Rep. Sara Hannan and Sen. Jesse Kiehl will host in-person town halls in Klukwan on July 8th, Haines on July 9th, and Skagway on July 10th.
After a divisive and dramatic budget cycle, Upper Lynn Canal legislators are visiting their district residents this week in Klukwan, Haines and Skagway for their first in-person town halls since March 2020. KHNS’ Corinne Smith spoke with Rep. Sara Hannan about the Governor’s vetoes, the PFD, and more.
Rep. Sara Hannan said she’s disappointed with Governor Mike Dunleavy’s budget vetoes last week.
“From the Legislature’s perspective we believe we had a very conservative budget that was not higher than the Governor’s proposal that he submitted in December and amended in January.”
She’s in town this week with fellow Democratic state Sen. Jesse Kiehl for in-person town halls to discuss the latest on the budget, and hear resident’s concerns and ideas.
Hannan described the additional budget cuts to the ferry system as particularly painful. She says lawmakers have been working to bolster service but much of the extra funding was vetoed.
“So there was a cut of a little over $8 million dollars to the Marine Highway System. That one really hurt, because we fought for every dollar of that and worked hard to convince our colleagues in the 60-member legislature that the cuts from the previous year were too significant,” said Hannan.
She represents District 33 which includes parts of Juneau, Haines, Klukwan, Skagway and Gustavus, all which rely heavily on marine transportation. She said there is no prospect of federal funding to fill in some of the budget gaps, as COVID relief dollars have already been allocated.
Hannan criticized the governor’s veto of statewide funding for school maintenance, as well as his cuts to public broadcasting and his decision to zero out the Permanent Fund dividend after complaining that it was too small.
“I don’t think anyone expects it to remain zero,” she said. “But for it to be anything, we have got to address the other underlying or overlaying fiscal issues. You know we’re not going to just fund a Permanent Fund Dividend, and not take care of school maintenance, the ferry system, the performance scholarships, WWAMY subsidies for medical school students, and those kinds of things.”
Sen. Kiehl is on a special committee to review the PFD, she said, which has started meeting this week, and is also focused on long term funding solutions.
The Legislature will come back for a third special session on August 2, in which time they can address attempting to override the governor’s vetoes with a three-quarters vote.
Hannan urge resident to turn out to the town halls with their ideas. She said last year she and her District Q colleagues introduced bills that came from input from constituents.
“What we should be working on and laws that need to be tweaked and changed come from citizens who come into the brick wall, or a problem, and they say ‘here’s a problem, can you help me fix it?’ And we were each able to find solutions in law for ongoing constituent issues.”
Rep. Hannan and Sen. Kiehl had their first town hall on Thursday in Klukwan.
On Friday, July 9th at 7 p.m. at the American Legion Hall in Haines, and Saturday July 10 at 5 p.m. at the Arctic Brotherhood Hall in Skagway.
