Alaska lawmakers fail to override Gov. Mike Dunleavy's education bill veto

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Alaska lawmakers were one vote short Monday of overriding Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s veto of $200 million in education funding.

Dunleavy vetoed the bill Thursday night, two weeks after lawmakers passed it with 56 out 60 lawmakers voting in favor of the package, which was broadly seen as a compromise.

The bill included $175 million in extra funding for Alaska’s public schools, $13 million for home-schooled students, $7 million for student transportation, $5 million for assisting Alaska students in learning to read, a new charter school coordinator position and a provision to increase internet speeds in rural schools.

Dunleavy said he vetoed the bill because it did not include his priorities, among them a three-year plan to provide teachers with annual bonuses at a cost of $60 million per year, and a path to increase the number of Alaska’s charter schools by empowering a governor-appointed board to approve new ones.

Lawmakers voted to sustain Dunleavy’s veto in a 39-20 vote on Monday afternoon.

In the Senate, 16 lawmakers voted to override the veto, all in the bipartisan majority.

In the House, 23 lawmakers voted to override the veto. That includes all 16 members of the minority, and seven members of the majority — including four House Republicans.

Dozens of school advocates lined the hallways in the Juneau Capitol ahead of the Monday vote, wearing red to signify their support for schools and chanting “Override.”

The bill included a $680 increase to the state’s $5,960 Base Student Allocation. School advocates for months have been saying that it would take around double that amount to account for seven years without significant increases to the per-student formula.

Opponents of the effort to override the veto cited Dunleavy’s threat to veto the funding from the budget even if the bill were to become law.

“If this joint session votes to override Gov. Dunleavy today, we are almost guaranteed there will not be a BSA increase of $680 as the governor can still veto any amount of the appropriation he pleases,” said Rep. Tom McKay, an Anchorage Republican who was one of several lawmakers who had voted for the bill’s passage last month, then reversed course on Monday.

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