Legislature(1999 - 2000)
02/08/2000 09:06 AM Senate FIN
| Audio | Topic |
|---|
* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
SENATE FINANCE COMMITTEE LOG NOTES 02/08/00 GENERAL SUBJECT(S): Overview: Review of Department Accomplishments FY99-FY00 Department of Education and Early Development And Department of Military and Veterans Affairs The following overview was taken in log note format. Tapes and handouts will be on file with the Senate Finance Committee through the 21st Legislative Session, contact 465-4935. After the 21st Legislative session they will be available through the Legislative Library at 465-3808. Time Meeting Convened: 9:06 AM Tape(s): SFC-00 # 21 Side A and Side B PRESENT: NOT PRESENT Senator Parnell Senator Adams Senator Torgerson Senator Phillips Senator P. Kelly Senator Donley Senator Green Senator Leman Senator Wilken ALSO PRESENT: RICHARD CROSS, COMMISSIONER, DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND EARLY DEVELOPMENT; DR. BRUCE JOHNSON, DEPUTY COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION, DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND EARLY DEVELOPMENT; GENERAL PHIL OATES, COMMISSIONER, DEPARTMENT OF MILITARY AND VETERANS AFFAIRS LOG SPEAKER DISCUSSION 000 Co-Chair Parnell Introduction 13 Richard Cross, COMMISSIONER, Department of Education and Early Development Dr. Johnson will talk about the implementation of the Statewide Student Assessment System. 27 Handout: Education and Early Development, Missions and Measures in SB 169 31 A great deal of work has already been done to refine the missions and measures this session with the department and House and Senate budget subcommittees. 38 With the passage of HB 40, certain programs were transferred from the Department of Community and Regional Affairs into the Department of Education and Early Development and programs formerly in the Department of Education and Early Development were transferred to the Department of Labor and Workforce Development. These programs did not have a separate mission statement. 50 Page 4: Report on Measures We have been building assessments over the past few years and FY00 is the first full year of the program. The comprehensive statewide student assessment system includes a developmental profile for children entering kindergarten or first grade, benchmark assessments in grades three, six and eight, a norm reference testing in grades four and seven, and the high school graduation qualifying exam. SB 36 dictated what percentage of funding must be spent on instruction versus administration by school districts. Some districts received waivers. 89 HB 45 required teacher competency testing. All teachers in the state must take a test to be licensed. 96 It is important to recognize that these initiatives that were passed into law were done by Alaskans but are in line with measures taken in the rest of the country. There is a rapid change with education accountability in our state and across the country. 117 Dr. Bruce Johnson, deputy commissioner of education, Department of Education and Early Development Speaking to the assessment program that is part of the * The history of the standards began in the late 1980s. This fall we implemented the developmental profile program for kindergarten students and the results have been returned to the districts for their use in diagnosing needs of young people. The high school qualifying exam and benchmarks assessments have been developed by Alaskans with technical assistance from our publisher. The exams are built on standards and the test questions are a direct outgrowth of their interpretation of those standards. In an effort to facilitate the administration of the exam, the department is offering training. The department continues to provide informational materials to bring public attention to the upcoming exams. 153 Assessments will be initially administered in March with results available in September. 157 We are partnering with a variety of organizations to equip our teachers 164 Mr. Cross Most important point to make is that we are engaged in a process that will never be done. The success or failure won't be how students do on the test in March, but what we learn from the tests. There will be some rough spots we will need to work through. Being flexible is not a compromise in our standards; it just allows us to better meet the goal. 186 Negative feelings get people off the goal of improving student performance. When we talked with students at East High School in Anchorage, we learned there is a high level of anxiety. After working through their questions an African American student stood up and said he was for the exam for two reasons. First, he is the youngest in his family and saw his older brothers and sisters with their high school diplomas that weren't helping them achieve their goals. He didn't want that for himself and knew he would need a higher level of skills. His second reason for supporting the exams is that he could meet the high standards and prove wrong those who doubted his abilities. 229 Co-Chair Parnell 230 Senator Green This question is in regard to the requirement that seventy-percent of funds be utilized for instruction. Are you going to bring up your standards for waivers granted to some school districts? 240 Mr. Cross The law has a phase-in clause. The department is continuing to examine how school districts spend their money. The McDowell study showed that comparing school districts is difficult and more work needs to be done to make better judgements on educational expenditures. We have added two positions to help perform audits. In the future we think we can make better judgements that are not arbitrary. The law also requires us to make a report to the legislature on the types of accepted expenditures. 274 Senator Green When is that report due? Mr. Cross January 2002, 277 Senator Green * 178 Mr. Cross The first year of the implementation we gave districts broad latitude because the districts hadn't had time to fully implement the bill. This year we got into technical issues on expenditures. There were arguments between our auditors and their auditors. We wrote some pretty threatening letters. Perhaps a more cooperative approach would have better results. We don't pretend that we're perfect, but we are serious about what we are doing. 