By Marcia Kuszmaul

Homer Independent Press

Rep. Sarah Vance defended her opposition to state income taxes and many other proposals for new state revenues during a town hall meeting Saturday in Homer before a large and restive crowd of constituents.

The state currently faces a $500 million deficit with its new operating budget, but Vance, who has represented District 6 in the state legislature for seven years, spoke against audience suggestions for increasing revenues, including raising oil taxes, a graduated personal income tax or sales taxes. 

“I will not agree to a standalone sales tax,” Vance said. “We need to continue to make cuts and inefficiencies in reducing some of our costs. We need a constitutional spending cap. We do need another source of revenue, . . . but I think that Alaskans would be outraged if we were to pass a single measure right now.”

Vance also talked about her bill to prohibit the generation of child sexual abuse material using artificial intelligence (AI). The bill passed the House unanimously two weeks ago. Vance objected on constitutional grounds to one amendment added to the bill that restricted social media use by minors. The bill is now pending in the state Senate.

Vance was well into the 90 minutes allocated for the public forum at the Kachemak Bay Campus (KBC) before the audience of 60 broke in to take their turn with the mic.

Kate Finn asked the first question about revenue generation, a topic that dominated much of the meeting.

“We’re out of money,” Finn said. “That is your responsibility and the governor’s responsibility . . . to generate funds. . . . How are you going to address that directly in this legislature, not putting it off ‘til next year?”

Vance referenced a proposal for an education tax that is under consideration that would include the original education head tax and a statewide income tax.

“However, . . . I was elected on a clear mandate to vote no to a statewide income tax,” Vance said. “So I’m going to keep my word.”

Several questions regarding religion and government came up at the end of the session. Vance was asked whether she agreed that the war in Iran is “part of God’s plan,” as some troops have reported being told. She declined to answer, saying she didn’t have enough information.

When asked if she would support the posting of the Ten Commandments in schools, Vance said yes.

“I don’t think we should fear the moral guidelines that those laws were built on,” she said.

Three states – Texas, Lousiana and Arkansas – have passed legislation requiring the display of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms. All have been blocked at least partially by courts.

Vance is the Alaska chair of the National Association of Christian Lawmakers (NACL) and first vice chair of its National Legislative Council. Members sign a pledge to support the NACL mission to “address major policy concerns from a Biblical world view.”

The hottest exchanges between Vance and her constituents were over education.

Education

“There’s a lot of assumptions that I don’t support education,” Vance said. She said she cares about education, pointing to the bill passed last year that increased the long-term state education spending by roughly $185 million per year.

“I voted yes originally,” she said, “and voted no to override the governor’s veto, because of the fiscal situation that we’re in.” 

A question from Diane Perkins sparked a vigorous discussion on teacher accountability and preparation.

Since moving to Alaska from Texas, Perkins said she has found local homeschooling co-ops to be “phenomenal.”

“But what is Alaska doing to hold accountability for teachers,” she asked, “ . . .  because the people I know that have their kids in public school are starting to move them out because the teaching is horrendous.”

Vance said “the misnomer is that the teachers are to blame,” but she was critical of teacher education, claiming that new teachers are “not being taught to teach kids to read.” She said accountability lies with the school districts and the school boards in how they spend their money.

Vance also claimed that the KPBSD is losing $10 million a year because “less than half” homeschooled students within the district are enrolled in programs outside the district rather than Connections, the KPBSD homeschool program.

“Our school district needs to be asking what they can do to recruit those families back into the school district,” she said.

Many audience members pushed back on education, some of them with great fervor.

One audience member who works in Nanwalek and Seldovia schools fact-checked Vance, saying the University of Alaska College of Education does have required courses on how to teach reading and writing.  She encouraged Vance to visit schools to see firsthand how they function and the work teachers are doing.

Heather Kallevig, a graduate of KPBSD and now an adjunct professor at KPC KBC, recounted her experience in KPBSD as a “first-year teacher for five years.”

“Every single year I was cut,” she said. “I burnt out, and I quit because nobody believed in me. Nobody was fighting for me.”

Kallevig recounted meeting a school board member in the bathroom who commented, “Oh, well, we’re only cutting social studies teachers,” and she was one of them.

“The very first conversation that we need right now in our legislature and our government is to educate our kids,” Kallevig said, “because if we’re going to have a future at all, it is in our children, and they need to have all of the background that we were given, not less, more.”

Pools, privacy and more

Other issues that got a hearing were:

·        Scheduled closing of the Kate Kuhns Aquatic Center pool on June 30. A member of the Kachemak Swim Club asked if Vance knew of any funding solutions. She recommended looking at Seldovia and Ninilchik initiatives to create special service areas to support their pools.

·        Building more Alaska Railroad track to serve mining exploration projects instead of roads. Vance said she supports more use of rail, including an unfinished extension to Port MacKenzie, and that there will be a resolution to that end for public comment.

·        The Dunleavy administration’s turning over confidential data on Alaska voters to the federal government despite constitutional right to privacy. When questioned why she appeared to approve of this action in a recent hearing, Vance said she has since taken a deeper look and is working with Senator Bill Wielechowski on an election bill that would block the sharing of confidential private information.

·        Ethics investigation. Vance was asked if she stood by her actions last September when she wrote a letter on official legislative letterhead to the owners of the Homer News calling an article covering a memorial for Charlie Kirk biased and intimating consequences to the paper.  She said that she would “continue to stand up against biased media” and acknowledged she is under investigation for a potential ethics violation.

·        No vote on an amendment to a proposed sex trafficking bill to require background checks for sex crimes for teachers and substitute teachers in private schools. Vance said there were constitutional issues in the bill that did not situate teachers equally. She noted that provisions in her proposed AI bill address those issues

For full information on Rep. Sarah Vance, including committee membership, bill sponsorship and voting record, visit her House member page.