The Welfare of Children and Youth is Multipartisan
A few weeks ago, Alaska was ranked 43rd for child well-being by the national KIDS COUNT program. This report and statewide KIDS COUNT reports that were released in May show that our children, youth, and families are suffering. The Alaska Children’s Budget released last year shows Alaska has decreased its overall investment in children, youth, and families by nearly 13% over the past decade – a decrease of $400 million dollars. Then only a couple days ago, our children, youth, and families experienced another detrimental decision when Governor Dunleavy vetoed several millions that support them.
Alaska Children’s Trust is disappointed and saddened to see less and less investment in our most precious resources – children and youth - while Alaska continually increases our investment in costly and non-impactful services like corrections.
The multipartisan budget proposed by the Legislature provided exciting opportunities to build a brighter future for Alaska’s children, youth, and families – including a significant additional investment in Pre-Kindergarten, which is known to improve education outcomes for young children before entering the K-12 system. The welfare of children and youth in the foster care system should not be a partisan issue – yet over $5 million was cut from Children’s Services that support our children and families in crisis. Cutting the largest provider of civil legal aid to survivors of Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault will prevent families from getting the justice they need to break the cycles of trauma. Funding for the Alaska Tribal Child Welfare Compact – a meaningful government-to-government collaboration to reduce the proportion of Alaska Native children in our child welfare system – was zeroed out. And over $20 million in support of major school maintenance projects were vetoed. All these programs and initiatives are essential to the well-being of Alaskan children and families across the state.
As we continue to devalue our children, youth, and families by investing less, we will only continue to see our overall ranking of child well-being drop. We will continue to see children and youth suffer and our rates of child maltreatment, poverty, suicide, health disparities, and so much more increase. This lack of investment sends a negative message to current and future residents and businesses of Alaska. It shows that Alaska wants to go backwards as a state, and reverse the progress made in the health, education, and economic well-being of our children and families.
ACT calls on the Legislature and the Governor to work together and reimagine an Alaska where we are ranked one of the best places to raise children. We challenge them, during the second Special Session, to agree on a comprehensive fiscal plan that truly invests in our children, youth, and families, and creates the revenue needed to build thriving families. Having a sustainable fiscal plan will ensure that we do not keep balancing the budget on the backs of children, youth, and families.
Read more about the KIDS COUNT data here to see how our children and families are doing.
