Legislators Try to Fix Clogged Phone Lines
- Details
- Category: State News
- Created on Friday, 05 May 2023 14:39
- Hits: 228
By JAMES BROOKS
Alaska Beacon
The Alaska Legislature is changing some procedures after Capitol phone lines became overloaded by public testimony for a record fifth time this year.
The Capitol’s phones reached capacity on Tuesday, during a hearing about a bill that intends to repeal the state’s new ranked choice voting law. The phone lines have filled more times this year than in the past six years combined, legislative statistics indicate.
Overall call volume hasn’t changed significantly from past years, but Alaskans’ habits have: members of the public are now much more likely to call from home, rather than one of the legislative information offices scattered across the state.
That pattern, plus a series of high-interest bills, have repeatedly filled the Legislature’s 90 public phone lines.
Rep. Sarah Vance, R-Homer, said that even her father couldn’t make it into the queue for one meeting.
He’s like, ‘I tried, and I tried’ (to call in),” she said. “I’ve had numerous people reach out to me, I’ve had emails and texts, and they keep trying and trying.”
On April 21, with several committees simultaneously taking public testimony, the phone lines were so clogged that the Legislature’s own attorneys couldn’t connect to a House Judiciary Committee that Vance was leading.
“We couldn’t get our drafter on the line to answer technical questions,” she said. “I was like, ‘What do you mean, you can’t get the drafter on?’”
That tieup was unusual in that it was caused by multiple hearings taking testimony at the same time.
Four other times, the lines have been filled by individual controversial bills: House Bill 65, which would increase the state’s per-student funding formula, on March 21; House Bill 105, which as originally written would have restricted the rights of transgender students, on March 30 and April 13; and House Bill 4 on Tuesday.
Public testimony is a regular part of the legislative process, taking place in each committee that hears a proposed bill. Members of the public call in or show up in person to voice their opinion about the proposal and any changes made by legislators along the way.
Something tells me when you put bills on social issues … you can expect people to come out and be heard,” said House Minority Leader Calvin Schrage, I-Anchorage.
If there’s a silver lining to the phone problem, said Rep. Justin Ruffridge, R-Soldotna, it’s that it shows Alaskans are involved with the Legislature. Despite that, it’s still a problem, he said.
“They took the time out of their day to try to be heard for two minutes or three minutes, and if you’re not even able to get in the queue because the phone system is down, I think you lose even more trust in your elected officials, in the government process,” he said.
To partially fix the problem, the Legislature has set up a dedicated phone line for staff and subject-matter experts who call into committee meetings.
The Capitol’s nonpartisan administrative staff are also encouraging members of the public to testify from legislative information offices if they live in a city near one.
The Legislature’s phone system was originally designed to accommodate people who live away from major cities, known inside the Capitol as “offnet.” However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, patterns changed.
In 2019, 532 people testified in legislative hearings from the Anchorage legislative office. Through Tuesday this year, only 52 people have, legislative statistics show.
On Tuesday, as members of the public waited to testify on a bill that would repeal ranked choice voting in the state, 97 of 112 callers waiting in the queue were from communities with a legislative office, said Legislative Affairs Agency Director Jessica Geary.
“If more phone lines were added to the 90 lines we currently have, it doesn’t solve the issue of the system getting bogged down,” Geary said by email. “Doing so would also require additional staff and, in the end, would just result in more people waiting on hold as each offnet caller has to wait for their turn to testify.”
Rep. CJ McCormick, D-Bethel, represents a rural district in Southwest Alaska and said he’s been frustrated by the capacity issues. Most of his constituents can’t reach the legislative office in Bethel and need the ability to call in.
“I think my district is pretty significantly disadvantaged with public testimony,” he said.
On the ranked choice voting bill, several people in his district texted him, saying they were trying to call in but couldn’t because the lines were full.
“You want your people to be able to get on there,” he said.
