow Alaska to create its own great, bright future, we damn well better do that.

We better take advantage of this opportunity. Well, and that's, I mean, I'm happy to hear you say a lot of this, but again, the question still becomes, it's the short term problem. Because it's the short term that'll kill you. If you can go to the long term and go, okay, I can see the future in five years, it'll start to be bright because we're doing things now. But the question is, how do we survive the next five years without a massive out-migration in the state?

Nobody, and you mentioned not funding programs, but we're really not talking about trimming back the size of government. We're talking about new revenue is what you're talking about. So what about trimming back on the size and scope of government? Is there... I mean, is it just I've just been saying the last year and a half, I said, I just I don't see the political will anymore to even discuss it. It's not even coming up in conversation.

Well, and that's what I mentioned earlier that, you know, I've got tough conversations I got to have with our school board. That's exactly what I was implying. Right. How do we become more physically responsible at the local level? Government starts at the local level. I don't look at government as Washington, D.C. down. I personally look at government as Matsuburo up. That's where I live, so that's where I look at it.

uh local government affects us more than anything and we've got some we've got some tough conversations to be had for sure um if we want to solve a lot of this crisis you know the revenue follows the kid in different ways Legislators should really be looking at what led to the doubling in homeschool. Does that make sense? So, you know, 10 plus years ago, approximately 10 years ago, Alaska had around 11,000 kids that were homeschooling. Now we're up to the, you know, almost the mid 20s.

I think we're at 22,000, 23,000 people. Districts complain about it because then the revenue is not flowing into the neighborhood school system, right? Well, we're increasing attendance out in the Matsu borough. because we've focused very much focused our school board has on career and technical education and school choice and allowing kids and parents to make decisions for themselves

And we need to do a better job. We've done an amazing job in the Matsuburo, but we need to do even better. There's no such thing as good enough. I don't care where you're at in life. We could have $20 billion in the CBR. And I'd be pushing to try to have 21 billion. That's just how I think you always want to see continuous improvement, but it's going to start at the local level. School boards in school districts.

need to answer these questions because the state is incapable of saving the day. We're not capable. We cannot legally borrow. I want every school board member in the state of Alaska to hear me when I say this. We cannot legally borrow for operations. And that's a good thing, by the way, because I'm not going to sell out my grandkids' future or my kids' future for people that don't want to balance the checkbook. So it's illegal.

to bond and borrow for operation so we have they got to figure it out on the local level senator rob yunt is our guest we're out of time for this segment we got more coming up the michael duke show common sense liberty base free ticket radio Streaming live every weekly morning on Facebook Live and MichaelDukesShow.com. Rob Yunt is our guest. We're in the commercial break right now.

uh continuing on here rob again it's not just you it's like nobody wants to talk about the fact that you know well heidi says it here heidi says the short term will be rough and government needs to shrink. That's what needs to happen. The government needs to shrink along with the economy. And that's part of the problem we have in this state, that there's this disconnect between the public and the private economy.

Because they draw all their revenues from the ERA and from oil, they really don't seem to care what happens in the private economy. It could go good. It could go bad. It doesn't matter to them because they're still getting their money. But the problem is, is that as the economy shrinks, government needs to shrink to fix that, you know, and as the population. And this is what's going on in the schools. We got the school saying the state's not doing their job.

But the state is doing its job. It's been providing funding every year. One time funding. Yes, I know it's not reoccurring. It's not something you can always count on, but they are doing their job. And who's not doing their job in my estimation? is the school districts who have been running deficits for years, and they keep waiting on that Vegas payout for the state to step up and drop them a load of cash from the sky.

And that's what they keep waiting on. They keep betting on the if come. And we know that that's not. That's not how you're supposed to do things. If you know you've had a deficit, if you've been running a deficit for multiple years, and you know next year's already going to be a deficit, why aren't you having those hard conversations now? It is confusing to me why.

