Letter to the Editor
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Published Sunday, March 30, 2008
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To the editor:
A $10 billion budget! My God, my God, my God, what are they thinking? Clearly they are not thinking! They are drinking way too deeply from a cup that is temporarily overflowing with no thought of the inevitable thrust to come.
Is there no sanity, no wisdom, no logical thought processes left among them?
$10 billion equals $15,000 per person or about $50,000 per average Alaskan family per year. At the projected 10 percent annual rate of increase that will be over $100,000 in seven years.
Clearly an unsustainable and irresponsible situation even if oil stays at its unprecedented current levels.
God save us as we and our elected representatives are clearly incapable of doing so!
Community Discussion
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Did you not know that in government there is no "sanity"?
Instead of turning that budget over to the governer they ought to put it on the web and let the people tell them what is & isn't necessary. We should get the final vote on the budget.
The government is throwing money away while their fellow Alaskans are struggling to pay for heating costs & losing their homes.
Dick, you know, I really like Sarah Palin, but you are right. If anything, they should be taking this windfall and paying off that dang debt we are facing for State Employees Retirement system!! We are going to have to pay that someday, why not now and get it out of the way?? Why not look at building our OWN pipeline to follow the current corridor?? There are more ways to spend that windfall that with pork barrel spending by our legislators. You have hit the nail on the old head Dick.
Mr. Randolph, Sherry29 and Yukonjohn,
None of you provide even one example of "pork barrel spending" that should be cut!
Sherry--Palin provided us an online format to comment on budget priorities last year, so her budget could be guided by the will of concerned Alaskans. And, isn't the legislature passing a measure to give Alaskans money to offset fuel costs? (I'm not sure if it's part of this budget or a separate bill).
John, I agree that the state needs to take care of the Retirement system. However, the reason the legislature hasn't done it yet is that too many Alaskans don't want to pay for it--they see it as another way the state is "wasting money."
If you can't provide even one example of "wasteful spending," none of you make much of an argument.
I wasn't named but here are some things that I think should be cut for they have nothing to do with government services:
AK works Partnership -3,000,000
AK Travel Industry 750,000 (let the industry take care of itself)
American Legion Baseball 500,000 (Can't they get there memebers to support that?)
American Lung Association 400,000 (I don't want to support them so why should I be forced to give via my portion of the profits from the resources, should I change my mind let me make the choice to donate instead of AK doing without my consent?).
American Red Cross 150,000 (same as above comment)
Anchorage bucs baseball 50,000 (let the city of Anchorage support it)
Anchorage parks foundation 100,000, 30,000, 20,000, 100,000, 276,200 (Same as comment above)
Anchorage sports complex 700,000
There are tons more of these grants that shouldn't be there, yet they are.
To see the budget go here:
http://www.gov.state.ak.us/omb/07_OMB/SB...
6244, Thank you!
Those all sound like items I'd cut. I purposely left my other post short of examples or my opinion of any of them to bait some discussion here. Personally, I have some budget items I think are being shortchanged (education and infrastructure/road maintenance), and the items you list are all items I'd rather do without. But each citizen has a different list of do's and don'ts, which makes it the very messy process it is.
Thank you for the examples and the link!
user6244, likewise, thanks for that link. I went through it line by line, and yes, there are alot of items that I would take out of our budget. I know that there are many of these programs that are probably deserving, but, like critical reader, I think many could be funded privately instead of being on the state dole. Again, thanks for the link.
Hey no problem.
I picked on grants for a reason.
I cannot find anywhere in the State constitution that we the people of AK gave the government the authority to provide grants.
We did give the State the authority to collect taxes for the express purpose of running state services.
Maybe I missed it in the state constitution and somebody can show me where we gave the state this authority to dole money out for grants?
There also needs to be new legislation that requires funding on a yearly basis to the maintenance of State facilities and prevent any manager from defering maintenance for more than a year.
It seems to me that money that is allocated to many state facilites for the purpose of maintenance always get shifted to other purposes outside the scope of maintenance and then real problems are then placed on deferred in hopes of getting a chuck of money for repairs on top of there yearly funding the following year.
Didn't the State just recently chide the Oil companies for relying on deferred maintenance?
