Latest news with #JamesBrooks
ABC News
27-05-2025
- Business
- ABC News
Small businesses are making building homes more expensive, CEDA report warns
Australian housing costs have surged, due in part to a shortage of homes relative to a rapidly increasing population. But what if you could build 12 per cent more homes each year than we are currently with no extra workers? Both the federal government's Productivity Commission and the Committee for Economic Development in Australia (CEDA) believe that is possible by improving efficiency in the construction sector. "The Productivity Commission has found that, even when adjusting for size and quality improvements, construction labour productivity per hour worked has declined by around 12 per cent since 1994, and still significantly underperformed the wider economy, which experienced labour productivity growth of around 49 per cent over the same period," noted CEDA economists Melissa Wilson and James Brooks. In a report released by CEDA today, the two economists argued that the commonly blamed suspects of industrial relations and workplace conditions in the building sector are not among the key drivers of this productivity decline. They argue the key culprits include complex and slow building approvals processes, a lack of innovation, skills shortages and a lack of scale. It is the latter issue they focused on in their report. "There are currently 410,602 construction firms in Australia, of which 98.5 per cent are small businesses with fewer than 20 employees," they observed. "Ninety-one per cent of construction firms are microbusinesses with fewer than five employees, up significantly from 43 per cent in 1988/89." This makes construction one of the least concentrated industries in Australia, with these micro and small firms accounting for more than half of the money spent on building work in Australia. Yet they achieve far less output than the small number of larger construction firms. "We found that Australian construction firms with 200 or more employees generate 86 per cent more revenue per worker than Australian construction firms with five to 19 employees," CEDA's economists noted. "If firms in the Australian construction industry matched the size distribution of firms in the manufacturing industry, the construction industry would produce 12 per cent, or $54 billion, more revenue per year without requiring any additional labour. "This is equivalent to gaining an extra 150,000 construction workers." Not that all experts agree that smaller building firms are inherently less efficient than large operators. "I do not agree with the conclusion that big is the answer," wrote former NSW building commissioner David Chandler on LinkedIn in response to the report. "The Tier1 contractors in Australia are mostly foreign owned and amongst the most risk adverse and expensive players." However, in their paper, Ms Wilson and Mr Brooks noted that overseas research has produced similar findings about the overall productivity benefits of larger firms. "Researchers have found a strong connection between firm size and productivity in US residential construction, where firms with 500 or more employees produce six times as many units per employee than firms with fewer than 20 employees, and firms with 100 to 499 employees are twice as productive," they wrote. So why are smaller construction firms so much less efficient than larger ones? Ms Wilson and Mr Brooks concluded that smaller firms are less able to achieve economies of scale. "Consultation with CEDA members and other industry experts has confirmed that the construction industry tends to be fragmented, insular and lacking incentives to adopt new ways of doing things," they argued. "They have less capacity to innovate, to invest in equipment and technology, and to devote to training and capability building, which are all important drivers of productivity growth." The economists said the boom-bust cycles prevalent in construction seemed to have accelerated the trend towards using subcontractors, and therefore the dominance of smaller firms and independent contractors. "As subcontracting fragments the industry, this has likely increased the time and effort spent on procurement, contract negotiations, supervision and regulation, and dispute resolution," they noted. "Our consultation has identified reworks and disputes as a major source of inefficiency in the sector." So, if smaller operations are so much less efficient than larger ones, why have they proliferated? The authors say perverse incentives in the federal tax system are a major suspect. "Being self-employed can result in paying less tax than a salaried employee earning the same pre-tax income," they observed. "Our analysis of HILDA income data for people working at least 30 hours per week shows around 8.5 per cent of independent contractors in the construction sector disclose income under the tax-free threshold of $18,200, and therefore pay no tax, compared with just 2 per cent of salaried construction workers. "A high-income construction worker earning $148,000 per year would pay 26 per cent tax as a salaried worker. As a contractor, they could structure their income with a discretionary trust and a 'bucket' company and pay just 18 per cent tax — a difference of $12,400 in annual-take home pay after tax. "Additionally, in trust structures, a high-income individual can distribute income across household members, who may pay even lower tax rates. Or, in rare cases, contractors can simply misrepresent their income and avoid tax altogether." Not to mention that small businesses have been able to access an instant asset write-off that further cuts their taxes, when they buy things like tools or utes. Independent economist Saul Eslake said the "excellent report" identified some of the costs of what he labels "small business fetishism". "Small business fetishism refers to the widespread (and bi-partisan) belief that there is something inherently more noble about running a small business than working for a big one, a government or a not-for-profit, and that therefore small business operators should pay less tax on any given amount of income, and enjoy preferential treatment in many other respects, than people earning wages or salaries, large businesses, and others less 'noble'," he wrote on his LinkedIn page. Aside from income tax minimisation, the authors also identified complex and localised building approvals processes, state-based trades licensing, and the lack of a stable workflow due to the demise of the public housing sector as factors preventing the growth of more large construction firms. "To encourage scale, governments should: They also noted that reduced planning regulation appeared to be correlated with an increase in construction productivity in Auckland.