When I went to high school, we had one vice principal, and now we have three at many of the schools, right? We have way too many associate superintendents. I want to go out on record here, and I've said this a million times at the assembly level, but... I really feel like we get the best teachers in the world on the Matsuboro. They're amazing. I've been coaching 21 years at local schools there. I'm friends with a lot of our teachers. They're amazing. We've done a way better job of growing.

all the non-teaching positions in my adult life than we have the teaching does that make sense and yeah i don't want to i don't want to sound like a like a jerk but none of those people not a singular one of them are increasing test scores and helping students learn other than teachers. So we need to prioritize our teachers in the classroom and start looking for ways to be more fiscally responsible in other areas.

I just don't see the need for three vice principals at schools. I don't. Or a million associate superintendents. Like we need to trim a lot of fat on the high end. And that goes for, look, I'm not, you know, I'm never going to point a finger at. anybody individually so you know maybe i should only talk i live in the borough i should talk about my school district right my school board because that's where i'm a resident but uh we we got some we got some work to do there too as well

We need to make cuts at the top end. And those are, by the way, the highest salaries. And so, you know, I'm not on the school board. I don't get to make that decision. But, you know. We're in the position now that we're in and it's not going to change. It's not going to change. And we've seen, again, the sloping curves of, you know, student enrollment is going like this. And yet administrative costs continue to go like this because.

you know we're adding more administrators it used to be you know one to one and now it's you know now it's to to Now we're talking about as far as teachers versus administrative overhead. It used to be one-to-one teacher to administrator, and now in some places it's two or three administrators per actual classroom teacher. Why do we need that much overhead? Like you said, why do we need three vice principals? I mean, we got one superintendent of schools. Why do we need a bunch of...

Sub superintendents or vice superintendents or whatever they're doing. And in some cases, they've got multiple superintendents for various areas of different schools. I mean, there are so many efficiencies that could be found in some of these areas. Now, granted, it would mean that some people would lose their. jobs but overall for the success and health of the whole body isn't it better to excise something like that than to to deface it and if not again how do we pay for it

That's the big question. Who pays? Well, we pay, but only in the show. All right, we're coming back in. The ding means that we're coming back to the radio, so I don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves here. But I do want to continue to discuss education. Rob Yunt is our guest. We've only got him for about another 15, 16 minutes. And so we'll be kicking him off here in just a second. Don't go anywhere. The Michael Duke show common sense, Liberty based free thinking radio. 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. I'm a perfect angel. Not a pain in anything. All right. Senator Rob Yunt is our guest. And we've been talking about...

budgets and education and everything else. And they're kind of merged at this point because let's face it, it's tough. Rob, this bill, HB 69, that's been put forward, which is the new funding bill for a BSA change. This bill, and if you look at the fiscal note and do the math on the fiscal note, you could see it. Brad Keithley did it yesterday on the program with us. It's, you know, $370 million this year. $150, $160 million in the next two years.

That's 800. That's, you know, 600, 700 million, almost 800 million. And then it goes up because it's pegged to inflation between 50 and 60 million dollars a year every year thereafter. And it ratchets up because it's based on the CPI. So at the end of 2035, just 10 years from now, that single bill alone is a billion dollars more than where we are right now. We already have a deficit this year alone, and they're proposing to add $370 million just for the one bill with another $320, $360 million.

the following two years, which also show in the 10-year forecast as being deficits. How does the math work on that? How do we make that happen? I mean, how do you make it? First of all, the PFD is gone. The legislative finance, 98% of the POMV draw just to pay for the education bill. If they just put the education bill in and all the other spending, it would consume 98% of the POMV draw. There is nothing left for the PFD. You asked a question, how does that work?

yeah and simply put i just want to say it doesn't work it doesn't work right so uh we we better do a good job of figuring this out it uh because that does not work it doesn't it's not going to work for me For sure, it's not going to work for the residents of Alaska, right? And so as we were talking about earlier, local districts, and I'll just focus on mine.

it's not fair for me to point a finger at the other ones um we we have some tough decisions to make right we don't need three vice principals at a school we don't need a million associate superintendents we don't need You know, we need to get back to focusing on the classroom and teachers and trim out a lot of the upper fat. Every single school district, including our own, can do that.

