Anchorage Assembly: Legislative Committee Meeting

To order. We are waiting on Chair Brawley, but in the meantime, this is a meeting of the legislative committee. It is October 7th, 1:05, and I will call the roll. Donald Handlin. Yarrow Silvers.

And Janice Park. We are accompanied by the municipal attorney, representatives from the mayor's office, and legislative staff. I think we don't have any unfinished business. Our first order of business is AML policy, and we will be waiting on Chair Brawley for that, and we'll give her a minute.

We have Mr. Kwaudah here to do a presentation on our legislative priorities. So I think we'll start with that.

All right, thank you, Madam Chair. Uh, would you like me to just run through the, the outline document that I provided to the committee and talk about where our sort of thinking on the legislative program is at this point in time? Yes. All right, thank you. Sure, sure.

So, so what you should have in front of you, this is, this is an outline sort of document of, of the items that, that we'd like to see in the legislative program. It's not a not a complete list yet. We're still soliciting from our department heads. We always do some outreach about things, items that they might identify for legislative asks, for state asks. But so this doesn't have that, and there's of course lots of input that we can gather from this group.

But these are the items that we talked about, that we've talked about, that many of them, most of them roll over from prior legislative programs, kind of evergreen items, but there's a few additions to that. And so to talk it through, I've got them lumped into categories like infrastructure, infrastructure, education, and so on. When we finalize the program, we may truncate that into something else more thematic, because last year we had safe, secure, and affordable. So in any case, for infrastructure category, the top of that, and always, always going to be at the top of our list of priorities, is capital funding for the Port for the modernization program. So lots of— always lots of strategizing about what to ask for, how much to ask for.

How to position that ask and so forth, but we know that we will want to see that at the top of the list. Put an item in here for district-level capital project priorities that, that are defined by assembly members in the program, but also, also a couple perennial items of winter and, and summer road maintenance coordination with, with DOT, as well as increased staffing and capacity for DOT for the, for the Central Region. You know, a lot of times to support project delivery and stuff that's supports Vision Zero on vehicular and pedestrian safety. Also included waste energy capital funds. And I might actually accidentally have that in two places, but the waste energy project that was up for the renewable energy funds, this would be for the design and permitting for some of the early expenses for that.

We did have an education category that we included here. I mean, it's to increase and stabilize the baseline funding for K-12 education, and I include an inflation adjustment as well. Modifying the education formula in terms of the local contributions, the required local contribution piece, which we had some movement on last year with the cap for change in the required local contribution. There's still potentially some work to be done there. And then the average daily membership one is that the 3-year average of daily membership for defining for school funding purposes, which creates a much smoother path for school budgeting so that there's more budget predictability.

And also, and then the third bullet point there is allowing for the forward funding of education to provide budgetary stability, just echoing those concerns we hear from the school district about not necessarily knowing what their budget picture is from one year to the next. And also ideally seeing a passage of a resolution around the education budget early in session, usually comes with the passage of the operating budget at the very end of session. We would love to see it move earlier. And I know that that's something that would be a, a very helpful thing for Anchorage School District and for other school districts. Behavioral health category, I think we're likely to see some additions to this one too.

And our— and by the way, I didn't mention, but with me is our lobbyist Wendy Chamberlain, for those that haven't met Wendy. So she may be able to chime in and add some color as we go through this discussion. So, but I think that we may add some additional items under behavioral health, but increasing the general relief assistance rates for for assisted living is something that creates more pathways for people, especially people who are in our shelter system, who have a lot of complex needs that aren't covered, that aren't Medicaid eligible for whatever reason. General relief assistance is sort of a safety net program, but it has very low reimbursement rates. Last year, we did work to secure about a 1.5% rate increase with Representative Mena, and I think that there's more to be done on that one.

