Peggy's Corner of the House

By Representative

Peggy Wilson

Hello and welcome to week eleven of Peggy’s Corner of the House.

If you are following the legislature at any level right now you will see that bills are moving rapidly as much of the behind the scenes work and committee deliberations have been completed. Committee meetings have expanded hours and weekend meetings are regularly happening to be sure that everyone has adequate information on all of the matters before us. This is in addition to the major session issues such as education, gasline, omnibus crime bill, the TRS/PERS unfunded liability and the capital budget.

There have been several bills in the House this past week that I believe address some pertinent needs of Alaskans.

HB 134 will place the critical Mediset medication management service program into Alaska statutes. It then allows the State of Alaska to seek approval from the US Department of Health and Social Services to pay for this service through Medicaid. The Mediset program helps to keep many of our vulnerable (susceptible) Alaskans on their medications. We are hopeful this will lead to long-term savings by the State as those patients are kept out of emergency rooms and are able to stay closer to families or home. This will also benefit our small community pharmacies in seeking reimbursement for the mediset service.

One of my personal bills, HB 21 which has been known as the 4-day school week, has been reworked to address some

potential concerns that were raised regarding crediting

teachers retirement. Currently teachers’ retirements are based on days not on hours so we needed to change days to hours. We have done this.

HB 366 allows the Alaska Department of Public Safety to receive information from the Alaska Court System when an individual has been prohibited from firearm ownership due to court judgment of mental illness or incompetence. The information will transmit limited identifying information to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), allowing federally-licensed firearms dealers to see that information on potential buyers. I am certainly not a fan of restricting our second amendment rights in any way but I do understand responsible firearm ownership and safety for others. This has been endorsed by the NRA.

I am very supportive of SB 195 which is an effort to work with the Alaska Commission on Postsecondary Education and the Alaska Student Loan Corporation to enact student loan reforms. As tuition has continued to rise, our state program has not kept pace in helping our college students. The reforms in this bill will help to keep student debt lower and more manageable, and encourage timely completion of degrees to allow quicker entry into the workforce.

HB 233, which has been named “Erin’s Law,” has received quite a bit of publicity across the state (rightly so). It is based on a nation-wide effort to raise awareness of child abuse. Alaska has an inordinately high and very chronic problem of child abuse which tends to be even higher in our rural

communities. I am supportive of this preventative education in the hopes it will increase children’s awareness and increase their ability to know the difference between safe and unsafe secrets. If they can trust someone to be able to tell the secret and are believed, it will make a profound change in their lives. Children that don’t get help tend to end up in prison or in abusive relationships (continuing the cycle) and early intervention can help put an end to this vicious cycle.

Another bill that I am hopeful will make a difference is SB 173 that aims to make misleading packaging on illicit synthetic drugs such as “Spice” against the law. It also will carry a hefty fine of $500.00 per package. There are more and more cases of incredibly dreadful side effects happening to young people who use “Spice”. They do not realize how dangerous these drugs are. “Spice” is packaged and sold in stores in a manner that makes our young folks and even parents think it is safe.

The next two weeks I will be detailing many of the changes happening in the education omnibus bill, the gas pipeline bill and the operating and capital budgets.

That’s all for now from Peggy’s Corner of the House – talk with you next week!