303 Senator P. Kelly How is the enrollment in the Vocational/Technical Center in Seward? [inaudible question] Have you addressed the issue of special needs students who may never receive a diploma? 310 Mr. Cross The department has produced a list of allowable accommodations for students with special needs. It is a work in progress. We will have a Braille version of the test along with other accommodations. There is an art to developing reasonable accommodations. There is a difference between and accommodation and allowing a student to be waived from meeting a standard. The federal law is clear that accommodations are appropriate, waiving is not. Legitimately concerned parents are saying their child will never pass the test. It is difficult to interact with parents who have such strong beliefs. I think I'm hearing too much of this. According to the parents, there are too many who can't meet the standards and I don't think that's true. We have created the impression that it's OK to lower the expectation for a large number of kids. The easiest thing to do is create a back door. I don't think we should do that because there will be lots of kids sent through it who could meet the high standards even if it takes more work. It is worth our effort. 363 Senator P. Kelly Seriously disabled kids won't be able to pass the test. I don't think they necessarily belong in classrooms because of the extra accommodations needed, which takes away from the rest of the class. What do we do about them? 378 Mr. Cross I believe it is a much smaller number than we think. For those who cannot meet the standards no matter what, we need to create an alternative way to measure their actual accomplishments than a certificate of attendance. We are working to develop a certificate of achievement in the House. We are trying to find out if we can do this under existing law. 409 Regarding competition placed on the Alyeska Correspondence School, there has been some decrease in enrollment in the state's program and an increase in school districts' correspondence courses. This is not a bad thing because if gives parents more choices. It is difficult to assess correspondence programs. It is important that the parent has confidence in the program. 438 The vocational program is a different issue. The success or failure is how well it meets the needs of Alaska's work environment in training students to get good jobs. Our program in Seward needs to be on top of anticipating the employment needs. 453 Senator P. Kelly Is enrollment up or down? 454 Dr. Johnson It is about the same. Co-Chair Parnell Dr. Johnson 458 Co-Chair Torgerson Has the department entered into discussions with the University of Alaska or vocational-technology institutions on dealing with those students who don't pass the exam? 462 Mr. Cross Yes. We have formed a committee to look at about short and long-term answers. The university has made a commitment to teacher education, which is promising. Many universities, including the University of Alaska accept students who are deficient in certain areas and then require those students to take courses to bring their standards up. The student must pay for those courses but receives no credit toward graduation. There has been discussion at this university about implementing a charge-back for those remedial courses. 487 Co-Chair Torgerson I hope that when you set the curriculum you structure it to teach material covered on the exit exam to make sure students meet the competency level. 499 Mr. Cross Agree. That is why I stated that the success or failure is not how the students perform on the first test but what we learn from it. I think one of the initial problems will be with mathematics but that it will be the easiest to fix. We are asking students if they can write rather than just whether they can identify good writing. We've spent over ten years coming to agreement on what skills we think is important for students to know in order to reach their goals. 525 Co-Chair Torgerson I agree. The concerns I hear from parents is that the material needed to pass the exam is not being taught. The department is doing a good job getting to this point where we are today. I'm not convinced we will ever achieve the 70 percent goal of amount of funds spent on instruction because of extenuating circumstances. However, I'm concerned about the districts that refuse to comply with the accountability standards. I'm willing to put certain accountability standards into statute to force them to comply. 543 Co-Chair Parnell I want to talk about a group of kids who consume a great deal of resources - high- risk youth. Detail circumstances of a hypothetical child with substance abuse and in trouble with the law. Detail the multiple agencies and up to 15 staff involved in working with this one child. However, these same kids repeat the cycle despite the amount of resources and time invested in them. Do we have a safety net or is this a spider web? Do we help them or do we simply trap them into the system? 589 Tape SF-00 #22 Side B 9:53 AM Co-Chair Parnell Do we have a working system? 585 Mr. Cross These issues have concerned people who provide services to children for a number of years. The system does seem fragmented. I have a theory that so much program dollars come from federal sources that we've allowed ourselves to become structured under federal lines and work in isolation. As a result there are holes and redundancy. HB40's consolidation of departments was a positive move in the delivery of services. Commissioner Perdue and I have made a commitment to identify redundancy and determine what services we need to provide. We are developing recommendations of a more holistic system that looks at it from a parent and child perspective rather than a federal perspective. The cost benefit of dealing with health, social and educational problems early in a person's life is much cheaper than dealing with the problems when the person is an adult. 