Education Fund Amendment Advances With Key Questions Unresolved

The Alaska House Finance Committee heard testimony Tuesday on a constitutional amendment that would create a dedicated education fund, but lawmakers left the hearing with fundamental questions about how the fund would work and what it would accomplish.

Senate Joint Resolution 29 would add a new section to the Alaska Constitution allowing the legislature to create an education fund in the state treasury. Money in the fund could only be spent on public education. The measure was introduced in the Senate on March 13 and moved through the Senate Finance Committee in three hearings between March 17 and March 24. The resolution passed the full Senate 17-3 on April 1 and was transmitted to the House the same day. A fiscal note prepared by the Governor indicates the measure would have zero fiscal impact.

The resolution now requires a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate to reach the November ballot, where it would need only a simple majority to pass.

But the resolution leaves critical details undefined. The fund would have no guaranteed revenue source, no required draw rate, and no initial funding. What qualifies as public education, whether that includes pre-kindergarten programs or university education, is not specified. Even the question of whether a future legislature could dissolve the fund remains unclear.

Tim Gruesendorf, staff to the resolution's sponsor Senator Hoffman, described the fund as a constitutional parking space rather than an endowment. The legislature could withdraw all the money if it chose to, he said, as long as it spent the money on education.

"It right now is not an endowment. It is just a fund that you guys, that the legislature can pull money out of for education," Gruesendorf said.

Representative Jeremy Bynum pressed on the constitutional language, which says the legislature "may" create the fund rather than "shall." He asked whether that meant a future legislature could eliminate it with a simple majority vote.

"Is this just giving the legislature the ability to establish a dedicated fund, but it is at our discretion to do so?" Bynum said. "Because I do not see that it is asking the voters to say we shall create a specific fund for this purpose. It is just giving the authority to the legislature to create a dedicated fund."

Legislative Legal Services attorney Megan Wallace said the permissive language implies the legislature could establish or repeal the fund, though she suggested the committee might want to make that explicit in an amendment.

Representative Alyse Galvin asked what the resolution envisions for the scope of public education spending.

"When we say public education, or in this case, is the thought that it would be maintenance and operating for public education? And is it just K-12 or is it pre-K and university?" Galvin said.