Public safety includes a couple of items for increasing drug interdiction resources for the Alaska State Troopers. This is something where we've got a lot of good coordination going with the state that we can really see enhanced for this. Addressing competency to stand trial standards. This is where there's a category of sometimes people who are committing offenses that don't meet the standards of competency to stand trial, but they're also not able to find their way into behavioral health supports and resources. And so they often can, they often walk away and can become repeat cases of crime.

And so looking at a way to address that is something that we're working on. Revisiting penalties for Schedule Ia and Schedule Iia drug offenses. And this is for very serious drugs, like for fentanyl and for methamphetamine, stuff that's really epidemic. Some of those penalties in state statute. And then also in here, this is an item from last year, but funding for unmanned aircraft for wildfire response for the fire department, something to support wildfire as a small capital item.

Moving on, energy.

I think there's a— I think we're seeing pretty clearly that there needs to be some level of of— we're all concerned about the situation with Cook Inlet natural gas. And I think that some amount of a coordinated approach to preserving, conserving natural gas and ensuring steady supply as much as possible, as well as storage, is something that we want to see. Don't know exactly what shape that needs to take in our legislative program, but I think that we know that it's very important. We have some item in here for providing funds for residential weatherization. Through, potentially through HFC.

And also we have our mobile home repair program, which ends up being heavily focused on energy, getting more funding into those programs. These are all things that could help folks adjust to, to, you know, to higher gas prices that may be coming this winter, potential gas shortages as well. And also we have in here capital funding for the use of landfill gas for the Anchorage Regional Landfill. That's another alternative energy source from from natural gas. This could expand what is sold from the landfill to JBear.

But it all comes out of our common set of resources for energy. A couple of housing-related items here. Road and utility capital funding for housing development to support, you know, to support JBear expansion. Very important. I think that that's gonna be the Fighter Town recapitalization that is gonna be a big focus, state and federal.

And so that's kind of an obvious way for the state to be able to play a role is with that capital piece that enables more housing development. Also, stronger leveraging, I think, of both ADA and AHFC for funds to invest in housing that will support Fighter Town recapitalization. I mean, as well as our housing needs more generally, but I think that being the most acute and visible need around the JBear expansion. A few other items listed here is the PRISM mechanism for rate setting for AWU, simplified rate setting mechanism, allows them to recoup costs more quickly, efficiently, as for small capital projects. Community assistance, another longstanding municipal government item, the Community Assistance Fund, you know, small amount of money, but that is still very helpful to us each year to ensure that we get the full contribution in 2027 and then the full capitalization of the Community Assistance Fund that helps ensure those future contributions come to us.

Also in here, item that we had in the last couple of years, the reestablishing of defined benefit pensions for public employees, something that we think is very important.

The last piece we talked about here is that I think a novel thing that we're doing with the program this year is including some federal priorities, right, that we've talked about. And so these are some of the federal priorities. It's shorter list, but but still very crucial items. Number 1 being the port modernization funding, always, always top of the list for federal and state. We have a couple of pathways listed here, the Defense Community Infrastructure Program, Port Infrastructure Development Program, we're working on, on changes to bills and language that can, that can help improve our eligibility for funding under those 2 programs.

A duplicate of the road and utility capital funding for housing development to support JBEAR expansion. Waste-to-energy capital funding, and there's also a land transfer bill that's in the current NDAA, the National Defense Authorization Bill, that would help us. We need that land adjacent to the landfill to get waste-to-energy plant built ultimately. Funding for residential weatherization, again, for energy efficiency purposes. And then the increased, continuum of care funds for programming to support unhoused individuals, you know, something I know that the Assembly has talked about a lot over the years, and that we'd like to see more funding be available for those things that— for that subject.

So I'm happy to take any questions. And if members are interested in having Ms. Chamberlain offer any viewpoints on any of this, that would be a possibility as well. Thank you.

Go ahead. Thank you. Good afternoon. I always forget that. Good afternoon, Wendy Chamberlain, and for those of you who are new members, our firm, Legislative Consultants, under former Joe Hayes, has lobbied for the municipality for over 20 years.