That's a good start. You look at what that costs. You know, that's that number has grown our entire adult life. Right. It's not been the teachers that have been growing. It's all the other positions. I would say start there because you start doing that statewide. That's a massive amount of savings. And local control is the best thing in the world. Any sort of money, BSA, it goes evenly.

It goes evenly to each area. And so some districts you're going to see are going to be in great shape and some districts are not. And the ones that are not, I would say you better start making tough decisions. We have to make tough decisions here. The residents of Alaska have to make tough decisions. We all do. You say it goes evenly, but I mean, we know that with all the formula and the little markers in it and the little calculations, you know, Anchorage will get.

$7,000 a student. I know the base is $5,000 and change, but they'll get $7,000 a student, and some districts will get $90,000 a student.

equally i guess in proportion but i mean i don't i don't know exactly how that you know how we say that i know i i know what you mean this this is a tricky state we're we're what 20 percent of the entire united states or whatever surface area were bigger than many many many states combined with such a small population so you're right there are areas that they get a ton of money for children um

The districts are going to have to start solving that problem. They're going to have to figure it out at the local level because the state is not going to be able to solve all their problems for them. It's not even fiscally possible. Well, everybody here knows that, right? We've got some tough negotiations ahead of us. But at the end of the day, every single person in this building knows that. Or at least I hope they do. And I think most do.

that the state's not going to be able to bail out local municipalities, local boroughs, local cities. It's not going to be able to happen. But that's what this story from yesterday. in the in the peninsula clarion the kpb we're waiting on the state to do their job if christmas comes early and we get our money from the state they're still looking to the state and this is Part of this is not on the legislature. Part of this is on the electorate because the electorate keeps buying into.

A chicken in every pot. We'll fund every school to the max. We'll do all this other kind of stuff. That's part of the problem with this disconnect between the public and the private economies is that people have no idea how government is funded. They have no skin in the game because it all happens behind the scenes, right? It's a stealth tax.

on residents who are the owners of the resource, but they don't see it. It doesn't go through their fingers. It doesn't go through their hands. And so they don't see it. So when they say, oh, they're closing a school, well, they have no idea how it gets paid for.

So why isn't it just staying? They have no idea how it's paid for. So when somebody says, well, the state needs to stand up and do their job, they go, yeah, damn, the state needs to stand up and do their job. But the problem is there is no money. How can people not understand that? To those individuals, I'd say they are the state, right? Residents are the state. So, you know, you can't. I talked about this earlier. It's illegal.

to borrow for operations and that's a good thing because we would i can't imagine how bad that would get and how fast it would happen um we cannot just print money it's not magic right we're not the treasury Right. So we're going to all have to tighten our belts. That's that's just that's the only way we're going to get there. Well, we're going to we're going to have to shrink government. Honestly, like I said, I don't want to see one teacher laid off in the state. Not a single.

one classroom teacher i i was a classroom teacher correct but i will sleep great at night if uh if we can shrink budgets because we have less than three vice principals in a school or less than a whole bunch of associate superintendents at a local school district. I can promise you there's not a single vice principal or associate superintendent or amongst other positions that are helping increase our children's ability to read.

Well, and we've seen focus on the classroom. Yeah, we've seen how that's done. We just got the NEAP scores last week, right? Last Wednesday, the national education, the report card in America came out. And what happened to Alaska? Well, we were at 48th. We'd gotten up to 46th in math, but at the rest of them, we were 48th and 49th out of 50 states. Where are we today? 51. out of 53 because they had to include the territories and stuff and we fell out of the i mean we're not even we're spending

like the fifth or sixth highest spending per capita per student spend in the country. And we are at 51st in math and reading and for fourth grade level and reading for eighth grade level. We fell from. 46th back to 48th for eighth grade math. I mean, we're not delivering a product. And all we hear is, shut up and give us our money. We don't want to talk about policy.