I agree that there are some things that the state has no business funding but AK American Red Cross is a fund to benefit Alaskans and there are a few others in that same category. But....community things should come from the community they are in. Living here in the interior it is not likely that my family will ever make much use of the Anchorage Zoo so why state $$'s is going to that is beyond me. It is not like that Zoo is such a large tourist attraction that it generates a ton of tourism $$'s. There is such a HUGE need in so many other essential areas that it is ludicrous that we are funding any of these things. But....I too feel that Governor Sarah Palin is for the most part doing a great job. She did already cut a ton of that type of stuff from the budget. But I agree more needs to go. Especially in light of the dire straights that some real departments are in.
I am sure there may be more, but I know of two departments that are in really bad shape!!! BUT…..Keep in mind that Governor Palin has to trust that her commissioners are telling her all the facts. She can only act on the information she is given. She is an amazing woman but even she cannot personally investigate every area in the state.
As I said in another post. We are already in a very scary place with the Department of Corrections. With the facilities understaffed and overcrowded it is a set up for a disaster! There are huge prisoner increase projections and the commissioner has cut staff. Does that make any sense to anyone??? If the trend continues and the projected prisoner population is anywhere near correct we are headed for really bad trouble over the next few years (and we are already in bad shape…..it is unbelievable that it could get worse).
One thing I did forget to mention is that with a lot of boards and organizations grants are applied for by non-profits and others and those grant dollars are funded through the board or organization but not by them.
Example….it is possible that the Zoo applies for a federal grant for maintenance of the Zoo and the money if funneled through the state to the Zoo. In that case there is actually no money coming out of the general budget but it might look like that at a glance.
Pass through dollars can be deceiving when you look at a budget report. I don’t know if any of that happens at the state level but I do know it happens on the state board that I am on and that might be all part of that total budget. There are people that I know that I could ask but I don’t know the answer myself.
So you think the Red Cross is good.
Then by all means support them.
I however do not like them and wish the state would not use our revenue to support them. They are not a government service and the State constitution does not give the politicians the authority to give out grants.
If you wish to know why I don't like the red cross?
one example:
If you recall many people donated money to the red cross with the express understanding that people and or there families who had family members that died during 9/11 event would be taken care of. Instead of all the donations going to the victims the Red Cross on there own behalf decided the donations where to much and they would dole out what they felt was appropriate and pocket the rest to use where ever they saw fit to use it...that is one of the reason I no longer support the red cross.
Well you might be right about the Red Cross although they really came through for my parents when their home burned down (MI). But you are probably right about the fact that the government should not be contributing to a private organization. But like I said in my follow-up post. It is possible that the Red Cross grant might be pass through dollars (but I don't know one way or the other). If that is true then the state would not actually be funding the Red Cross.
I do however agree that this should be cleared up and the government should stay out of grant funding from any state dollars.
Thank you for making me rethink that point.... :-)
So let me ask all of you this what is the difference between what we are complaining about on the state level and what Stevens and Young are doing on a federal level. Earmarks and if we cancel them on one level they should all of the other levels too.
And how many organizations will suffer for this on all levels. We can't on a local level support all of these projects. Which is why state grants are allowed and we have earmarks.
Alot of the organizations are nationwide organizations and gather resources from business and individuals from all over.
They do not need any money from the Federal Government (my left pocket which has never really been given that authority to provide such grants either.
Another example, I don't like the American lung association. They get grants from my resources collected by the State then go before the politicians using my resources to advocate more taxes on tobacco despite the fact that the State currently has more money than they need to run the State.
The State by the way should immediately repeal the tobacco and alcohol tax for they where only given authority to tax for the purpose of collecting enough revenue to operate the state. Any suggestions that the purpose of the tax is for social engineering is counter to and exceeds the authority they where given to or purpose of taxation.
Nice point pbrown...and then there was silence.
user6244, good points! And if there are programs that are specifically designed for one group, let that group pay for it. If they cannot, it must not be a good enough cause, especially for State Funding!! I am all for the State helping in some form for some of these entities, but some of them just need to pay for themselves or go away. Lets take, for instance, the Yukon Quest. It brings tourist dollars into the interior in the winter. The Open North American does the same. Tourism dollars (some State monies even) should go to augment these functions, but not all of their expenses, just an augmentation. If a program brings money into the State, help them out, but if an organization cannot fund their program mostly on their own, well, maybe it is something that is not wanted enough.
