Dunleavy forgets about his child care task force and all of his other task forces
Gov. Mike Dunleavy complained on April 6, 2023 about a plan advanced in the Alaska Senate to put $15 million more toward child care to help raise wages for child care workers, claiming it was a “knee jerk reaction.”
“I’m not going to support $15 million in child care because we don’t even know what the child care is that we’re talking about," Dunleavy told reporters. "What does it look like? Is it focused on infants? Is it focused on toddlers? Is it focused on other age groups?”
What the state really needed, Dunleavy said, was a task force.
“But just to say $15 million—who knows, after the task force is done, it could be more. It could be less. We don’t know that until we go through this process.”
Creating task forces has been one of his signature go-to moves as governor—you may remember his food task force and his energy task force.
There have been additional study groups by other names—the Alaska Marine Highway Reshaping Work Group and the Teachers Retention and Recruitment Working Group come to mind.
The various Dunleavy task forces and working groups have been asked to deal with difficult or impossible challenges, revamping the food supply system, for example, or cutting electricity prices to 10 cents per kilowatt hour by 2030.
“Now some people will say that’s incredibly optimistic, we can’t do that, etc., etc., etc. But I’ve gotta remind you of a couple of things done in history here in the not-too-distant past. 1961, John F. Kennedy said we’re gonna go to the moon by the end of the decade,” Dunleavy told his energy task force about his 10-cent dream.
“People laughed at him, nobody can go the moon. That’s impossible. It can’t be done.”
“We went to the moon,” said Dunleavy.
The energy task force did not attempt to shoot the moon because it found that Dunleavy’s 10-cent idea was not credible. The group did have lots of other ideas, however.
By and large, the various task force reports have not translated into state policy because the governor failed to follow through. The reports went on the shelf and were forgotten. It seem that the emphasis was always on launching the task forces, not on implementing the results.
Like the food and energy task forces, the child care task force had plenty of ideas—56 recommendations to deal with the child care crisis in Alaska.
Here is the first task force report from December 31, 2023.
Here is the second task force report from September 30, 2024.
Here is a state website with a great deal of information on the 56 recommendations.
“My goal is to make Alaska the best state in the country to raise a family,” Dunleavy said in a press release last December. “Having access to quality and affordable childcare is essential for working parents.”
It didn’t require a task force and nearly two years of work to learn that low wages and a lack of access to health insurance and other benefits make it hard to find and keep child care workers. A lot of workers can make more at fast food joints.
The task force called for creating “a sustainable state-funded wage subsidy for licensed child care professionals to support a living wage in Alaska.”
“The majority of task force members agreed that compensation should be prioritized, however, there was some division over identifying funding. The inclusion of ‘state-funded’ was approved by the majority of the task force members,” the Dunleavy task force said.
Dunleavy vetoed $1.86 million for child care grant programs and cut $5.7. million for early education and infant learning.
A Dunleavy spin doctor said the state doesn’t have the money to support the program increases because oil prices are down. (The governor acts as if he can’t do anything about the state’s financial situation.)
But not to worry. The spin doctor reminded the Beacon that “Gov. Dunleavy’s goal is for Alaska to be the best place in the country to raise a family.”
Your contributions help support independent analysis and political commentary by Alaska reporter and author Dermot Cole. Thank you for reading and for your support. Either click here to use PayPal or send checks to: Dermot Cole, Box 10673, Fairbanks, AK 99710-0673.