How will you balance the state’s budget?
Governor
Bill Walker
Nonpartisan candidate for Governor
Relying on wars in Europe to boost the price of oil is not a fiscal plan. Before oil prices collapse again, we need to know how we will pay for teachers, public safety and transportation every year.
In 2015, shortly after I was elected, oil prices plummeted from nearly $100 a barrel down to $26 a barrel and remained low for years. The result was a $4 billion deficit. We assembled more than 200 Alaskans from across the state to the “Build a Sustainable Future” summit at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. We stayed in dorms, and all options were explored with the public and media looking on. Our cabinet members also fanned out across the state and gave nearly 500 community presentations about the problem and listened for possible solutions.
Following that thorough process, we submitted a full fiscal plan to the Legislature that aimed to get us completely away from the roller coaster ride of oil prices. While some elements did not pass, the most significant piece of the plan was adopted by a bipartisan vote: the Permanent Fund Protection Act (establishing a Percent of Market Value system) reduced the state’s reliance on the price of oil from 90% to 30%. As a result, 70% of state budget revenue now comes from a sustainable draw from the Permanent Fund earnings.
This sort of intensive public engagement — combined with leadership from the governor and a willingness to make tough decisions — is how we will complete the fiscal plan and end this chapter of economic uncertainty.
Charlie Pierce
Republican candidate for Governor
We must first go back to funding what the state government is required by state statute to do. Then when there is surplus, we can evaluate supplying the other “wants.” As a state, our administrative burden is utterly top heavy. For example, in education, 70% of funds go toward administration, while only 30% gets to teachers and students. This ratio needs to be flipped! Let’s get creative and incentivize saving. Offer department heads a 15% bonus if they can come up with a 15% savings in their department. If a department has money left over at the end of a budget year, don’t spend it. During my 28 years at ENSTAR, I used the same furniture I had inherited from Perry Johnson. It was wood furniture that I had reupholstered, and it was functional. Another example — we started fostering a safety culture within the Kenai Peninsula Borough. In the first eight months, the number of reported safety incidents dropped 40% to 60%. Obviously, our employees’ safety was the focus, but it’s a fact that fewer safety incidents also saved the borough money. Our state government spending could be balanced within five years. As governor, I will make the tough decisions and use the line-item veto. We simply can’t spend $140 for every $120 barrel of oil we produce. Alaska has been “for rent” to the highest-paying special interest groups for decades now. This must stop. There will be no quid pro quo under a Pierce/Grunwald administration.
(Editor’s note: School districts budgets are set locally and vary. For example, the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District, in the borough where Pierce was mayor, spent 14% on school and district administration in 2021-22 and 71% on instruction and student support. The Anchorage School District spent 10% on administration and 75% on instruction and student support.)
Les Gara
Democratic candidate for Governor
We need to stop turning people against each other. Except for this year’s Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has led to one year of higher oil revenue, this state has been fighting with constant deficits, and harming schools, public safety, jobs and the economy with excessive cuts.
We need to stop making people fight each other about needed priorities. This state has cut the budget almost constantly since 2014. Gov. Dunleavy attempted an irresponsible, devastative quarter-billion-dollar cut to public education in 2019, and emptying our $1 billion power cost reduction fund (PCE), as his “plan.” His education cut would have fired over 2,800 teachers and educators.
With little revenue, he has forced people to fight over the crumbs, and between schools, construction and infrastructure jobs, job training and a university, a strong PFD and needed renewable energy projects.
With a fair share for our oil, by ending $1.2 billion in oil company tax credit subsidies the state gives to the wealthiest oil companies in the world, we could fund all of Alaska’s priorities, and have a strong PFD without harming schools, jobs, a Marine Highway, renewable energy project construction and the things that build a future.
We should be equal partners with our oil industry, but have become junior partners. I voted against these subsidies, and Gov. Dunleavy voted for them when we were legislators in 2013.
Mike Dunleavy
Republican candidate for Governor
The budget is balanced, and we have a surplus that will put billions of dollars into savings for the Constitutional Budget Reserve, the Higher Education Fund and K-12.