Martechvibe
26-05-2025
- Business
- Martechvibe
FourNet Unveils FourNet IntellAIgent
IntellAIgent uses Agentic AI to transform front and back-office customer service operations in seconds, with personalised, complex, context-aware automations Staff Writer less than a minute ago FourNet has launched FourNet IntellAIgent, an AI-powered automation platform aimed at helping businesses improve operations, customer experiences, and accelerate AI adoption. The platform enables organisations to develop their own AI Agents—digital employees designed to handle tasks and workflows efficiently. Using 'Agentic AI', IntellAIgent advances contact centre technology by managing complex, unstructured data and personalising customer interactions with context-aware, natural conversations. FourNet's AI Agent can perform and manage tasks across multiple systems and platforms, including appointment scheduling, multi-channel customer communication, diary management, real-time schedule updates, and CRM entries—all without human involvement. Agentic AI combines machine learning, natural language understanding and contextual awareness to create autonomous systems that can handle business processes with human-like intelligence. In comparison, traditional automation and rules-driven AI follow rigid pathways and struggle with complexity and unpredictable scenarios. ALSO READ: Can Customer Support Depend on Context-aware AI to be More Human-like? Richard Pennington, CEO of FourNet said, 'FourNet IntellAIgent marks the next evolution in contact centre technology. Our AI-powered agent can do in seconds what it would take a human agent to do in hours or days, and what Gen AI couldn't handle.' 'IntellAIgent will help organisations across every sector to do more with less, while coping with rising customer expectations.' FourNet IntellAIgent's Key Features : Intelligent Decision Making: IntellAIgent is an intelligent team member that handles repetitive tasks, makes smart decisions, and learns over time. Multi-Channel Integration: IntellAIgent manages customer interactions across various channels, including voice, email, and messaging platforms. Real-Time Analytics Integration: IntellAIgent makes data-driven decisions as customer interactions unfold. 300+ Pre-built Integrations – IntellAIgent connects to the tools businesses already use, from CRMs like Salesforce, SAP, and Zendesk to communication platforms like Twilio, Amazon Connect, and Genesys Cloud. 'Forget chatbots, forget RPA, which require decision trees and human input, IntellAIgent is way more clever, adaptive and efficient – it's like automation on acid!' We are enabling organisations big and small to deliver superior customer experience in the blink of an eye, while significantly improving their operational efficiency,' said James Brooks, Practice Lead for AI and Automation at FourNet. ALSO READ: VideoMining Announces New Grocery Front End Behavior Benchmark Study The Martechvibe team works with a staff of in-house writers and industry experts. View More Locala's omnichannel advertising platform leverages granular insights and cutting-edge AI to help marketers plan, activate, and measure campaigns that are personalised to the local consumer. It specialises in transforming complex mobility and consumer data into actionable audience insights, fueling advanced media strategies. VISIT WEBSITE Blue Prism is a global software provider, offering ROM 2, an intelligent automation implementation methodology that empowers teams to scale their digital workflow. One of its use cases is sales and marketing solutions, which is powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) algorithms. VISIT WEBSITE Pega is a combined business process management and robotic process automation (RPA) platform that comes with workforce analytics features. 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Utilising its capabilities, marketers can personalise and automate customer interactions, depending on their needs and preferences. VISIT WEBSITE SAP is a composable marketing automation technology provider, offering SAP Intelligent RPA solutions to automate repetitive, rules-based business processes, including marketing and sales. Using its tech stack, marketers can automatically extract product data from manufacturers' websites, update online inventory and import website and email sales. VISIT WEBSITE Microsoft offers Power Automate, a low-code and AI-powered RPA software that helps marketers streamline tasks like lead management, email campaigns, social media management, data analysis, content publishing, and customer feedback. Leveraging its capabilities, businesses can automate repetitive tasks, such as lead capture and email marketing workflows. VISIT WEBSITE IBM offers AI-powered Robotic Process Automation capabilities for CRM and marketing functions. It enables users to automate workflows