Legislature overrides Gov. Dunleavy's veto of public school funding bill

Alaska’s public schools may see the largest permanent funding boost in well over a decade, after the Alaska Legislature voted for the first time since 2002 to override a sitting governor’s veto.

With a 46-14 vote, lawmakers significantly increased Alaska’s per-student public funding formula, overriding Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s decision to reject House Bill 57. Forty votes were needed for an override.

“This was a truly bipartisan vote reflective of everyone in Alaska,” said Speaker of the House Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham.

While the new law changes state policy on school funding, whether Alaska schools actually see an increase for the coming school year depends on the outcome of the budget process.

It was the third time in two years that the governor vetoed a significant education funding bill; lawmakers failed by a single vote to override the governor last year. A second veto earlier this year was sustained by a larger margin.

Senate President Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak, said, “I had heard that we would be at 46, and that was just perfect. … I sort of hoped there wouldn’t be a lot of discussion. There wasn’t any. Everyone knew how they wanted to vote.”

The override means a permanent increase of $700 in the base student allocation, core of the state’s per-student funding formula.

That’s a small year-over-year increase for public schools, which received bonus funding last year equivalent to a $680 BSA increase.

Critically, that money wasn’t approved until late in the budget process, which meant school districts had to budget for less money, then restore programs and rehire teachers once the money was approved.

Adding money to the base level would reduce that back-and-forth.

In addition, the bill changes the charter school application process, directs school districts to develop policies to restrict students’ cellphone use, creates a grant program designed to improve students’ reading performance, and expands career and technical training programs.

It also sets up a legislative task force to recommend further changes to education policy.

Rep. Ted Eischeid, D-Anchorage, said he was listening to his constituents when he voted to override the veto.

“I’m super pleased. The No. 1 issue in House District 22 was education. I know because I asked (at) a thousand doors, where people answered the door, and that was the overwhelming request,” he said. “So I’m really happy to stand with my neighbors in House District 22, and I’m super pleased.”

How it happened

The House and Senate are controlled by coalition majorities that include Republicans and Democrats, with the House majority also including independents. However, because overriding the governor required 40 votes, some conservative Republicans in the House and Senate minority caucuses needed to support an override for it to succeed.

House Minority Leader Mia Costello, R-Anchorage, said that while she supports the governor, she split with his position and voted to override the veto. “I’ve supported the governor in many, many ways. I voted for his bills and priorities — very much a fan of the governor,” she said. “We just had a difference of opinion on this one bill.”

Senate Majority Leader Cathy Giessel, R-Anchorage, praised what she described as the courage of minority Republicans who acted against a governor whose actions they normally support.

“I think it represents a lot of courage on the part of all the legislators, recognizing the justice, the compassion that we need to show to the public,” she said. “They’ve asked for this education funding now for several years, and it’s time we act. And I think it represents a really courageous vote for many of them.”

During Tuesday’s vote, Rep. Jeremy Bynum, R-Ketchikan and a member of the House minority, wore what he called his “hard vote” tie, decorated with small rhinoceroses. He voted to override.

“My vote isn’t against the governor, it’s for my district,” he said. “This is basically the same funding that the governor authorized in last year’s budget (and) we got some policy for it. We’ve worked hard on that.”

Dunleavy said he wanted additional policy changes in the bill, including open-enrollment provisions that would allow students to more easily transfer between schools and school districts. Anchorage and the Matanuska-Susitna Borough already offer versions of those policies.

Bynum said he believes that some of the policy priorities sought by the governor need more discussion.

“The problem that we have is that the policies that the governor was asking for us to include in this bill really requires some additional thought,” he said. “There’s some unintended consequences of that language that could harm some of the lottery schools and some of the charter schools even in Anchorage … and so, yeah, if we want local control, we need to support local control. I believe in local control.”

House and Senate passed HB 57 by a combined vote of 48-11-1; Reps. Jubilee Underwood, R-Wasilla; Elexie Moore, R-Wasilla; and Sarah Vance, R-Homer, voted in favor of HB 57 but against overriding the governor’s veto.

Afterward, Underwood and Moore each said they were trying to follow the will of their constituents.

Vance explained her decision in depth.

“I made a decision a couple weeks ago not to override, seeing that the majority was not even considering giving the governor his policy requests — and really what Republicans have been wanting for quite some time: to make education more accessible to all public school students,” she said.

Vance said she is also focused on the state’s finances: “I’m also very, very concerned about our budget. We are in a deficit of $200 million, and that’s also the increase right now. I want to fund inside the formula, but right now, I think we’re just in a bind on what we can do.”

Tuesday’s vote may be the first chapter in a longer struggle between the governor and the Legislature.

HB 57 increases the state’s public school funding formula, but that formula is subject to the annual state budget. To use an analogy: If the formula is a bucket, the budget fills that bucket.

Dunleavy has previously said he may veto some education money from the state budget, leaving the formula only partially funded.

In addition, parts of HB 57 are contingent upon the enactment of Senate Bill 113, a bill adjusting the state’s corporate income taxes. On Monday, Dunleavy implied that he will veto SB 113.

Overriding either a funding veto or a veto of SB 113 would require 45 votes; the state constitution sets a higher threshold to override bills that appropriate money, which a provision of SB 113 would effectively do.

Outcomes of future key votes remain uncertain

Some legislators who voted to override the governor on Monday declined to confirm that they would override vetoes on the two funding mechanisms.

Sen. Robert Yundt, R-Wasilla, and Sen. Mike Cronk, R-Tok, each voted to override but said they didn’t know how they would vote if the governor vetoed the funding mechanisms.

Yundt added that he’d like to see less division between the legislative and executive branches.

“This is a sad day for me, I’m sorry it came to this,” he said. “People send us here to work together, right? I don’t want to see divide ever. So, yeah, I don’t ever want to see any more vetoes. … They’re part of the process, and I know that. But for me this is not a time to rejoice.”

Asked whether the 46-vote threshold would hold up in subsequent vetoes, the leaders of the House and Senate said they weren’t sure.

“We don’t know, but the vote today is going to influence the political dynamic around doing what’s right for our schools,” Edgmon said.

Stevens offered similar thoughts.

“I think there’s a good, solid message to the governor that we need to move ahead on education,” he said.

Regardless of how they stood on HB 57, legislators said that Tuesday’s action was significant. The Legislature hasn’t overridden a governor’s veto since 2009, when it voted to overturn Gov. Sarah Palin’s rejection of some federal aid during the Great Recession.

But by the time of that override, Palin had resigned, and legislators didn’t risk retribution for their override. Legislators haven’t overruled a sitting governor since a Republican-controlled Legislature overrode Democratic Gov. Tony Knowles in 2002.

Former Rep. Joe Hayes, D-Fairbanks, is now an aide to Sen. Scott Kawasaki, D-Fairbanks, and was in the House during the 2002 vote. He represented a swing district and joined Republicans in voting to override.

“Knowles was pissed at me. He was pissed at me forever,” Hayes said on Tuesday. “I get it now — this kind of thing doesn’t happen very often.”

The AlaskaBeacon.com is a donor-funded independent news organization in Alaska.