We don't want to talk about accountability. Those are two separate things. We shouldn't talk about that. Just give us our money and shut up and let us do what we need. How do we fight this, Rob? This is the big question. How?

Do you as a legislator and then how do we as citizens fight this? Because we understand that there is not enough money to make all this happen, all this pie in the sky stuff that they want. And this doesn't count to find benefits. It doesn't count anything else they may do for the gas thing. It doesn't depend on any of. additional spending just this and we're done the pfd is gone what how do we fight it

Well, first, I hope local school districts are listening to me when they come. Money and policy are going to be spoke. They're going to be talked about together, right? So the idea of paying for something that you're not getting is a bad idea. We have to get results. So policy and money, as far as I'm concerned, will be tied together and talked about together, as it should be. In every other aspect of life, we pay for results, right? If you're not creating results, then...

then you get relieved of your duties in the real world, right? So, you know, residents understanding that they probably, we all need to do a better job, myself included. But we all could do a better job of being involved in our local government, understanding how things work at the local level, because that's where it starts. And that's really how we're going to solve these problems. The state cannot solve all the problems.

There's not enough money here. There's not, right? Oil prices are low. And more than likely, they drop. in the next four years. I don't, you know, when you're not, when there's not world wars going on, when there's not conflicts going on, Trump's already ended the conflict in the Middle East. He's downsizing the conflict.

in uh ukraine um and and bringing a solution to that probably so you know oil and then you're going to increase supply when you start decreasing world wars or conflicts i should say not a world war but conflicts on the globe and you start increasing supply what happens oil drops well what happens to the state of alaska our revenue drops and so we've got to be very fiscally responsible um And the state needs the local school districts to tighten their belts. Writing articles in a local newspaper.

in Anchorage or the Mat-Su or Kenai Peninsula Borough or anywhere else based solely on emotion with no solutions is not going to solve the problem. So whoever's writing these articles, perhaps they should go sit in on a school board meeting.

Right. Perhaps they should ask to look at their school board's budget. Right. And then they should go back 20 years. Get the budget. Look at I've done it. I've looked at every budget since, you know, going all the way back to the mid 90s in the valley. Right. um i've studied every single budget from i'd say mid-90s 95 or so forth go look at them see where the growth is at you'll figure out real quick where you can make some cuts right

And I don't want to be picking solely on associate superintendents and vice principals. Believe me, there's a lot of other positions, too. But we're not going to get where we want to be by cutting teachers, nor should we even consider it. So where else can you?

Can you do it? You know, you got districts whose population student enrollment is lower now than it was decades ago. Well, you better be talking about some consolidation. Right. Well, you have to be because that's that's projected. That's projected to.

You've got the state that set these districts up for failure years ago by having to build monotrocities of schools. The school package that we just did out in the Mat-Su borough, I'm pretty proud of this. I spent the last 18 months on the assembly on this. We're getting ready to build three new schools out there. And I negotiated 12.5% of revenue from each school to pay the payment so that the burden doesn't fall on the taxpayers, the property taxpayers.

guess what i didn't partner with the state of alaska on my package i don't want anything to do with partnering with a state because they're going to make you double the square footage their deed requirements are just that you know so they've set a lot of districts up for failure in the last 20 30 years as well but

You know, and it's the local districts that get stuck with the deferred maintenance bill. Well, better figure it out. Right. But we all have to figure it out. Oil's not going to 100 bucks a barrel. Right. The oil gods are not going to just start dropping money in our pockets. It's not going to happen. And so and again, like I said, you know.

short-term pain long-term gain we better take advantage of the opportunity we have with donald trump and in the white house again he is he has spoke specifically about the state of alaska helping solve problems with minerals and oil and just giving us the opportunity to go in and develop and work our lands right well

Yes, we need to focus on today. And yes, we're going to have a tough couple of years ahead of us. But if all of us work together, even the ones that didn't vote for Donald Trump, you know, it you better. Even if you didn't vote for him and you're an elected official in this building, I hope that you'll at least acknowledge we have an opportunity to set ourselves up for a bright future. And now's the time. We need to start working on other revenue streams.

for the future yeah and i will say that i you know you're right energy costs are going to go down i don't know how that well that's going to go i mean we may see cheaper gas at the pump but between the gas shortage and the cook inlet and everything else we're going to see the rest of our stuff go up so we may benefit slightly but between inflation and everything else it's the perfect storm of low government revenue

and a tougher time for alaskans and we best start buckling down at every level at this point is what i'm saying yeah final thought here rob real quick I got some solutions for the gas stuff. You'll see legislation coming out from our office. I do have another meeting I got to get to in regards to this, some legal stuff here in the next few minutes.