with integrated OCR and intelligent chatbots, distribute work across multiple bots without human interventions and manage emails via low-code authoring tools. VISIT WEBSITE Hyland offers an AI-powered comprehensive robotic automation software suite, enabling marketers' teams to automate their campaigns. Its Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology allows businesses to automate repetitive marketing functions, such as execution of targeted and personalised strategies in near real-time. VISIT WEBSITE Datamatics is an intelligent automation platform, offering TruBot RPA designer, a low-code bot design tool for marketing teams to create customised bots quickly. It provides 500 pre-built components, enabling low-code design and rapid deployment capabilities with drag-and-drop options. VISIT WEBSITE Automation Anywhere offers Automation Success Platform powered by Vertex AI, enabling enterprises to develop a cloud-based digital workforce at scale. Leveraging its bots, ML, and AI technologies, marketers can automate their marketing and sales processes. One of its popular offerings is Automation Co-Pilot, a genAI-powered assistant that empowers businesses to create and summarise content. VISIT WEBSITE Appian is a global technology provider, delivering end-to-end process automation with RPA, AI, IDP and API integrations. Utilising the readily available APIs of this low-code platform, teams can create a series of connected digital business applications including customer management and marketing. VISIT WEBSITE Powered by Zoho Corporation, Zoho Analytics enables marketers to track all critical metrics in a single platform to enhance marketing outcomes. The company offers 75 pre-built data visualisation reports and dashboards on marketing performance for collaborative analysis. With its AI-powered assistant, marketers can generate automated insights, predict future trends, and configure smart alerts. VISIT WEBSITE Semrush is an online visibility management and content marketing SaaS platform, offering marketing analytics tools to global businesses. Its open-source analytical tools include Market Explorer and Traffic Analytics for understanding market trends and website traffic respectively. VISIT WEBSITE Nielsen is a global audience insights, data and analytics solution provider, helping marketers measure what people listen to and watch. It offers a comprehensive, AI-powered Nielsen Marketing Cloud platform with sub-products such as Audience Segments, Scarborough, and Advanced Audiences to understand audiences for different targeting initiatives. VISIT WEBSITE MoEngage is a full-stack marketing automation platform, offering consumer insights and analytics solutions for marketers to understand customer LTV. With MoEngage Analytics, they can measure user engagement, spot behavioural patterns, and act on retention to prevent app uninstalls. VISIT WEBSITE Microsoft Clarity is a behavioural analysis tool that helps marketers understand user interaction with their website. It supports features like Session recordings, Heatmaps, and ML insights in real time. Processing more than a petabyte of data from over 100 million users per month, Clarity accommodates limitless traffic for various marketing measurements at scale. VISIT WEBSITE Powered by AI-led insights, Merkle offers scalable marketing analytics and CX technology solutions, helping brands to optimise their campaigns. Some of its flagship solutions are Measurement & Media analytics, Consumer & Experience insights, and Product & Market intelligence. VISIT WEBSITE Hubspot offers marketing analytics and dashboard software, enabling businesses to make data-backed decisions for use cases, such as revenue generation, site analytics and detailed reporting. 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VISIT WEBSITE Magnite is an independent sell-side advertising technology provider, enabling publishers to monetise their content across all screens and formats. It offers Magnite Streaming, a singular supply-side platform that merges technology from the Magnite CTV and SpotX platforms. Utilising this functionality, marketers can identify their potential audiences to restructure their targeting strategies. VISIT WEBSITE IBM offers a comprehensive suite of Watson Advertising to agencies and marketers. With Watson Advertising's AI-powered assistant, advertisers can customise their advertisements, based on real-time ad results. It also supports functionalities of cookieless advertising, ad fraud management and brand safety measurements. VISIT WEBSITE Google features a comprehensive list of AI-powered Ad tools under its Google Ads offering. Some of its popular tools include Keywords Planner, Ads Editor, Reach Planner, Ads Mobile App, Insights Finder, Ads API, and Recommendations Page. 