For a governor who supposedly cares deeply about schools and rural Alaskans, at least according to him, Gov. Mike Dunleavy doesn’t seem interested in making their lives easier.
On Thursday, the lame-duck Republican followed up on his veto of public school funding — cutting funding below the baseline in state law for the first time ever — with a veto of legislation that sought to ease the teacher housing shortage facing rural districts. The bill, House Bill 174, would have allowed rural school districts to use a rural school fund to make major repairs on teacher housing, an issue they say has made it difficult to recruit teachers.
Housing availability is one of the many hurdles that rural school districts face, making it difficult for them to recruit and retain staff for their schools. It has left some districts operating on a shoestring with staffing, and others looking outside the U.S. for teachers.
The problem, though, is that rural school districts lack the same local property tax base as urban districts, so they are owned by the state and rely on it for maintenance funding. Unsurprisingly, that funding hasn’t kept pace, and several rural school districts have struggled with dilapidated structures for years without attention. In a KYUK/ProPublica report, a school in Sleetmute’s requests to fix a leaky roof have gone unanswered for nearly two decades, forcing the school to shutter part of the building for safety concerns.
The inequitable funding of public education in Alaska has a long, troubling history, and the state has faced several lawsuits challenging its funding as discriminatory because the burden largely falls on Alaska Native children.
In his veto message, however, Dunleavy claimed allowing rural districts to use the rural funds for housing would be unfair and inequitable to urban districts that don’t face the same problems. He noted that the housing costs are “traditionally paid by local communities” and should stay that way, despite rural communities lacking a tax base.
In comments to the Alaska Beacon, HB174 sponsor Rep. Robyn Niayuq Burke, D-Utqiagvik, said she was hopeful that the Legislature would override the veto. After all, it passed with a combined margin of 54-5-1, more than enough to meet the 40-vote threshold for overriding a veto.
“There’s a lot of excitement about it,” Burke said of the legislation, noting that many groups had long advocated for the change. “I’m sure they’re pretty disappointed because they’ve been working on that for quite a while. I’m frustrated, disappointed, not surprised, and will look forward to overriding it.”
Still, that requires Republican legislators to stick to their votes, which is far from guaranteed. The governor and his allies have demonstrated a willingness to exert pressure to sustain his vetoes.
Sen. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka, told the Beacon that he was concerned the governor would have the entire interim to run “blocking maneuvers” to get sympathetic Republicans to abandon their votes. He said, ultimately, that the veto is just the latest example of why legislators are counting down the days until Dunleavy, who has proven largely incapable or unwilling to work with the Legislature, is out of office.
“There’ll be another governor in a year and a half,” Stedman said, “and we’ll give it to the next governor.”
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 Bluesky.
