Dunleavy nominee for UA regent supported devastating university funding cuts

When Gov. Mike Dunleavy championed a 41 percent cut in state funds to the University of Alaska budget in 2019—a budget wrecking ball that did lasting damage— Bethany Marcum, a former Dunleavy employee, was all for it.

Candidate Dunleavy had promised no cuts to the university in 2018, but when he proposed a 41 percent cut in state funding for UA in 2019 and an enormous cut in K-12 spending, Marcum cheered him on.

"It is reassuring to see that the administration has embraced fiscal responsibility with this budget," wrote Marcum of the proposed budget in 2019. "Alaskans are tired of deficit spending and this governor clearly means business."

Dunleavy proposed cutting hundreds of millions from K-12 schools, in addition to the UA cut.

Marcum, the executive director of the right-wing Alaska Policy Forum, supported his campaign for governor and was named by Dunleavy to the 2020 reapportionment board, a position in which the courts took her and her GOP allies to task for gerrymandering. She worked as a legislative aide in the Legislature when Dunleavy was a senator and supports whatever he comes up with.

Dunleavy has now appointed her to an eight-year term on the UA Board of Regents to set policy for the university. He has also appointed Joey Crum, the brother of revenue commissioner Adam Crum and Dennis Michel, the president of American Mechanical. Crum runs a school that trains truck drivers and people in some trades. Michel told the Anchorage Daily News he would have to educate himself about the university before offering ideas about its future.

Marcum got involved with what right-wing activists call the “freedom movement” through the Tea Party and working for Dunleavy. Asked by the State Policy Network what issue is dearest to her heart, she said: “Education reform, because the kids who are getting sub-standard education now will have little, if any, chance to recover. It’s an absolute tragedy.”

In 2019, Marcum supported Dunleavy’s decision when he vetoed $130 million for the university.

The university estimated that the total cost would have been close to $250 million, as it would lead to a loss of $69 million in tuition and $44 million in federal grants.

“We are in favor of the vetoes in terms of the dollar amounts,” Marcum said after the $130 million veto.

"While it's easy to say we need more funding the reality is we have to address these issues..." Marcum told Alaska’s News Source in 2019. "It's just not sustainable to continue to subsidize government with savings."

The opposition to the UA cut was intense. It ended with Dunleavy strong-arming the university to accept a $70 million cut over three years. It was not a binding document, but Alaska legislators and Dunleavy treated it as such and did lasting harm to the institution.

In March 2017, when Marcum was a state employee, she was a cheerleader for Dunleavy’s “plan” to balance the budget with no tax increases and no cuts to dividends. She claimed she did the math and it was simple.

Marcum said the state had to cut redundancies and create efficiencies. She offered no specifics.

“The reason we have a ‘revenue problem’ is because we created a spending problem. The lack of spending restraint has prompted some to greedily call for an income tax — the more they collect, the more they can spend!” Marcum wrote.

Three months before Marcum defended Dunleavy that year, I wrote about the Dunleavy miracle solution that required no new taxes and $1 billion in budget cuts he could not identify.

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