So while that's a good thing, it also makes us very familiar with most of the projects as we've gone along and put them in. So I want to commend Assemblymember Browley, she does a great job of keeping municipal league priorities front and center. And my partner does municipal league work, so I'll leave that for Anna to report. What I can report on is probably the big front and center thing, which is the natural gas, what's happening with that. And there's some— been some big announcements from the Trump administration.

Some of the members in the House and Senate have said, but there's no what they call details attached to that. So what is that? Um, in full disclosure, our firm represents Glenfarm, which was the initial— is the owner of 75% of, of the, uh, rights to AGDC, or the, the, uh, 8-star model. And they are negotiating. I think, as you all know, President Trump will be up here next week.

I think you'll see some secretaries arrive with him too. And I think it'll be very, very good for Alaska, extremely good, both with revenue and with a low-cost gas supply as the export facility comes online. So as you know, it was originally permitted as an export facility, never an in-state facility, always export. Then along comes Glenfarnon and the state who said, you won't Alaska gas without taking care of Alaskans, which was a really good move. So now provided that this Korean investment and all of that goes— likely go back to its one permitting, which is an export facility where Alaska will be hugely taken care of.

That will be very, very good for the state because if it is actually eventually just Korean money, which it looks like it may, an opportunity for the state to own 25% of each one of the troughs instead of having to invest. So there's some tremendous opportunity. I leave those details to the people that work out those details, all the attorneys. What I tried to look at for something like Anchorage is how do we benefit? How do— what can we do for Anchorage?

We've done this before, and when you met with your legislators, a little bit of gloom and doom where they said we don't have any money, there's nothing we can do, sorry, we really can't help you. This year's a totally different story. We have a crisis over in the Straits. We have a huge surplus for the current year ending— well, it ended June 30th. We have a surplus for that.

We also have— it's ending June 30th, should I say. We have a surplus for that, and the FY20's a significant surplus in it. So I, I try and be realistic and say that with the number of legs Anchorage has and the impact that a lot of the services create for Anchorage, the impacts, it's Anchoridge gets its fair share of the budget. And so it's difficult to get your fair share when there is no money. But my sort of— and I think you'll probably all agree— when there is a significant amount of money, the money that comes to Anchoridge should be significant.

So this year here, a bit different when you all meet with your legislators and the mayor's office and that, there should definitely be a GO bond with security, whatever it is, that gets Anchorage port, probably pick up the deep-draft Arctic port, but there should be capital put on the table day one for Anchorage. We will have probably wonderful— he will be there somewhere on finance or maybe speaker. We will have quite a few of our members in the Senate, likely in leadership position. I think as we move forward and we sit down with Anchorage legislators, we should ask them, what are we going to put, what can we do with these revenues? Because otherwise, as we all know, there's people who would like to put it into the permanent fund, there's others who'd like to put it only in others who— but I think Anchorage is the centre point for all of the costs that are sent here, whether it be housing, whether it be behavioural health.

So there's money, I always try and make sure that we've sat down before, we're very well prepared, and our Anchorage legislators are willing to go in there and start and put stuff in for Anchorage. I will give tribute to Bert Steadman. He always does a great job of taking care of Southeast as finance co-chair, and we have opportunity this year with money. As I go on down, I think a lot of the announcements for energy will be made next week on how the— how it's far as Cook Inlet and as far as energy, but I think it's going to be very, very good. A stable gas supply to bring gas in 4 or 5 years down to CF, which would be really good instead of '20, '21, '22.

Capital funding, we want to put some money into the Renewable Energy Fund. Obviously, community assistance is huge for Anchorage. I mean, it's significant. One of the other areas we're looking at, because we'll have a new governor, our previous governor, our current governor, very focused on energy and development, economic, natural resources. I think we'll find if it's Jonathan, he's more concerned about ADA and behavioral health issues.

