For two hours Monday evening, Juneau residents offered their thoughts on the state operating budget proposed by the Senate Finance Committee.<\/p>\n
Some were so eager, they chewed the microphones waiting on the table.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is Freya. She\u2019s about a year and a half old,\u201d explained her mother, Michele Weaver. \u201cWhat\u2019s your name? Can you tell them your name?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s all right; I can\u2019t get these guys to stop chewing on the mics either,\u201d said Sen. Pete Kelly, R-Fairbanks, of his fellow committee members.<\/p>\n
Freya was reluctant to offer her testimony, but plenty of other Juneauites weren\u2019t as they gave their support for subjects from public broadcasting to early childhood education programs.<\/p>\n
Weaver wasn\u2019t the only mother to bring her child to testify in support of state funding for early childhood education programs. Many also wore stickers promoting the \u201cParents as Teachers\u201d program, which sends a free aide into a home for one hour a month.<\/p>\n
Cynthia Katzeek, who has three children, said she has noticed the difference between the development of her daughter \u2014 who participated in the program \u2014 and her other children, who did not.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s cool to see her developing faster than my other children did,\u201d Katzeek said.<\/p>\n
Melinda Messmer, a home visitor under the Parents as Teachers program, said the effort focuses on the period from birth to 3 years old, which is critical for childhood development.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really critical; they learn so much in the first three years of life,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The parade of babies to the microphone brought some good-natured ribbing from Sen. Peter Micciche, R-Soldotna and a member of the committee.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re at a severe disadvantage; every one of these kids look like Gerber babies, and talking about budget cuts, it\u2019s pretty tough,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In addition to the parade of babies, there was a procession of public radio supporters who spoke out against the Senate committee\u2019s plan to erase state support for public broadcasting.<\/p>\n
Kirk Duncan, chairman of CoastAlaska, the network of Southeast Alaska public radio stations, suggested the Senate look instead at making cuts over time instead of all at once.<\/p>\n
\u201cA transitional approach over several years makes sense,\u201d he said, adding that he believes in a personal income tax for Alaskans.<\/p>\n
Ric Iannolino, a board member of the Juneau Alliance for Mental Health Inc., said the Senate committee should reconsider its plan to cut the budget for behavioral health programs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can cut funds, but we can\u2019t cut the number of people who have mental health disorders,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Bob Bartholomew, finance director of the City and Borough of Juneau, brought forward the sustainable budget resolution approved by the CBJ Assembly and asked the finance committee to reconsider a plan to require increased support from local governments for the state-managed public employee and teachers retirement systems.<\/p>\n
Those systems were changed in 2014, and he said the impact of those changes hasn\u2019t been fully felt at the local level. The Senate would be piling a new change atop an already uncertain one, he said.<\/p>\n
Jayne Andreen urged the Senate Finance Committee to reverse course on a $3 million cut to public health nursing programs. Andreen, of the Alaska Public Health Association, said the cut would cost 30-35 jobs and close public health centers across the state.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn order to ensure people are healthy \u2026 we need to be able to support healthy communities,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Public testimony will continue throughout this week in the Senate, which is considering a budget plan that includes steeper cuts than the one simultaneously advancing to a vote in the House.<\/p>\n
Once each body passes its own version of the state operating budget, the two versions will go to a conference committee to be reconciled.<\/p>\n
The budget discussion is only half the state\u2019s fiscal picture, however; lawmakers must still decide how to pay for it. While the state has enough money in its Constitutional Budget Reserve savings account to fund the budget this year, lawmakers have said they want to consider taxes and spending earnings from the Alaska Permanent Fund to reduce the state\u2019s $3.7 billion annual deficit and preserve the savings account for future years.<\/p>\n
A final budget likely will not be passed by the Legislature until the end of the session, when those taxes and Permanent Fund plans have been confirmed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For two hours Monday evening, Juneau residents offered their thoughts on the state operating budget proposed by the Senate Finance Committee. Some were so eager, they chewed the microphones waiting on the table. \u201cThis is Freya. She\u2019s about a year and a half old,\u201d explained her mother, Michele Weaver. \u201cWhat\u2019s your name? Can you tell […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-27423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/426"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27423\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27423"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=27423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}