JUNEAU, Alaska – With just hours to go until the deadline for Gov. Mike Dunleavy to veto a massive $246 million education package that, or let the bill become law without his signature, multiple lawmakers expressed uncertainty Wednesday about the bill’s fate and what action the governor would take.
“I’ve made it clear that if there are not certain elements in that bill it’s not going to be signed into law,” Dunleavy said during a Feb. 27 press conference. Dunleavy, and his administration, have continued arguing the funding increase alone will not holistically solve ongoing education system problems, like keeping teachers in Alaska or adding more charter schools, which he strongly feels will start to address the root of the school performance problem.
However, Wielechowski said there are difficult structural issues involved in increasing charter school access. “I cannot speak for the governor, or the governor’s office, on what their interpretations of what we heard in committee were. But I can speak to mine,” Tobin said. “Which is for the price tag that’s associated for a policy that has yet to be clearly fleshed out. To understand what the real goal and purposes are to be able to replicate it across the districts, is still very incomplete.”
House Minority leader Calvin Schrage, I-Anchorage, said it has been very hard for lawmakers to consider passing new legislation in the roughly two-week time frame.