And so we are working with his team. As you all know, in the State of Alaska, there's a Chief Medical Officer, and that was Dr. Zink under— I don't know who it is now, but it was very, very, a very, very great person and a great soldier for medical. But there's never been a behavioral health officer, Chief Behavioral Health Officer. Work with with the new administration to say, hey, behavioural health is a division within the Department of— and Department of Health does have a lot of agencies coming to try and get up to the Commissioner's Office, so they're just one voice. We're going to push really hard for a Chief Officer.

If we can get that, then we can take the Mental Health Trust, we can take all behavioural health issues, which would include housing, behavioural health treatment as one issue rather than branched out into the various groups. So there are several things like that we're working on. I had a look at this list and I— it's a great list. It's a lot of the things we've had on there for several years. And I just say that of money, and my job is to make sure Anchorage gets its share.

So if anybody has any questions, I know you come down for AML, you come down for the various things. If you have any questions, please reach out to us. We're there all the time, every day.

Thank you. I have a question from Member Yarrell. Silvers. Yeah, I want to back up to the Korean funds for Alaska Gas Line. Do we have any further, like, confirmation?

What I've heard, that was a claim that was made, but Korea didn't quite confirm. So, um, remember, I think that there's a lot of What I heard, and I checked on it from the governor's office who's doing some of the pullback all the time, there's a lot, there's pieces to that puzzle that the Koreans have want. And some of that doesn't even think there's like $120 billion or something like that for nuclear. There's other parts to it. And so I, you know, we give feedback every day, which is skepticism within Alaska if this is real.

And they agree with that, they understand that, but they have been very solid, and I think you'll see that, Nick. This is happening. The skepticism from the Koreans is we have been told that it's more— points back and forth, back and forth. Well, this is very important to President Trump, this is that piece because it's attractive. I'm hoping when the president comes, there'll be a further details on it.

I understand some of the Secretaries are coming with him, but unfortunately I'm not privy to any of those conversations. Mine is secondhand information. But I think that— I think some of that is posturing. Okay, thank you.

Co-chair Brownlee. Oh, thank you. I am Vice Chair of this committee, but— so, and I apologize in advance, I still need to— which I was not able to do in my car, so I'm going to be squinting a little bit because I'm nearsighted. It's fine. So a couple things, but I do have some questions of meeting with our legislative delegation before session.

I think that's great. I think that's something this committee can discuss probably next month, but certainly want to plan for that. They go down to Juneau. One thing I did want to mention just as a theme in terms of the public safety asks, you know, around changing incompetent to stand trial, some of the things that we heard about, just I think it's important that we keep reminding folks at the state level that the failures, gaps, issues, all of those things that are with those, it has a lot of responsibility for all of the responders and our shelters and other everything. But I think if none of these other resources exist, our fire folks, our police folks, and emergency response, and our taxpayers pay for that.

So I think that's a message we've continued to carry. But I think that's, that's really one clear nexus. It's not just that we need the services for the humans, we do. And also, this is a budget issue. My questions I'll just run through a few of them.

One is on the port. I know that is our priority. I just wonder if we have any plans, or with Wendy's wisdom, you know, what order of magnitude or kind of what that should look like. I know that's, that's one question. Second question is, really speaking, if we have any idea on order of magnitude of dollar amount or types of capital asks.

I know we ask more to get, and I know there's not a dollar amount per se, but just thinking about what, you know, beyond the port itself. And then my third kind of question slash, um, is, you know, of what we're asking for in terms of capital funding for housing and so on, how much of it, or can we balance this idea of fixing what we have, can include upgrading versus, for example, expanding a system out to a new neighborhood? I think both of those are part of the housing discussion, but I don't— the very large deferred maintenance backlog, um, if we just ask for new money for new projects and attention. So again, curious about the port, curious about capital in general, and then this tension between maintain versus new.

Thanks. Sure, Chair Brown. The port, the order of magnitude, you know, the last, I think the last 2 years we put in there, or maybe just last year, I think we had in dollars, and I think, and I, that's probably the order of, we don't have a number that we've centered on, but I probably, the ballpark, that's the order of magnitude at least of what we would be looking for there. So certainly that, I think as far as the tension between building new versus— I think we feel that pretty acutely. I think that we certainly don't want to be overextending and building infrastructure that isn't needed, right?