Vance said there are things legislators can do themselves to fix the problem. Committee chairs can schedule public testimony sessions at different times so multiple committees aren’t trying to use the phone at the same time.
Public testimony on contentious bills could be divided by region. The House Finance Committee, for example, sets specific times for testimony from different parts of the state.
For her part, she encourages people to submit testimony by email as well, but it’s not the same as a phone call, she said.
“The power of them adding their voice to the committee carries so much weight, especially when members are in deliberation and wanting to know the different nuances,” Vance said.
–––––––
https://alaskabeacon.com/james-beacon
Health Dept.: Will Cut Food Stamps Backlog
- Details
- Category: State News
- Created on Thursday, 04 May 2023 14:35
- Hits: 383
By JAMES BROOKS
Alaska Beacon
After a lawsuit from Alaskans in need of food aid, the Alaska Department of Health has agreed to cut the waiting list for the state’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program by half in six months.
The action was among several conditions in an agreement announced Tuesday between the state and 10 plaintiffs who filed a class-action lawsuit against the state over extensive delays in what’s commonly referred to as the food-stamp program.
In exchange for the agreement, the plaintiffs agreed to stay — or hold — further legal action until Oct. 31. If the state fails to hold to the agreement, the lawsuit will continue.
“I’m happy with the result in the immediate term,” said Nick Feronti, an attorney with the Fairbanks-based Northern Justice Project who is representing the plaintiffs.
“It’s probably the fastest pathway we have to fixing things on a system-wide basis,” he said.
Asked whether he believes the state can meet its pledge, he said he does.
“We have moderate confidence they should be able to meet it. Hopefully, they can exceed it,” he said.
In a prepared statement released by email, Department of Health Commissioner Heidi Hedberg and Attorney General Treg Taylor said the state is doing everything it can to eliminate the waiting list, which stood at 10,598 people as of April 20.
“Alaska is committed to taking the necessary steps to resolve this backlog and get benefits to Alaskans who need them. We are continuing to hire more employees and bring on additional support,” Hedberg said.
The text of the agreement says the state has signed a contract for 75 contract workers to help alleviate the backlog, and that it expects all of them to begin working no later than July 1.
“The state is doing everything it can to resolve this issue,” Taylor said in the statement.
Alaska’s backlog began growing last year, as the state exited the COVID-19 pandemic emergency and congressionally authorized changes to the SNAP program ended.
Feronti said the backlog was exacerbated by some optional choices by the state. One example, addressed in this week’s agreement: Many food-stamp recipients were required to reapply every six months, more frequently than federal law requires.
In some parts of Alaska, the backlog led to widespread hunger and even a few cases of malnutrition that required hospitalization, the Anchorage Daily News reported.
The backlog is smaller than it was at its peak, according to state-published figures, but state food banks are still reporting high demand.
Alaska isn’t alone in dealing with the problem.
“Overall, there are delays and access problems in a number of parts of the country right now,” said Saima Akhtar, a senior attorney with the National Center for Law and Economic Justice.
Akhtar is a co-counsel with Feronti on the lawsuit, and her organization has filed a similar lawsuit in Missouri. Alaska’s problems are worse than those in Missouri, she said.
“The scope of this problem is really extreme,” Akhtar said.
A more involved government, in a different place and different time could have addressed the issue proactively, Feronti said, but “we don’t have a proactive state government right now.”
“The state has known for years, from its own data, that this was a growing problem,” he said. “Maybe we can learn to be more proactive.”
–––––
https://alaskabeacon.com/james-brooks
Juneteenth Holiday Bill On Move in Legislature
- Details
- Category: State News
- Created on Thursday, 04 May 2023 14:34
- Hits: 243
By JAMES BROOKS
Alaska Beacon
The Alaska Senate on Wednesday approved a bill that would make Juneteenth a paid state holiday. The measure, Senate Bill 22, now heads to the state House for its consideration.
