As the Alaska Legislature convenes in Juneau, the state population is on the minds of lawmakers.<\/p>\n
For the 11th consecutive year, more people moved out of Alaska than moved into it, according to new estimates published this week by the Alaska Department of Labor.<\/p>\n
Though new births over the past year counterbalanced the losses, the state’s population growth was a meager 0.04%, demographers estimate. The state’s new estimated population, 736,812, is below what it was in 2012.<\/p>\n
While the trend has been building for more than a decade, the number of lawmakers calling for swift and major action has grown, and a variety of proposals are now circulating in the Capitol.<\/p>\n
“It’s just interesting this year how, regardless of whether it’s cost of living, energy costs, schools, everybody’s bringing up that population loss,” said Rep. Will Stapp, R-Fairbanks.<\/p>\n
But why now, after 11 years of losses?<\/p>\n
“I think it’s been finally recognized,” said Senate Majority Leader Cathy Giessel, R-Anchorage. “You know the old analogy: ‘How do you boil a frog?’ You turn up the heat slowly. And then finally, the frog realizes, ‘Oh, no, I’m cooked.’ I think that’s kind of what’s happened.”<\/p>\n
In the first three days of the legislative session, population loss has been referenced dozens of times, and the proposed solutions vary widely.<\/p>\n
Rep. George Rauscher, R-Sutton and a member of the House majority coalition, suggested that high electricity prices are contributing to a high cost of living, and Speaker of the House Cathy Tilton, R-Wasilla, said “the No. 1 priority here for our caucus will be to figure out how we reduce the cost of energy all across Alaska.”<\/p>\n
Senate President Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak, said increased education funding is the No. 1 priority of the Senate’s bipartisan majority. More funding will result in better schools, he and others suggested. “We have put education at the very top,” he said.<\/p>\n
Members of the predominantly Democratic minority in the House have also called education funding part of the answer.<\/p>\n
“This is a crisis, an absolute crisis,” said House Minority Leader Calvin Schrage, I-Anchorage.<\/p>\n
Giessel said the lack of a pension program for state employees is deterring people from moving to the state to take state jobs, and the revival of the pension is the majority’s No. 2 priority.<\/p>\n