But I think that we are recognizing that the housing shortage really cases point— I mean, if it's not already in one, when you have a large number of families that are moving here, for us to— which is really a— an economic blessing to Anchorage as a whole, but I think that you plan for properly to really capitalize on, and building housing is a really critical way to do that. And it has a— it also has— and it also has a fiscal component to it, tax base. So I think that that state or federal investment to help us build more housing would have a high ROI for Anchorage as a whole.

And I think I would just add to Nolan that sometimes I try and think outside the box and Sometimes when I present it, they say, "Here's an idea," and look at me like I'm crazy. But our asks are significant because we need housing address, but we've got other things sitting there we need. If we put them in order, you look and it's 20 years down the road before we do it. We sort of looked at the concept to say, okay, we have a significant amount of FY money left over from FY26. Couple hundreds of millions I know we've got left over.

Looking at oil prices today, at what they're running at, we'll have signal FY27 budget.

So, and, and what we have, and we've known for the last couple of years, is minimal geo— we're very, very healthy in our geo-bonding capability. So is it time where, where we did over the tobacco settlement and all of that to go back in let a big geo-bond bill that covers ports, that covers the things that we need. Payments would come from the high energy prices right now to cover it for the first couple of years, and then an amount off the gas line, because there will be significant money, a billion to two billion, no matter if the feds do it, no matter how it's set up, whether it goes to impacted communities, which I don't think it does, I think it goes to— significant money come from that. Because the cost every year to do this gets more and more expensive. So is it time to sit with our legislators and say, "Here's the things we— housing, and that's X.

We need $500 million for our port. We need these. Can we do a GO bond now?" And then say, "So where do we get the money to repay that?" We have tremendous bonding capability, and maybe we need to take some of our future money and put it towards the bond repayment. I don't know. I just try and think of those ideas and say them.

Thank you. Um, uh, turn it over to Vice Chair Brawley to talk about AML. I will just report that I took part in a Zoom morning with Lisa Murkowski's staff, Logan Brasner and Grace Kubitz, and they talked infrastructure. So the Surface Transportation Reauthorization Bill must be extended. It has passed.

There is no text on the Senate side, and that's money typically for the port. Highways and Roads DOT, and also some congressional directed spending grants that go to specific projects.

$5 To $6 million, I'm told, usually to finish a job, and those are stalled right now because a continuing resolution was passed, but that did not put additional funds. So typically, if they have a $5 million grant, they will ask, where's the rest of them for the project? Because they don't, they don't want to give something that's, that's gonna just be start, have a finish with community or state funds.

They like shovel-ready jobs from Vice Chair Brawley that typically we don't avail ourselves of those grants as much, but that is a possibility. So I will over to Vice Chair Brawley to talk about AML a little more.

I'm sorry, I was wondering if I could just mention one more thing about the legislative program before you switch topics.

Thanks. I think you all mentioned this at our last meeting, but I just want to reiterate that it's a real tight turnaround for our team to do. Nolan's team, the text of the legislative program, and then gives it to our team to do the formatting. And it's a really tight turnaround because it has to be submitted before the budget is approved. So maybe, I don't know if this committee wants to discuss a process for if members want to add things to the administration's list.

Maybe work that out a little bit now before the next meeting. Thank you.

Yeah, I can speak to how it's been done in the past. I can't speak to last year. So certainly a lot of the work in terms of drafting and then eventually laying the program out into the nice format that we use, time. And so I think this kind of step one is saying what are our priorities. I think the next meeting, I would anticipate, the next committee meeting, at a much more, not final, but, but fulsome product that has some descriptions and other pieces, certainly keeping it short.