537 Co-Chair Parnell Is it possible to look at the system holistically when we are so dependent on federal dollars? Will we need to establish a system that foregoes federal funds to achieve this goal? 532 Mr. Cross For me the most difficult thing about coming into the state system from local systems was the departmentalizing of functions. We get trapped into thinking we are trapped when we really aren't. If we can identify ways to better serve the child, and we can probably find the flexibility at the federal level to implement that system. 510 Co-Chair Parnell Department of Military and Veterans Affairs 504 General Phil oates, commissioner, Department of Military and Veterans Affairs The mission is to provide strategically positioned, relevant and ready military forces capable of homeland defense, rapid deployment, joint operations, and mission accomplishment in the state or throughout the world; and provide organizations capable of performing emergency services, training at-risk juveniles, coordinating veterans' programs, and assisting other state and federal agencies in suppressing the use of illegal drugs. 487 Note these are not changes from what appears in statues, they are modifications to expand on the statute. 478 The department is about jobs, education, citizenship, saving lives, drug suppression, responsible use of our funds, expanding services within the budget constraints, military missions in the state and around the world. 471 A general fund input of $9.5 million generates $27.4 million in direct federal funding. This leverages a total economic input of $160 million. 468 There are over 4,200 military members, employees and volunteers located in 76 communities across the state. There is an opportunity to add as many as 726 new federally funded jobs over the next five years. 464 Emergency service is where our job description begins. We had two significant events this year plus numerous smaller events. The first was preparation for potential Y2K problems. This gave us a chance to practice our efforts and as a result of the exposure, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) said Alaska is the best State Emergency Coordination Center (SECC) in the country. The second event is the current avalanches in Southcentral Alaska. We are working to generate a 24-hour-a-day SECC capability by merging the resources across the state and through an energetic training and exercise program. 445 The Youth Challenge Program has a 75 percent success rate. We will graduate almost 200 cadets this year but we have a significant backlog of 300 applicants. We need to expand our services so we've looked for other sources of income and are using other federal funds, such as the school lunch program. We are pursuing a "501C" so we can go after private funding. We hope to serve 300 students a year. This program addresses those who've dropped out of high school and are close to hitting rock bottom. This program takes them from their peer group and family situations. It is not a program to put kids into the military although many do chose to enter the military after their experience in this program. 415 The Veteran's Affairs Program is a model of outsourcing and privatization. The state put $540,000 into the program last year and the program generated about $35 million in benefits of this state. The funding is for positions in the three veteran organizations: Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion and the Disabled American Veterans. The goal is to expand our services especially to veterans in outlying areas using technology because we can't ask for more money. 402 The drug support program is a staffed with full-time national guard members who work in direct support of all federal state and local to assist in drug suppression and drug education. This year this team took more drugs, $93 million worth, off the streets of Alaska than any time in history. This is a fully federal funded program. It works as the spoke of a wheel to bring other agencies together effectively. 387 The combination of administration of the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs with the Department of Natural Resources has been successful. 383 The Rescue Coordination Center saved over 150 lives this year without loss of life to any rescuers working with the active military, coast guard and local police. Our training is extensive. 376 There are more opportunities for the department and the national guard then ever in the past. 373 Our number one mission begins with homeland defense. That is why the militia exists. In order to accomplish this mission, we have to follow federal missions as well. We accomplished all our military missions and did so with no loss of life. 364 On the national level, the Alaska guard was responsible for all the planning and execution involved in moving fighters over the North Pole to participate in the war in Kosovo. By doing these federal missions well, we have opportunities to participate in federally-funded programs 353 We will receive a Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Assistance Team. This is a fully federal funded program with 22 full time positions. This team will provide the people and equipment to respond to any weapons of mass destruction incident or accident. This team will work with the first responder, such as the fire department or local police. We don't take the lead but offer direct support. 339 Another potential program Alaska will be a part of is the National Missile Defense. The president will make decision this summer where to place those stations and if we are chosen we will be ready by 2005 and only a couple of years later if there are any technological delays. Congress has stated that this is an important operation for the country. We need to start now to identify our needs for this facility. The obvious impact of this is $800 million to $1.2 billion in federal military construction in the first three years once the decision is made. There will be about 300 new fully federal funded jobs and tens of millions of dollars per year in service dollars into Alaska. I will be speaking more about this in a meeting before House committees this afternoon. This will make us unique in all state national guard units. 