OK, but the State government does not receive very much in "tourism dollars". Most (if not all of the bed taxes and so on are collected by local government, not the State. Most of the tourism dollars go to hotes, motels, merchants, etc, who then employ people (but none of this pays taxes to the State government). So if the State wants to help events like the Yukon Quest bring those tourism dollars to Alaskans and Alaskan businesses, then it has to use general fund money.
Also, while I am sure that I would find many things in the budget that I think ought to be cut (some of those listed certainly qualify if they are not pass-through funds), and many things I would support strongly (again, some of those listed). But if you asked everybody you would probably find that most everything in the budget has both supporters and detractors. At least that's what should happen if the Legislature has done a careful job. We elect them to pay closer attention to the details than we have time to do, and it's good to check up on them, but you can't run something the size of the State of Alaska by having every citizen vote on the budget.
If I recall correctly, public safety was SECOND on Alaska's priority list via Palin's online survey. As AKmom stated, Alaska's justice system is stretched to the breaking point in all corridors. What is Palin doing to alleviate that? Some of that money would be far better spent on more ADA's and troopers than on a half million dollar treadmill at the Alaska Zoo.
What no one has mentioned is that we NEED the state budget to be $10 BILLION dollars for Alaska's economy to grow. As of December 2007 employment statistics, 28% of all employment is government jobs. When you factor in all the contractors that work directly for the government that figure is closer to 40-50%. Of the 300,000+ jobs in Alaska 90% of them are in the service industry with only 10% classified as goods producing. When you divide the $10 billion by the 304,000 Alaska jobs you get $33,000 which is just short of the per capita average income of $38,622.
http://www.labor.state.ak.us/research/tr......
When you look at these numbers it is very clear the government is the largest industry Alaska has. Oil may give us the cash, but government is what makes the economy run.
Fairbanksgas; Why do we need the state's economy to grow?
I think that it is ridiculous that (if your stats are true) 28% of employment is government. I know that probably includes military, and there is a large military presence here, but let's realize that there is more than 1 of every 4 people here working for the government. That is ridiculous. One person working to provide governmental services to the three others. If I have such an impact on society that I need a person working 13+ hours a week just to serve me (40 hour work week for every government employee, divided by the number of those who are not government employees) then something is VERY wrong. We need to cut half of those government employees (at the very least), and make governement more efficient. (and I should state that I am a government employee)
BillyG,
Two-thirds of the land base in Alaska is under federal management, so a lot of the government jobs are actually federal government jobs, and not state government jobs. As a result, the salaries for those jobs are funded out of federal tax dollars, and not by the state government.
Duh... where does the federal government get their money
AKhusky; You are right. There is a disproportionate amount of federal jobs in Alaska, due to the land mass, federal holdings, and the need for some fundamental services for a small population. I looked up some numbers;
If we take our portion of federal employees (22,709,000 civilian plus 1.4 million military, divided by the population of the US (301,139,947) and multiply by the population of Alaska (670,053)), we get 53,643 federal employees for Alaska. Add to that the 25,151 state employees in Alaska, and the 27,480 local government employees in Alaska. That gives a total of 106,275 government employees serving a population of 670,053... about 1 in 6. One in six is better than one in 4, but it still seems too high to me.
Seven51--Thanks very much for that wonderful contribution to the conversation. You truly are a marvel; your mother must be proud.
BillyG--The ratio of one government employee serving 6 citizens isn't quite accurate, because the federal employees are technically serving all U.S. citizens.
user6244, you were right on the money, but I don't think you were forceful enough in making your point. If government, both state and federal, stuck to doing the things that were outlined in their respective constitutions, a lot of these money problems wouldn't be problems at all. As long as we have "pet" projects and organizations, there will always those who think their project deserves funding, even if its not constitutionally required of the government.
Sticking to the constitution is the only way to go, then a lot of this discussion would be a mote point.
Thank you AKhusky, my momma loves me. But you didn't answer the question.
1 in 6 Alaskans work for the government. If you divide the 106,275 government employees by the 310,000 Alaskan jobs we see that 1 in 3 jobs are government positions.
25,151 state employees?
Where did