So I think in the meantime, really, the ask to really all members, anyone who's not on the committee but listening, to please follow up with, and really, you know, especially if you have changes to these or other thoughts, you know, kind of working those out, and then certainly we can discuss them. And One thing we've kind of left to members to figure out, the pair of members for each district, is your district priorities. Those discuss, or it's not something that I, as the West Anchorage member, I'm going to say, no, you should have this other project up in Eagle River versus what you guys are already saying. Deference there, as long as it's, of course, within the munis kind of purview. So with that, the ask is to your pair member.

Jennifer is kind of the point of contact for those, and then those flow into the program as well. And so at our November, I think right now it's at November November 8th, first week of November. 6Th, yes, thank you, Friday the 6th. We will be looking at, as I said, that you should anticipate it getting introduced on our November 17th agenda. We would not have time for another committee meeting, and so at that point, discussion with the administration, working up amendments.

We can do floor amendments on the legislative program. You can have us pass, and then really the goal is to get all of those kind of changes, discussion, you know, all of that work most of all into the process before it's introduced, if, if at all possible, so that we're not having to do a bunch of floor amendments at the last minute that we haven't had time to discuss, and also so that are frantically trying to fit, you know, another page worth of content. So, so that's kind of a preview. And so I think our second meeting, or, well, third call, is going to really be the last opportunity in the committee to discuss, and then we'll work through it and with the anticipated vote on— Thanks.

Any other questions? Okay. Thank you. So switching gears to AML, Alaska Municipal League, I'll mention a couple of different things. Preview that in December there is a conference/annual meeting, so that'll be over at the Denaina.

I don't have the dates in front of me, but it's the second week of December. All members are certainly welcome and your travel is going across the street from City Hall. So very easy.

And we try not to schedule too much over that. Of course, we will have other business to deal with. That is a great opportunity not only to engage with our peers and other local governments, but also with a number of legislators. You know, we say they know that their constituents there are there as well. Um, great content, lots of good sessions.

Uh, I might be doing one on property tax, need to figure that out. I think Claire's doing one on civic engagement. So we try to be active. Um, but also the thing that happens there is the annual meeting. So it's a membership organization member Currently I am serving on the board.

We have two liaisons, but the municipality is the member. And so at that annual meeting, exercise their voting rights. So we vote on our executive officers for the board, as well as policy resolutions and statements. So process is happening right now. In fact, I'm missing a board meeting at the moment.

Solution packet that they are considering. A lot of things do get carried forward. For example, local control is important. Community assistance, things are stable kind of asks. And then a number of things really affect a lot of local governments that may or may not affect Anchorage.

And so there's a number of things that, um, that the membership weighs in on and supports, but affects, you know, a lot of the smaller folks. So, so we don't necessarily have the same interests, although we're not those guys. Um, but that's also why I think Anchorage kind of sometimes takes a step back, because what we need is often different, or we can do things that'll— all that to say, um, the resolution process is happening now. So the board, probably as we speak, is talking about a package of draft resolutions. They— some bring new ones, mostly it's updating resolutions that, you know, a lot of them are some time-sensitive or, sorry, time-bound, you know, year to year.

But parallel to the board work, all members have the ability to submit resolutions. As a note that the deadline, I looked it up, is members may submit resolutions for consideration and changes to additions, changes or deposition statement no later than October 23rd, 2026. And then those also run through the process of review. They all get voted on at the meeting Friday, December 11th. 11Th in the morning.

So I will be at that meeting for sure. And then I'll just give a couple examples in the past. So again, Anchorage, you know, we don't bring our own personal priorities, priorities. So we wouldn't bring something saying please support the Port of Alaska. We certainly could, but I think the policy did.

So a couple of things we have done in the past when Felix Rivera was the other member, I worked with him on a resolution regarding behavioral health priorities at the state level on ports and harbors grants that didn't directly affect us. But I think we weighed in on that. So those are just examples. We also brought one on how was a— that was a big discussion about what it should say. But all of those things are the kinds of things that I think anchorable for other local governments to consider.