Yeah, I'll come back here. We'll come back on in a couple of weeks after I've got some of my bills filed and actually talk about how we're going to create more revenue for the state of Alaska. All right, Rob, well, I look forward to that discussion. Thank you for being part of it today. We appreciate it. Folks, that's it for this segment. One more dead ahead. Special thanks to Senator Rob Yunt, The Michael Duke Show, Common Sense, Liberty-based, Free Thicken Radio.

Your mental suppository. The Michael Duke Show. Okay. I mean, you know, I... I share his optimism as to what's going on with the energy issues. I mean, it's going to be good for... You know, if you're using a lot of gasoline, it'll probably help offset some of the costs of shipping and trucking and things like that. But overall, we here in Alaska very rarely see that as being great news, right?

I mean, our cost of living may go down slightly, but the inflation and everything else is offsetting a lot of that right now. Things are costing more. You know, and I guess the only thing worse is high oil prices, because then we get hit from both ends. The state gets a windfall and they grow the size of government. And meanwhile, it costs us more to live and breathe and do everything else.

But he's right. The overhead, the administrative side of schools really needs to be looked at. And it's something that they have just not. It's just not something that the school districts seem to be interested in doing. They continue to grow administrative overhead. This is an ongoing problem, folks. An ongoing problem. I wish I had more answers, but that's where it needs to go. Three superintendents in Fairbanks is Fat Ray.

Three superintendents. Why? Why? If you can't do it with one, then I just don't know. Now, Rob mentioned several times that Alaska can't borrow for operating costs. But Donna does make the interesting statement. And this is true. She said the state borrowed from the CBR for operations.

Now, technically, it wasn't borrowing. It was just spending on savings. But it was technically borrowing in one way because they're supposed to be $10 billion in the CBR, according to the Constitution, and they drew it down to almost nothing. So technically, they owe that. They spent $16 billion out of the CBR. And they drew it down to nearly nothing. So they owe that money back. So they did.

I mean, I know it's not borrowing per se, but they they borrowed it. They borrowed it from the CBR. And over the course of, you know, five, six years, they spent 13, 14 billion dollars. Out of the CBR because they refuse. Because, again, monkey see, monkey do. What the state is doing, the school districts are now doing. We know there's a deficit. We know we're overspending. We know there's a problem. We know we don't have enough money. But we'll just hope that someday...

There'll be something new at the state level is God. They were hoping for another oil boom. They were hoping for another spike in oil prices. They were hoping for another. 2007, 2008, when the oil skyrocketed and they were able to put a bunch of money away. Oh, they hope for another one of those.

School districts are doing exactly the same thing. Oh, we know we've got a deficit. We know we should be cutting back. We know we should be consolidating schools, but we know we have declining enrollment. But what we really need... Because we just need the state to come in and drop us a care package of cash from the sky. That's it.

They're doing exactly the same. The school district is doing exactly what the legislature has been doing. The legislature has consumed almost every available pot of money that's out there. If this school. bill gets pushed and passed they will consume they will have consumed the next available pot of money which is the permanent fund dividend they've already taken

You know, they're already taken, what, 75% of the take. So they've already taken half of the PFD away. And if this goes through, they'll take the other half. And then there will be no permanent fund. And then there will be no readily available pots of money. And then what'll happen? Well, one of two things. They'll either get their way and tell the people, well, we really need to combine the ERA and the corpus of the fund because then...