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It offers real-time sentiment analytics capabilities, helping enterprises derive behavioural insights from unified user profiles to foster hyper-personalised experiences. VISIT WEBSITE SAP is a company-wide customer data management platform, helping marketers improve engagement, conversion, and retention. It offers a genAI-powered data model, enabling enterprises to unify their B2B and B2C customers' profiles to reach their personalisation goals. VISIT WEBSITE Oracle is a global database management company, providing CDP solutions, under its flagship product: Oracle Unity. Its AI-powered models enable marketers to create hyper-personsalised campaigns with predictive insights by streamlining real-time customer data from heterogeneous sources. VISIT WEBSITE Growthloop is a composable CDP platform, allowing marketing and sales team to action their data at scale. It offers GrowthLoop Audience Builder, enabling marketers to initiate their lead generation functions. VISIT WEBSITE Adobe Experience Cloud offers a real-time CDP, letting users create high-value audience segments for B2C and B2B use cases across their marketing funnel. It follows a cookieless marketing approach to automatically unify customer data across various online and offline channels in real-time. VISIT WEBSITE ActionIQ is a composable CDP platform that offers audience segmentation, acquisition marketing, and Customer 360 capabilities. It integrates analytical tools, enabling marketers to collect and analyse their first-party customer data at scale. VISIT WEBSITE Zoho CRM leverages automation and comprehensive analytics to empower any sales team, fostering stronger customer loyalty. Ideal for both small businesses and enterprises, this software enables enhanced productivity and tailored solutions through predictive intelligence. VISIT WEBSITE Zendesk offers Zendesk Sell, an easy-to-deploy CRM platform that is simple to deploy and navigate, catering to businesses of any scale. Its mobile-friendly Sell app has the functionalities of geolocation, helping sales and marketing teams. Offering an all-in-one CRM platform, organisations can implement use cases like prospecting, engagement, lead generation and communication capabilities. VISIT WEBSITE SugarCRM is a global CRM software provider, helping marketing, sales, and service teams improve efficiency through automation, data, and intelligence in near real-time. It offers Sugar Market, an all-in-one marketing automation platform that helps marketers to automate their campaign with higher ROI. VISIT WEBSITE Salesforce is a one-stop sales and support CRM software that regularly updates customer records, tracks emails and calls, and creates organised support processes for quicker customer responses. Its simple and scalable infrastructure is ideal for businesses of all sizes. VISIT WEBSITE Pipedrive stands out with its emphasis on automation, tailorability, and seamless integration. Purposefully built to enhance the efficiency and productivity of sales professionals, this CRM solution has an intuitive setup and robust capabilities. It facilitates lead generation, comprehensive sales analytics, and seamless business expansion. VISIT WEBSITE Oracle NetSuite CRM, a component of Oracle's business software suite, is for all midsize and booming businesses that want a comprehensive, integrated CRM solution with ERP capabilities. Using it, customers and partners can directly interact with the platform, freeing the additional work load for their sales team. VISIT WEBSITE Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales represents a robust cloud-based CRM solution brimming with features such as pipeline assessment, relationship analytics, and conversational intelligence. It utilises AI-powered insights to provide actionable intelligence via predictive analytics, lead scoring and sentiment analysis. VISIT WEBSITE Less Annoying is a CRM software that utilises a straightforward search feature within its contact management system, making it easy to track contacts. It is ideal for small-sized businesses and offers a highly intuitive and user-friendly interface. VISIT WEBSITE Insightly offers CRM software solutions for enterprises looking to understand their audience data across various marketing functions. It integrates seamlessly with third-party apps, streamlining workflow automation, including bulk emailing and report generation. VISIT WEBSITE HubSpot's sleek dashboard with consolidated CRM tools simplify complex customer data, further transforming it into meaningful insights. Complementing typical CRM functionalities, HubSpot provides tailored options, including conversation intelligence and email monitoring. VISIT WEBSITE Apptivo delivers adaptable and web-based CRM solutions, enabling marketing and sales teams to streamline all customer service requirements across various devices and browsers. Despite its focused