So anyway, if you are interested, it doesn't have to come through me, but I am certainly happy and have worked on that process, certainly would work with Nolan for keeping it in line with our own uni priorities. But I just wanted to make that kind of— I wanted to give you awareness of that process. And if you are interested in engaging in that. And again, the nexus is really with local governments, not the broader things that affect all of our constituents, but really what are local governments asking for. Thank you.

And I'll take questions or comments, if any.

Any questions?

Okay. Thank you. That concludes our agenda for today. I've reached the time for audience participation. Oh, of course.

Did you want to update this? Was that another thing you wanted to do this meeting or not, or do it on the side?

Do you have that in front of you to read?

No. Okay, is it okay next meeting? Thank you.

Member Park. Yes. I was just wondering, our next scheduled meeting is the night of our assembly meeting. I'm not sure if we wanted to adjust that. Sometimes before the assembly meetings, I start— things start stacking up.

And so I believe that there's already a committee meeting for public safety.

Just, uh, Madam Clerk, uh, so that rescheduled to Friday the 6th after the work session. Do we want to, uh, I guess I'm thinking staff time, our time. Do we want to pick a different date than Wednesday, November 4th for our next—. Will be November 6th. Okay, that's the one that's been rescheduled.

I just hadn't updated the agenda. Okay, perfect. That sounds great to me. Our next scheduled meeting will be November 6th from 1 to 2. Is that correct?

Yes. Thank you. And so that concludes our business, and we have reached the time for audience participation.

No feedback today. One second.

All right. Uh, so I'm winging it. So Jamie Lopez, East Anchorage, formerly Coalition for the Homeless. So, um, yeah, continuation, last meeting. So 34 went through the last session Community Regional Affairs Committee.

Basically, uh, you had a bill which started as a table, which then sort of insisted that was to include, uh, provisions for people to get IDs and birth certificates that otherwise sometimes haven't had it. You know, women that have essentially had their documents held over them, and it did not start as a table— started for everybody. And it went through the Community Regional Affairs Committee, and effectively, uh, this applies to everyone, we like it. And then it went into Finance, but, you know, the end of the session, so it needs to get reintroduced. That's something I think that should be discussion in an official capacity, because then it frees up flex funds for other things.

It's just easy, and then you're the master of your own destiny, and then you can swap if you choose to. But a lot of people, they just, they don't know where to start. And so to sort of continue upon what Chamberlain mentioned, sort of behavioral health director, but there is something beyond that. So right now there is effectively no ground game in this state of Alaska, whether it's at the state level, everything is based on a telephone response model. Homeless do not have phones, lost, broken, stolen, not charged, assuming you can afford the phone service at all.

And so you need to have a paradigm shift in your thinking where you no longer have a reactive/proactive position and you do not tied to law enforcement. You basically have people that go out all times, all hours, all weather conditions in emergency management to help people, stabilize them, and lift them up because there are any number of people that have been essentially gone, removed from society, and you don't know the shadow population is out there. And to segue into one of the things here on the federal priorities, which was ARRA funds for programming to support unhoused individuals. So with that said, formerly worked at Coalition, so I know a thing or two about that thing. But basically you had a resolution, AR 2023, I think it was 176, and this was done 3 years ago where there was a request effectively for HUD to change the formula 'cause it's based on population within the city as opposed to the total number of individuals within the city, which may or may not be unhoused.

And I can tell you this right now, the point-in-time count, it's not accurate by any means. It's who effectively comes and you have to willingly do it. And then based on that, Sometimes they just take a general guess of who is there. And so within the state or within a municipality, and you don't know the true population, the unhoused out there, but just on those that are entering the shelter system and cycling by, you can get just a floor. You don't get the ceiling.

And so, um, that formula needs to be changed. And for it, with Scott Turner and with others. And, uh, if you have any questions, I don't out. So I'll see you at the next one. All right, okay, bye.

Thank you for your testimony.

If there are no other questions, we stand adjourned.