Alaska State Legislature
News from the Office of Representative Con Bunde

Chair: House, Health, Education, and Social Services Committee, Vice-Chair: House Judiciary Committee, Member: Legislative Budget and Audit Committee, House Special Committee on Oil & Gas, Select Committee on Legislative Ethics

during session:State Capitol, Room 104
Juneau, AK 99801
(907) 465-4843

during interim:716 W Fourth Avenue, Suite 410
Anchorage, AK 99501-2133
(907) 258-8168
e-mail: Representative_Con_Bunde@Legis.state.ak.us

Rep. Bunde Proposes "Fair Share" for UAA

For Immediate Release: December 4, 1997 Contact: Rep. Con Bunde (907) 258-8168.

Anchorage - Representative Con Bunde (R-Anchorage), chairman of the House Health, Education and Social Services Committee, announced Thursday he has filed a bill to make major changes in the stateÕs funding of the University of Alaska system.

Current state law requires the Legislature to appropriate a lump sum to the University which the State Board of Regents then divides among the campuses. Of the university’s 32,000 students, about 18,600 attend at Anchorage, 9,200 at Fairbanks, 4,400 at Southeast, and the rest at one of 11 extended campuses. In 1997, the university budget totaled $164 million.

"Sixty percent of the university’s students attend the University of Alaska-Anchorage (UAA)," said Rep. Bunde, a former speech professor at UAA. "But under the current system UAA receives only 35 percent of university dollars. Its obvious the students, faculty and staff at UAA are being short-changed. My bill will help address this long-standing inequity and bring Anchorage students closer to their fair share of state funding."

Rep. Bunde proposes changing the current funding mechanism to allocate funding for the University based on the number of students attending each campus. The Legislature will address the bill when it reconvenes in January.

Rep. Bunde said he expects his bill to begin a state-wide dialogue among legislators, educators and municipal officials regarding appropriate levels of financial support for the services offered at various university campuses.

"The people of Alaska have stated clearly they want the Legislature to streamline state spending, and make delivery of all state services, including education, more efficient," Rep. Bunde said. "It seems only logical that the majority of our education dollars ought to go to the majority of our students."

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