The sponsor, Sen. Elvi Gray-Jackson, used her floor debate to describe the significance of the June 19 holiday, which commemorates the end of slavery in the United States and is also known as Freedom Day or Emancipation Day.
“Alaska, like many states in this country, has a diverse population with a rich cultural heritage. It’s a place where people of all backgrounds and beliefs come together to celebrate their shared values of freedom, equality and justice,” said Gray-Jackson, one of the Black members in the 20-person state Senate. “By recognizing Juneteenth as a state holiday, we can celebrate and honor our African American community’s contributions and acknowledge the injustices they have faced in our state and in our nation.”
She noted that the federal government in 2021 established Juneteenth as a legal holiday. Additionally, 21 other states, “from the north and the south, the east and the west,” and the District of Columbia have already made Juneteenth a paid or legal holiday, she said, so Alaska would join a large group, she said.
More recently, the Anchorage Assembly on Feb. 21 unanimously approved Juneteenth as a paid municipal holiday, Gray-Jackson said. Anchorage already has an annual Juneteenth celebration, which is regularly attended by the governor and several state legislators, she noted.
Along with designating Juneteenth as a paid municipal holiday, the Anchorage Assembly gave the same status to Indigenous Peoples’ Day.
However, another Black member, Sen. David Wilson, R-Wasilla, cast one of the four votes against Gray-Jackson’s bill.
Wilson spoke of his own family history in his argument. He is the grandson of sharecroppers and the son of a Vietnam War veteran and has endured racism himself, he said. But he made some points in opposition to the bill.
One of his arguments was economic. He cited the $4.2 million annual cost estimated by the state Office of Management and Budget, as well as additional costs for lost productivity.
“The state has limited financial resources and adding another paid state holiday to the calendar could put significant strain on our state budget,” he said, citing potential cuts to essential services like education, health care and infrastructure.
Gray-Jackson later said the cost estimate that Wilson was using was out of date, from a March 1 fiscal note submitted by OMB. Subsequent fiscal notes from individual departments, submitted on April 17, provided cost estimates that totaled under $1.2 million, though the Department of Administration said on March 1 couldn’t determine its costs.
The Office of Management and Budget said in its fiscal note that actual costs will depend on labor agreements and other factors.
Wilson also made some philosophical arguments against establishing Juneteenth as a paid state holiday, saying in some ways the date’s message has been cheapened and fails to address the serious issues of racial inequities.
He described commercial exploitation, with sales on items associated by the media with African American culture. “A lot of times these Juneteenth-branded products are tone-deaf,” and some experts argue that commercial operators “are only profiting off the Black suffering,” Wilson said.
He also said employers may feel pressure to grant the holiday.
An earlier Juneteenth bill introduced by Gray-Jackson in 2021 in the previous legislature failed to advance out of committee.
The Alaska Legislature in 2001 passed a bill designating the third Saturday in June as Juneteenth Day, but that measure fell short of establishing a paid state holiday.
–––––
https://alaskabeacon.com/james-brooks
More Articles...
Thanks to the generosity and expertise of the the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska broadband department, Tidal Network ; Christopher Cropley, director of Tidal Network; and Luke Johnson, Tidal Network technician, SitkaSentinel.com is again being updated. Tidal Network has been working tirelessly to install Starlink satellite equipment for city and other critical institutions, including the Sentinel, following the sudden breakage of GCI's fiberoptic cable on August 29, which left most of Sitka without internet or phone connections. CCTHITA's public-spirited response to the emergency is inspiring.
Login Form
20 YEARS AGO
September 2004
Sheldon Jackson College’s Service Programs and Civic Engagement Project is teaming up with One Day’s Pay to provide volunteer service in remembrance of Sept. 11. ... To join the effort contact Chris Bryner.
50 YEARS AGO
September 1974
From On the Go by SAM: The Greater Sitka Arts Council has issued its first newsletter – congratulations! Included with the newsletter is an arts event calendar.
Calendar
