tl;dr: We live to fight again another day.
We have been living in a self-imposed crisis since Governor Dunleavy introduced his proposed budget in February 2019. The legislature deliberated long and hard, with a lot of input from people throughout Alaska, and produced a balanced budget on 10 June that had sensible reductions in state expenditures and still enough left over to give every Alaskan a good gob of free money (the mother of all entitlement programs, the Permanent Fund Dividend, or PFD). On 28 June, the last working day of our fiscal year, the governor line-item vetoed the university line and many others back to his proposed budget of February 2019, as though widespread, intense statewide discussions had not occurred. Although most legislators were clearly put out that the governor had ignored all the hard work they had performed in listening and responding to their constituents in constructing the budget they had passed, they were not able to override the governor’s line-item vetoes (he has more power in this than any other governor in the U.S.). The cut to the university was 41% of the state appropriation—absolutely devastating, and implemented as the new fiscal year began.
Here at the University of Alaska Museum of the North, this very stressful situation went up to a whole new level when we learned on 26 July that the governor had proposed to the university president that he’d agree to spread his 41% cut across two years if the university agreed to cut specific items from its budget—and among those were the complete defunding (100% cut) of the museum and of organized research at UAF. Over the ensuing three days, which is all the time we had before the next board of regents meeting where they would be considering the governor’s proposal, we communicated with supporters across Alaska and the world and asked them to send a message to the president and regents. The response was tremendous, and we profoundly thank those who were able to send their messages of support to the regents and president. We watched the regents’ meeting all day on live stream. The museum was mentioned very positively multiple times during this meeting. It was clear that everyone’s messages in support of the work we do were getting through and being heard. By the end of the day it looked like the museum and UAF organized research would not be 100% defunded.
The stress backed off to a more manageable level. (And I went to get a bunch of fish to put in the freezer for the winter, so that helped, too.) Imagine facing a 41% cut (floated to us as perhaps being 50% for our unit) and seeing the glass half full from the stress perspective. Still quite dire, but not “game over” dire. And the legislature was not through. The university has a lot of strong supporters there, and they are in the majority. Despite being unable to override the governor’s vetoes with the ridiculously high 75% super-supermajority required, they did put together a good supplemental spending bill to make up for most of the governor’s cuts, including adding $110 million back to the university budget (representing a $25M cut instead of $135M). At the same time, a strong campaign for a recall of the governor was getting under way. In their first week, they obtained 64% of the signatures needed for Phase I of the effort. You can keep track of it here.
Yesterday, the governor basically agreed not to line-item veto the university line in this supplemental spending bill (HB2001). The governor and the chair of the board of regents (John Davies) had a press conference in which they revealed a “compact” that cuts the university by $25M this year, $25M next year, and $20M in the third year (a $70M cut over three years). You can find that document here.
It’s an interesting exercise, but will mean very little to the legislature, which is in charge of appropriations. But it does very publicly outline what we should expect from the governor. This is being widely interpreted as the recall effort finally making the governor listen.
Here is an excellent overview from Forbes. And here is an Alaskan one.
In the coming weeks we will learn how this year’s cuts will be distributed (I hope for roughly pro rata). Most if not all of our units were asked to present a 10% cut plan in May, so we’re likely to be within that rough framework. But the board of regents has to approve funding distributions at their next meeting (12-13 Sept).
We also need to get the university to step back from the cliff process-wise. The fiscal crisis that the governor created is still a lot to deal with (whether or not it actually plays out across three years), but many of us will be urging the regents and the president to revoke exigency and to put discussions and planning of a potential new One UA accreditation model onto a less urgent timeline. The president is gung ho about One UA, which is a 180-degree turnabout from where we all were three years ago (see the report here). The fiscal argument for One UA is largely specious (given the report), but that’s the president’s main justification right now. In the last regents meeting he said he changed his mind since the Thomas report. He needs to bring us all along on that, with data. I just hope this planning process gets a lot more faculty input than it’s had thus far. So let’s take some time, and let’s also flesh out more than one plan.
For those with a stake in the future of Alaska’s university, consider filling out the UA Board of Regents planning survey. It is anonymous. (Update 19 Aug — now it requires you to provide a name and email address but says that will be decoupled from the survey itself.)
So we live to fight again another day. And, after a few hours to recover, my sword is bright.
(Update 19 August: The governor released a video that was not pleasant to watch and far too long, but suggested that he was going to allow HB2001 to pass unmolested. Well, he just didn’t talk about the line-item vetoes that he put in there. Public broadcasting, Ocean Rangers, Medicaid, Village Public Safety Officers, etc.
The list of restored items is too short. But the university will be cut $25M this year, which is about 7.6%. Other important things were also included in that bill, which was made necessary by Dunleavy’s earlier atrocious line-item vetoes. I applaud the majority of legislators, who passed a balanced budget — twice now — that was sensible.)
(Update 20 August: With a new budget signed into law, the UA board of regents met this morning and voted 10-0 to terminate their earlier (necessary) declaration of financial exigency. We are still facing big cuts, but the situation is not so dire. Needless reputational damage caused by a bad governor.)