House District 3: Juneau: Mendenhall Valley/Haines/Skagway/Gustavus/Klukwan
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Andrea "Andi" Story
(Dem)
How do you plan to address the challenges of funding, teacher recruitment and retention, and ensuring educational equity across remote, rural and urban communities in Alaska in order to improve overall educational outcomes?
According to the U.S. Energy Administration in 2023, Alaska generated about 25% of its total electricity from renewable energy sources. What other alternatives do you think would help with our energy issues?
What options would you suggest where Alaska can increase our state revenue?
What could the Alaska legislature do to help restore voters’ trust in the integrity of our elections system?
Do you support or oppose continuation of our current open primary/ ranked choice voting election system. Why?
Campaign Phone
9077234198
I will address the continuing challenges of funding in a collaborative way. There is a growing understanding that a significant permanent education funding increase is needed, not one - time funding. The amount of the increase needs to be decided, legislated and passed EARLY in the session to provide certainty and opportunity for improved educational outcomes. Increasing teacher recruitment and retention involves a return to a defined benefits pension system, competitive salaries, teacher housing investments in rural areas, and a supportive work environment. Broadband and early learning investments, staff cultural and instructional curriculum and training, and high school internships/access to post-secondary will help with equity.
There are many ways to help with our energy issues. Conservation efforts by citizens are important. The Legislature made available weatherization grants of 20 million for homeowners in the budget for this coming year through the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation (AHFC). Legislation passed to modernize the railbelt electric transmission infrastructure and take advantage of a 200 million matching federal funds (passed 36 million towards this matching effort and I support additional match funds this upcoming year). The Legislature passed laws to establish a Green Bank through AHFC. Carbon capture and storage legislation passed, and gives the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission to pursue Class VI underground injection wells.
Legislation overwhelmingly passed this year to resolve taxes owed to the state from Turo on rental cars. This placed, Turo in charge of collections, not individuals, and cut the tax rate to 8 percent (it's 10 percent for rental car companies). The Governor vetoed. I believe this needs to be resolved. Closing the S Corporation loop hole, so non C - Corporations making significant profits from oil & gas production or pipeline transmission will pay the same as C Corps. It applies only to companies making over 4 million in profits, basically Hillcorp. Alaska can increase the per barrel oil tax credit from 5 dollars to 8 dollars per barrel. Reinstating a progressive state income tax could capture revenue from out of state workers.
To restore voter trust in our system, education about the security and processes in place to protect ones vote and the integrity of our system is critical. The voter rolls must be cleaned up and a process identified and implemented to notify when a person has moved and is no longer eligible to vote and should not be sent a ballot. It is important to implement "ballot curing" so one can be notified if a mistake was made on your ballot and it be corrected. In addition, elimination of the witness signature requirement is important. Currently the witness signature is not verified, as verified in other ways, so this is unnecessary step which has nullified many people's vote.
Yes, I support continuation of our current open primary and ranked choice voting election system. I hope more states move to implement this. Our country is very polarized, yet when talking to people and what they care about, it seems we have more in common with each other than not. It is imperative that people wanting to serve as Representatives, work to understand and acknowledge all the various viewpoints of the citizens they serve.
Open primaries is a way to do that as it requires a larger majority of voter support to win the position. It requires more civility.
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