The Alaska House held a late-night floor session this week that stretched into the early hours of Thursday morning as part of a scramble to pass time-critical legislation to upgrade internet speeds in schools.
The provisions were the original purpose of Senate Bill 140, which was inflated in the House to serve as the vehicle for a wide-ranging set of education policies before it was vetoed by Gov. Mike Dunleavy. Legislators failed to override the governor’s veto on Monday after 17 Republicans flip-flopped on the bill, refusing to override the governor’s veto of a bill that they supported a few weeks prior.
The move not only left the overall state of education funding in limbo but also threatened to leave dozens of schools, from the Alaska Gateway School District to the Yupiit School District, with substandard internet access for another year. That’s because the federal deadline for districts to apply for the grants is fast approaching.
“One thing I can say definitively is, number one, we don’t have much time left,” said Rep. Bryce Edgmon, the Dillingham independent who sponsored the bill. “We have seven days until there’s an absolute hard stop to the school districts and other applicants statewide to submit their applications.”
Rep. Thomas Baker, R-Kotzebue, also spoke in favor of the bill, noting that internet access for schools in his region is horribly slow. He said it can take students as much as 15 minutes to load a Wikipedia page, and he spoke of schools rationing bandwidth by shutting off access for some to preserve activity for others.
Other legislators have said that it can take students in rural parts of the state several days to complete tests that students with adequate access can complete in an afternoon.
A vast majority of the upgrade costs will be covered by the federal government, but that still requires state matching dollars. With a hefty $39 million price tag that represents the high end of the bill’s cost in the event of every single school applying for and receiving the maximum amount of assistance, some Republicans proposed changes on the floor that would have radically altered the program. Rep. Ben Carpenter, the Nikiski Republican who proposed two amendments, argued that schools should be looking to satellite connections.
While others appreciated his concern for the costs, Fairbanks Republican Rep. Will Stapp said the change would likely just have the impact of making more urban schools eligible for what is already a limited pool of resources. He noted that, under the current list, there are 18 schools in Anchorage that would be eligible for the grants and that more would be eligible under Rep. Carpenter’s proposed changes.
“The reason it’s tricky is because the money we appropriate is pro-rated based on how many people are opened up to the award,” he said. “If you open up a bunch of urban schools to be able to get internet (upgrades), that money now gets pro-rated along every school that qualifies, so you could end up actually shortchanging the rural schools that need the money.”
Rep. Carpenter’s amendments failed on 10-30 and 15-25 margins.
House Bill 193 cleared the House on a 36-4 vote. Republican Reps. Stapp, David Eastman, Julie Coulombe and Sarah Vance cast the no votes.
The measure has already been transferred over to the Senate, which is scheduled to hear it on Monday. A similar measure, Senate Bill 140, already cleared the Senate with ease.
During the House debate, Rep. Edgmon said that in conversations with the Dunleavy administration, he believed the governor would allow it to become law in time to affect schools this year.
Matt Acuña Buxton is a long-time political reporter who has written for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and The Midnight Sun political blog. He also authors the daily politics newsletter, The Alaska Memo, and can frequently be found live-tweeting public meetings on Twitter.