feature set, it encompasses over 65 interconnected applications alongside a robust sales pipeline management tool, ensuring efficient tracking of potential leads without any downtime. VISIT WEBSITE Sitecore offers composable cloud solutions with its flagship products, Sitecore Experience Platform(XP) and Sitecore Experience Manager (XM). They help marketers to overcome scalability challenges. Some of its features include intuitive visual editing, headless delivery, marketing automation, scalable personalisation, data and machine learning capabilities. VISIT WEBSITE Salesforce Experience Cloud is a platform that helps enterprises link clients, partners, and employees to securely exchange information and documents. Built on its Customer 360 platform, Salesforce's DXP ensures seamless integration with any solution in the Salesforce ecosystem. VISIT WEBSITE Oracle Cloud offers a comprehensive suite of platform-based marketing automation solutions for personalised B2B and B2C automation campaigns. Some of its featured products are Eloqua Marketing Automation, CrowdTwist Loyalty and Engagement, and Unity Customer Data Platform. VISIT WEBSITE Optimizely is a digital experience platform (DXP) provider that offers Optimizely One, an easy-to-use and fully integrated suite. It provides a single, unified workflow with thoughtfully embedded AI and machine-learning algorithms, accelerating work across the entire marketing lifecycle. VISIT WEBSITE OpenText offers a cloud-native, scalable platform for enterprises to streamline their marketing functions. It provides fully composable content management, digital asset management, creative workflows, personalisation, targeting and customer data technologies in one place, ensuring a holistic approach to B2B, B2E and B2C experiences. VISIT WEBSITE Neptune DXP is a PaaS(Platform-as-a-Service) provider, helping marketing teams build custom apps based on modular, reusable application building blocks. The company offers flexible environments to businesses across different verticals, further providing personalised digital solutions at scale. VISIT WEBSITE Magnolia is a composable DXP that comes with no-code connector packs and low-code micro-frameworks for third-party integrations. It also offers an open-source version alongside its commercial plans enabling enterprises to build tailored use cases. VISIT WEBSITE Liferay DXP helps marketers deliver personalised and connected digital experiences across a broad range of channels, including customer portals, websites, intranets, mobile apps, and connected devices. It offers intuitive CMS, user analytics, and site management tools that businesses need to launch, test and optimise digital experiences for faster go-to-market. VISIT WEBSITE Powered by IBM Consulting, IBM iX offers a composable DXP, providing a comprehensive solution to make enterprises' systems future-ready. Utilising its data-driven insights and intelligent workflows, marketers can design and deliver human-centred experiences across the customer lifecycle. VISIT WEBSITE HCL Digital Experience (DX), forms part of a wider HCL Customer Experience (CX) product portfolio, offering core capabilities such as content management, DAM, CDP called Signals, and low-code application development. It provides services in government, life sciences, insurance, financial services, and other verticals. VISIT WEBSITE Contentstack is a headless CMS and Composable Digital Experience Platform (DXP) solution provider that helps marketers gain a competitive edge. It recently launched into Google Cloud Marketplace, and is also available on Microsoft Azure and AWS. It seamlessly enables mid-market brands to adopt its omnichannel campaign engine to drive higher conversions and sales. VISIT WEBSITE Bloomreach Commerce Experience Cloud provides businesses an edge with its modular capabilities: Content Management System (CMS), Discovery features for search and merchandising optimisation, and Engagement tools such as Customer Data Platforms (CDP) for personalisation and analytics. VISIT WEBSITE Adobe Experience Cloud offers a comprehensive set of services specifically designed to address the day-to-day requirements for personalised customer experience at scale. Its platform helps manage different digital content and assets to improve customer satisfaction. Some of its products include Adobe Gen Studio, Experience Manager Sites, Real-time CDP, and Marketo Engage. VISIT WEBSITE Acquia offers DXP solutions, comprising of two main elements: Acquia Drupal Cloud and Acquia Marketing Cloud. It can be accessed in both platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and software-as-a-service (SaaS) with additional components such as Site Factory for multisite management, digital asset management (DAM), CDP, personalisation, and Campaign Studio. VISIT WEBSITE
Business Wire
21-05-2025
- Business