301 We are working to take over the Clear Air Station for space surveillance and security of the installation. We are also getting final approval to take over the North American Air Defense Operation, which will be the ultimate command center for national missile defense. We will be viable well into the future because of our participation into space. 296 We are completely upgrading our search and rescue helicopters. The missions for the Air National Guard will be the same but Alaskans rather than rotating military personnel will staff the programs. 278 We are working to bring in the future, C17 Transports to Alaska. We won't lose our C130 Tactical Transports, which is linked to search and rescue. The C17 will be a strategic resource. 270 I sent a letter to the National Guard Association requesting the CV22 Tilt Rotor Aircraft be fielded in Alaska. It can take off like an airplane and land in a parking lot. It is important for us to have frontline equipment. 262 Two other aspects of the department are the Alaska State Defense Force and the Naval Militia. They both responded to the Turnagan avalanche and also operated the SECC. These members are volunteers. The total budget of $27,000 breaks down to 25 cents and hour for training. 346 The Air National Guard won the Mackay Trophy for rescuing six Alaskans from Mt. Spur in a dangerous mission. That is the highest award in the country. 236 Where do we go in the future? We understand the realities of the budget. The national missile defense program will benefit all of Alaska. Another program to increase tuition assistance to guard members won't need increased funding because of money saved through retirements. 222 The biggest need is with deferred maintenance, which has reached about $22 million. Need to repair our facilities or we will have to close facilities. 214 Co-Chair Parnell 213 Senator Wilken Could you give a breakdown of total national guard participation today in traditional, full-time and part-time positions? 210 Gen. Oates The total force is about 4000 that is equally split between the Army National Guard and the Air National Guard. We have a high percentage of Alaska Natives and a higher percentage of women than the US Department of Defense at large. The Air National Guard has more full-time positions. The majority of members are traditional guard members who work one weekend a month and two weeks a year. However, our increased mission requires us to work them more. The full-time force is mostly federally funded. There are about 200 state employees 181 Senator Wilken Is it safe to say that part-time guard members are the majority? 177 Gen. oates Correct. Senator Wilken Please explain Federal Scout Armories. 174 Gen. oates Fully federal funded program that has been in existence for some time. It is designed to rebuild rural facilities, which are small buildings, without the need to go through strict military construction process. We identify three facilities each year. 158 Senator Wilken Is there a way to connect those armories with a local school so the school can use them when the national guard isn't? 150 Gen. oates Some already are co-use facilities and used by schools. The size of most of these facilities is not anywhere large enough to serve as a half-gym. 144 Co-Chair Torgerson Request briefing on the avalanches in Southcentral. How far reaching will the disaster declaration be? Besides snow, what other elements are involved? Do you have any finances to accompany the declaration? 135 Gen. Oates I will give a specific briefing this afternoon. As of yesterday the state spent $6.5 million. We did a preliminary assessment, which allows us to go after federal assistance. The Department of Transportation and Public Facilities and The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA) responded to the Cordova situation and we assisted them. Then at the disaster policy cabinet meeting we discussed the upcoming weather and determined to stand at full SECC. Therefore, we were ready before the avalanches hit. The initial declaration is written to address the Southcentral area because we knew it would be more widespread than just Cordova. We were able to access more federal funds. The damage itself was caused by the thawing and freezing of deep snow, which was then hit by high winds resulting in slides. We are now confronted with flooding problems with the warming temperatures. Funding for that is contained in the declaration. You mentioned a concern with snow causing a drainage blockage in Lowell Canyon. As of yesterday, the water is still flowing freely. We need to wait until a community declares as disaster before we can apply for federal emergency funding. Today, we amended the original declaration to include Seward, the Kenai Peninsula Borough, the Matanuska- Susitna Borough, the Municipality of Anchorage, Whittier, Hope and Valdez. As of yesterday we were still on emergency power in Seward, Whittier and Hope. A priority is restoring power lines. There was a slide in Valdez yesterday that caused damage to a dwelling. Access to Valdez is limited to emergency vehicles. The amendment to the emergency declaration is not restricted to just damage already identified. We will be assessing more areas to qualify for federal assistance. We have to have enough damage to meet a certain threshold of $1 million. 0 Tape SFC-00 #22 Side A 10:41 AM Gen. Oates We are not asking for federal funds for equipment to respond to this disaster because we already have adequate equipment. We are looking for long-term resources. 15 Co-Chair Torgerson I will attend your briefing later in the afternoon. 19 Gen. Oates Comments on the positive attitude in the community of Seward 27 Co-Chair Parnell 30 Gen. Oates Appreciate the support the Senate has given the department. 35 Senator Leman 37 Gen. Oates 43 Co-Chair Parnell Conclusion 43 Adjourn 10:43 AM SENATE FINANCE COMMITTEE LOG NOTES 02/08/00 Page 13
| Document Name | Date/Time | Subjects |
|---|