Here is a sampling of editorial opinions from Alaska newspapers:
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Jan. 1, 2017
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner: State and Interior need goals for new year
News-Miner opinion: Each year, many of us use the occasion of the new year to enact changes in our own lives. The clean break from the events of the past makes it seem easier to turn over a new leaf, typically in the form of New Year’s resolutions. Sometimes we’re able to abide by the positive changes and goals we envision for ourselves, and sometimes the resolutions only last a matter of weeks before we lose focus and let them slip. They’re still helpful, however, as markers of progress we want to make and ways we want our lives to be different. This year, Alaska and the Interior could use some resolutions, too. Here are some to get started.
1. Make a plan to balance the budget
If the state had been keeping resolution lists during past years, this would be the third year that a budget plan would be at the top of the list. During the past two years, however, the Legislature has largely ignored budget-balancing plans pushed by Gov. Bill Walker and failed to advance any steps of its own that would close the multibillion-dollar deficit by a substantial percentage. Simply put, the state can’t afford such inaction for another year. This year, the Legislature must close the vast majority of that gap and have a plan to get the rest of the way next year, or the account that pays out Permanent Fund dividends will be severely affected. That means substantial revenue measures, not just cuts.
2. Make progress on the Interior Energy Project
This year begins with Interior residents feeling little closer - if at all - to the goal of affordable natural gas delivery for a broader segment of local residents. Though plenty of work has been going on behind the scenes, the departure of private partner Salix likely has some community members worried that the economics of the project are too daunting for gas delivery at the price goal of $15 per thousand cubic feet of gas, the equivalent of heating oil at roughly $2 per gallon. Residents have been lucky that heating oil prices have been low for the past two years (a minor silver lining of the same slump that has the state budget on the rocks), but hoping low prices continue is no kind of a strategy. State and local policymakers must do what they can to make sure we don’t arrive at our next winter no further along in gas development than we are today.
3. Combat alcohol and drug abuse and the problems they exacerbate
For decades, Alaska has struggled with high levels of alcohol and drug abuse, problems that not only have ill effects for those trapped in the throes of addiction but also many of those whose lives they touch. Alcohol and drug issues are strongly correlated with the state’s high rates of domestic violence, sexual assault, driving under the influence, fetal alcohol syndrome and many other heavy societal costs. That means expenses - typically borne by the public - for health care, trauma counseling, incarceration, special education and other services.
The list of resolutions the state and Interior could make this year is long, but those three items are a start. Every year offers us a new chance for a fresh start, and if we make meaningful progress on these three, our state and community would be in far better shape by the year’s end than it is today.
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Dec. 30, 2016
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner: No state services without costs
And so it begins, as expected: people complaining about some state-maintained roadways not being cleared of snow fast enough.
Well, what do you expect after years of budget cuts to the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, and other departments, and no long-term sustainable budget plan from the Legislature?
“Reduced budgets have impacted our response time,” DOT’s northern region spokeswoman told a Daily News-Miner reporter earlier this week. “Each station is now responsible for an area that is just a little larger, and we have less staff and equipment. We still plow in the same order, but our response time is longer.”
Some Alaskans refuse to believe a connection exists between revenue and services.
Budget-cutting has been going on for years, yet many Alaskans seem to think that cutting can go on forever. Those opposed to any form of taxation or use of the Alaska Permanent Fund earnings to help close the state’s multi-billion budget deficit this year and to prevent the recurrence of such deficits in subsequent years adhere to a bumper-sticker argument that government is fat, that more efficiencies can be found, and so on.
The problem with the argument that “government is fat” is that it’s a subjective argument. We don’t hear people saying that the state services they use should be cut. Rather, it’s the services they don’t see or don’t use, the services used by others, that presumably are the fat that should be sliced. Another oft-stated target is administration. Surely, the argument goes, the government can run just as well with fewer people running it.
This isn’t to argue that efficiencies can’t be found and shouldn’t be sought, and that wasteful programs should be terminated or perhaps privatized. We always should be looking for ways to operate in the most cost-effective manner.
The reality today, however, is that the level of services are now - finally - being affected.
Another reality is that Alaskans continue to live their lives free of paying a state sales or income tax while also receiving an annual dividend from oil revenue.
Will Alaskans at some point say “Enough!” Will 2017 be the year that public pressure on the Legislature will build until real progress will be made toward finding that elusive, long-term and sustainable solution?
Or will we let public safety continue to be put at risk by delays in clearing key roadways? Will we simply accept the scaling back of programs, both academic and athletic, at our magnificent University of Alaska? Will we just continue to complain while failing to recognize the slow decay of our fine state?
The first regular session of the new assembly of state lawmakers - the 30th Alaska Legislature - begins Jan. 17. For the first time in decades, the political balance is different: a Democratic-led coalition will control the House of Representatives, while the Senate remains in Republican control. Maybe a divided Legislature will force compromise. Maybe that in turn will lead to an improved relationship between the Legislature and Gov. Bill Walker, a former Republican who won office as an independent.
Alaska doesn’t have time to mess around.
This isn’t a Republican problem, a Democratic problem or a problem of any other political profile. Without a sustainable budget solution, the annual Permanent Fund dividend soon will disappear, as will our savings accounts.
Alaska’s ship of state will be on the rocks.
Then what?
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