February 8, 2012

There are less than 70 days left to go in this legislative session, and the House Finance Committee has been working steadily in their subcommittees to focus on agency and university FY13 operating budget details.

The University has been especially busy these past couple of weeks providing information to the House Finance Subcommittee on the UA Budget, and UA President Gamble has made three presentations to date covering the high level view of mission and goals, research, distance education, and various topics regarding the university. More budget hearings are scheduled before the

House Finance Committee finalizes their recommendations in late February.

Typically, the Senate Finance Committee usually does not formally start working on this budget until it is passed out of the House. However, due to the shortened session and many issues on the table, the Senate Finance Committee will most likely try to get some work done ahead of schedule in order to meet the end-of-session deadlines.

What’s at stake?

The Governor submitted his FY13 operating and capital budgets to the legislature on December 15.  He is focusing on a ‘hold the line’ budget, and little else. He included salary increases and fixed cost increases in the UA FY13 operating budget, but chose not to include any of the high priority program increments from the Board of Regents request (PDF). These include:

• New initiatives to improve graduation rates
  These requests support UA’s responsibility during students “the 3 critical years”. They include supporting UA’s part in the joint effort for insuring college readiness and student success during their three key decision and high attrition years (last year of high school and year 1 and year 2 of college). Specific focus placed on improving retention, timely completion, removing student obstacles, establishing much better performance facts, and creating a common database for student decision making.
• Response to State High-Demand Jobs in Engineering, Health/Bio-Medical, Teacher Education, and Workforce Development
  Funding to accommodate the growing demand for trained professional in the areas of Engineering, Health/Bio-Medical, Teacher Education, and Workforce Development continues to be a top priority for UA. Only through continued investment in these areas will we keep up with the State’s need. The alternatives are to recruit from Outside or go without.
• Alaska research, economic development, intellectual property
  These requests support UA’s newly initiated efforts to create economic value from UA intellectual property commercialization and focused research

Capital Budget:

The Governor included $37.5 million in his FY13 capital budget for UA deferred maintenance to continue his pledge to start to address the backlog of necessary repairs, maintenance and renewal of UA facilities.  The university building inventory is about 37.5% of all state buildings..

Missing in this request are research projects designed to provide Alaska with answers to energy solutions, oil spill recovery in Arctic environments and ocean acidification studies in the Bering and Chukchi Seas. This includes:

Research for Alaska

• UAF Partnership to Develop Statewide Energy Solutions (PDF)
  The University of Alaska Fairbanks has significant capabilities to assist the State of Alaska, Alaska communities, and Alaska industries in making informed decisions about energy technology, analysis, and development. The University of Alaska Fairbanks can serve as a neutral information broker to impartially assess a wide range of potential energy options from numerous perspectives.
• UAF Effective Arctic Oil Spill Response (PDF)
  On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon exploded and sank in the Gulf of Mexico. The resulting well-blowout flowed for nearly 4 months and resulted in one of the largest manmade oil spills everon Earth. Given the huge offshore circum-arctic resource potential, oil development in the Arctic is a critical issue for the US and Alaska. Many of the difficulties associated with offshore development are intensified by the Arctic environment, and have not been studied as much as development in more temperate zones. UAF is uniquely situated to create a center focused on oil spill prevention and preparedness in the Arctic that would fill existing gaps in arctic knowledge and technology.
• UAF Assessing the Impacts of Ocean Acidification on Alaska’s Fisheries (PDF)
  Rapid and significant changes are occurring in the ocean waters surrounding Alaska that will affect our fisheries. One major change is the increased ocean acidification (OA). Currently, there are a number of independent studies (some inside of Alaska and others are being done national and internationally) that are working to better understand the impacts of OA to specific organisms and ecosystems. The modeling effort will require a multidisciplinary, highly integrative approach in order to accurately assess the impacts of OA in Alaska.

Call to action:

Now is a good time to contact all House Finance Committee members (PDF) and voice your support for items you feel are important in the Regents’ request. All three areas of focus listed above resonate with legislators; however, they need the encouragement and support of their constituency to even consider including them in the budget mix.

A sample template has been created for easy use, providing you with some bullet points regarding the budget and it gives you specifics about what legislators want to hear. Speak from experience and share your stories with them.  Make sure to send copies of your letters to your own legislators.

What’s happening on the Hill?

UA Student Governance leaders met in Juneau last weekend to attend their annual legislative conference to learn about the legislative process, participate in round-table discussions with legislators (thank you Interior Delegation for spending your Saturday afternoon with our students!) and focus on two days of meetings with legislators in the state capitol.  The UAF Alumni Association, along with counterparts from UAA and UAS also treated the students and legislators and staff to an annual ice cream social in the Speaker’s Chambers.

Right now, the issue of oil and gas taxes is front and center on the legislators’ agenda, and this issue will dominate the session for the most part. Education funding (K-12) is also being discussed.

Legislation:

The House and Senate have passed out their respective versions of the military training credits legislation, and it appears one of these bills will most likely pass in the near future. HB 148 passed out of the House by a 40-0 vote, and SB 150 moved out of the Senate by a vote of 19-1.  Senator Huggins opposition vote was because of the effective date of the bill – he wants it to take effect immediately.

UA Research:

The Northern Waters Task Force just completed their report of their recommendations based on their meetings held all over the state during the interim.  As part of their report, they recommend a university oil spill research center, studies on fisheries issues and Arctic waters, transportation and marine ecosystems.  Lots of great recommendations to support UAF research!

UAF Vice Chancellor for Research Services Mark Myers and Dan White, Director of UAF INE and OIPC gave a ‘lunch and learn’ presentation to members and staff of the legislature to give them an overview of the research presently in place and future possibilities for research specifically focused on climate change, oil spill recovery, ocean acidification and intellectual property expansion.

See Gavel to Gavel and the Alaska Legislature TV to view live and archived committee hearings during the session.