Otherwise, you know, we're going to have to tax you. That's what it'll be. It'll be that same tax argument all over again. And people in this state are so deathly afraid of taxes. that they will say, okay, go ahead, combine the ERA and the permanent fund. And what they didn't realize is that they just doomed themselves to taxes in the future. Because once they've consumed...

all of the revenue in the earnings reserve and then consumed all of the corpus of the fund or a big chunk of it. Once it hits that equilibrium point where they've consumed enough of it that now it's not generating enough. to fund government they'll come back to you and say okay sweetheart you've had a free ride for too long now's the time to start paying taxes now i could see it coming i could you know

I can see it. But most people can't because they're not paying attention to how this stuff works. And they're so deathly afraid of the idea of taxation. They're so disconnected from what's going on. Dichotomy? Yeah, I had to look that word up too. I don't think it means what he thinks it means. There he is though. That guy. Michael Dukes. The one with the show.

So I guess the only thing I'll take exception to with Rob, what Rob talked about, Rob Yunt was our guest here in the last two segments of the program. I guess I'll take exception with two things. One, when I asked him... You know, about how do we fix the problem with the, you know, with the, with the funding problems in the state. I mean, we're basically broke. We're basically busted.

is he talked about revenues and new revenues. He talked about generating new revenues, which is always a thing to me. The first thing we should be talking about is consolidating and creating efficiencies in what we have already. That should be the first thing. He did talk about that, but later after I brought it up. OK, so I mean, no, no shade here on Rob. I'm just saying that should be the first thing that you talk about in a business. Right. In a in a in a budget.

especially if you're a business. How do we consolidate what we got? How do we make what we have work more efficiently? Where can we find efficiencies? Where can we cut? Then you talk about new revenues. Because you have control over the first thing. You have absolute control. You don't have control over new revenues as a business or as a government. You can project and you can think that it's going to, but it's still a bit of if-come going on there, right?

But as far as efficiencies, consolidations, cuts, things you can do, those you have direct control over. So that's the first tack you take. The second tack is then you talk about new revenue. He's talking about new revenues and he's talking about... Resource development is new revenues. Now, I'm 100% in favor of that. The problem, again, as I said, is that it has a long tail.

It is a long tail. It takes five to 10 years to set up some of those things. We're in crisis now. I know that nobody else is talking about it. We're doom and gloom because we're. We are in crisis now. We're going into the year with a $200 million deficit. They haven't even talked about the supplemental budget. You notice that, right?

Maybe Donna, who's in the chat room, or one of the legislators in there could tell me, how much is the supplemental budget this year? I haven't seen it reported anywhere. My understanding was that it was going to be over $200 million.

So does somebody want to tell me what the supplemental budget is this year? I'd love to hear it. Because we haven't talked about that. That's the budget that trues up for the previous year. We were $200 million short going into this. Now, how much more are we going to be short? How much more? The problem with resource development is that it's a long, long tail.

And I got to be honest, anytime you start talking about new revenues, I get a little squidgy because I'm like, we are already spending how many billions of dollars on only 700,000 people? Do we really, you know? And even if you are talking about resources, that's a whole other kettle of fish. Because now, if it's oil and gas...

We've got some pretty good deals as far as state share of royalty and gas getting there. You start talking about minerals like gold or rare earth minerals or copper or some of these other things. The state's take on that stuff is minuscule. It is minuscule compared to oil. Because it's a net tax scheme. They can tell you, well, we spent $100 million getting it out. We only made $101 million. Here's your $1 million.

That whole thing would have to be rewritten. You'd have to revisit the resources tax. You know, taxes on timber, taxes on fish, taxes on things that, you know. You'd have to rewrite the whole thing if you want to expand on the resource, which I'm in favor of, if that's the case. I mean, it's a finite resource. We're all resource owners. We should be getting maximum yield, right, for those things. But it's not something that's going to happen.

