Nikiski Republican Rep. Bill Elam reflected on his freshman legislative session last week at a joint meeting of the Kenai and Soldotna chambers of commerce.
Elam represents much of the northern Kenai Peninsula, including Sterling, Cooper Landing and Nikiski. The former Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly member says his time in Juneau was “eye-opening.”
“Very few people can really, truly prepare you for what it's like, let alone actually tell you this is what to expect," Elam said. "And so the first month is just, you're just getting blasted with all kinds of information and meetings and trying to get oriented.”
Elam says those first few weeks also meant getting to know fellow lawmakers and staff.
Elam says one of his top priorities was education. He served on the House Education Committee, and says his priority was to stabilize school funding, specifically the base student allocation. That’s the base amount of money the state provides schools per student.
Elam voted against an early proposal that would have bumped per-student funding by $1,000. And he sustained Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s veto of the bill. But he voted in favor of a compromise bill that increased per-student funding by $700. Dunleavy later vetoed that down to $500 per student.
Elam says the school funding bill also includes some of his charter school priorities, like making it harder to close them.
“If they don't meet their contractual agreement, then it's going to be significantly harder to close a charter school or to revoke a charter across the state by having some of the verbiage in there that we got in the policy,” Elam said.
Elam also spoke about the long-sought, $44 billion Alaska Liquified Natural Gas Project, which would move natural gas from the North Slope through an 800-mile pipeline to Nikiski. He says it was one of the most exciting topics discussed during the legislative session, and believes the project is close to fruition.
Elam ended the meeting by highlighting Kenai Peninsula road projects and what he says is the declining state of Alaska fisheries.
Lawmakers won’t meet again in Juneau until next year, but Elam’s already planning for the upcoming legislative session. He says property rights and cybersecurity are top of mind.