Like that. It's not going to happen. From the committees, it looks like the... supplemental budgets, about $250 million. So we're already going in with a $200 million deficit, but now it's even higher. well it's going to be even we're going to go in with a half a billion dollar deficit and now they want to add with this funding education funding bill they want to add a reoccurring half a billion dollars a year

Well, it's 370 million year one, 560 year two, 640 year three, 740 year three. I mean, in perpetuity. Again, if you missed Brad's show yesterday, you should go back out there. You know, we do have other options. Ben Carpenter's in the chat room. He mentions tourism. We're leaving tourism revenue on the table. Okay.

Let's fix that problem. But again, the first thing you do is you look at where you can make efficiencies, you can consolidate, you can do better with what you have because you have direct control of that. New revenues in the form of taxes and fees and other things, they are less certain than what you can do with your own budget. But again, going back to the school districts are doing exactly the same thing that the state's doing.

Oh, we just need the state to do their job. Keep hoping that our legislature and our governor will step up and do their job. Give us more money because we're short. Well, you're short because you haven't. You haven't done the budgets right. And even if you do get it, again, quoting Syzik from the school board again.

Even if we do get it, even if Christmas comes early and we get this BSA increase, we still need to move forward and begin to cut our budget so we don't have to be in a position every single year to go through this drama and trauma for our communities. Absolutely. Absolutely. You know there's a problem. You know enrollment is projected to continue to decline. You know more people are pulling their kids out and moving to homeschooling for a variety of reasons.

And that will probably continue. We can't continue. I said it earlier. We can't continue to live with champagne tastes, a champagne lifestyle. on a beer budget or a near beer budget i mean it's even worse right you just can't keep doing it

It is on these school districts around the state. And I'm not trying to pick on the KPB. It's just the latest story. At least Fairbanks has really done. I mean, they've done the work and they're going out and they're closing schools and consolidating schools. They're doing some work up there. Good for them. You've got to close the shortfall, folks. You've got to create a budget that balances. And if the state gives you extra money, then that's just gravy.

You know, if you get more beyond the base student allocation or if you get one time funding, that's just gravy. You should be planning on what the current budget is and cutting your budget to fit whatever that revenue scheme is, whatever the revenue is going to be. And if you don't, you're, you know, you're not doing the public any service. You're creating more problems.

and i i mean honestly i don't really want to look at new revenues i want to live within our means i know it's not going to happen but if we're going to look at revenues we need to look at ones that are at least realistic All right, we've got to go. Tomorrow, Al Point-Dexter is going to come on and talk about food sustainability. We're also going to talk about the Compass program. It's like a boys and girls club, but it's privately funded. That's coming up tomorrow.

The Michael Duke Show, Common Sense, Liberty Base, Free Thinking Radio. We'll talk to you then. Have a great day. I mean, I would like to see this, folks, tightening the belt. But it's just there is no political will. There's no political will to do this. I mean, you could see it. They're proposing a billion dollar funding bill for education that'll cost us a billion dollars a year. You know, I mean, it starts out slow.

but by year three we're up to 700 million by year 10 it's at a billion and it just keeps going up from there and that's all they're talking about that's all they're focusing on When there is no money. You think they're going to cut? Check up from the neck up, man. just to check up yeah wait says kevin what what isn't that why there is a formula in place so they can plan yes that's what it's supposed to be

But they're so used to all this extra money and the COVID money and everything else. It's created the new normal. We need our lucre and we need it now. Shut up. Just give it to us. We don't want to talk about policies and we don't want to talk about outcomes. All right, I got to go. I'm agitated now. You guys, be kind, love one another, live well, do all that stuff. Share this show, would you?

there's 40 of you in here 50 of you in here share the show and i agree ben ben says lack of political will is not a legitimate excuse for allowing a train wreck to happen i got it yeah i got it and i'm with you damien i'm still troubled by what he said what rob said price of food and cost of living going down under i think he meant is going to go down as energy costs drop

whether that's true or not. Again, let's not bet on the if-come, shall we? All right, guys, we got to go. Be kind, love one another, live well. We'll see you tomorrow. Radio Skin. And now we are slimy lizard internet people. It's the Michael Duke Show.