- Business Wire
FourNet Unveils AI-powered Contact Centre ‘Agent' That Can Think, Act and Learn
MANCHESTER, England--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Digital transformation and customer experience specialists, FourNet, today announced the launch of FourNet IntellAIgent, designed to enable businesses to streamline operations, enhance customer experiences, and accelerate AI-driven transformation. FourNet IntellAIgent is an innovative, artificial intelligence-powered, automation platform which allows organisations to create their own intelligent digital employees (AI Agents). Using what is known as 'Agentic AI', IntellAIgent is a significant leap forward in contact centre technology, handling complex, unstructured data and personalising every customer facing interaction with context-aware, natural conversations FourNet's AI Agent solution is able to launch and manage complex tasks using multiple platforms and systems such as appointment scheduling, back and forth with customers on different channels, diary entries, real-time scheduling changes, and CRM updates - all without the need for human intervention. Agentic AI combines advanced machine learning, natural language understanding and contextual awareness to create autonomous systems that can handle complex business processes with human-like intelligence. In comparison, traditional automation and rules-driven AI follow rigid pathways and struggle with complexity and unpredictable scenarios. Richard Pennington, CEO at FourNet said: " FourNet IntellAIgent marks the next evolution in contact centre technology. Our AI-powered agent can do in seconds what it would take a human agent to do in hours or days, and which Gen AI couldn't handle. ' IntellAIgent will help organisations across every sector to do more with less, while coping with rising customer expectations.' Key features of FourNet IntellAIgent include: Intelligent Decision Making: IntellAIgent is a tireless, intelligent team member that handles repetitive tasks, makes smart decisions, and learns over time. Multi-Channel Integration: IntellAIgent seamlessly manages customer interactions across various channels, including voice, email, and messaging platforms. Real-Time Analytics Integration: IntellAIgent makes data-driven decisions as customer interactions unfold. 300+ pre-built integrations - from CRMs like Salesforce, SAP, and Zendesk to communication platforms such as Twilio, Amazon Connect, and Genesys Cloud, IntellAIgent seamlessly connects to the tools businesses already use. It also integrates with the latest Large Language Models from OpenAI, Google, Meta, and Anthropic, ensuring cutting-edge AI capabilities. James Brooks, Practice Lead for AI and Automation at FourNet, added: 'Forget chatbots, forget RPA which require decision trees and human input, IntellAIgent is way more clever, adaptive and efficient – it's like automation on acid!' 'We are enabling organisations big and small to deliver superior customer experience in the blink of an eye, while significantly improving their operational efficiency.' FourNet has also launched the IntellAIgent Challenge to discover the most complex task IntellAIgent can handle. To find out more, please visit About FourNet Award-winning FourNet is one of the fastest growing privately-owned technology companies in the UK, providing CX, AI and Automation, Contact Centre as a Service, managed service, cybersecurity and secure network infrastructure solutions. We work with some of the most secure, critical and commercially driven customers in the UK, including more than 30 UK Government departments and agencies, as well as emergency services, local authorities, critical national infrastructure organisations (CNI) and Financial Services. FourNet is an ethical and environmentally responsible business, committed to maximising our positive environmental and social impacts and championing transparency in all our business operations. For further information about FourNet, please visit
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Alaska Legislature approves $5.5 million for child advocacy centers, fills federal funding shortfall
The Alaska and American flags fly in front of the Alaska State Capitol on Tuesday, April 22, 2025. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon) The Alaska Legislature has approved state funding for child advocacy centers, which support child victims of physical and sexual abuse. Alaska's 20 centers were in limbo, facing a $5.5 million shortfall after federal grants were ended or cut, as well as uncertainty over whether operations and services would continue past June. On Friday afternoon, the budget conference committee – tasked with hammering out the final budget between the House and Senate versions – approved the funds to fill the gap and provide $5.5 million in state funding. Rep. Andy Jospephson, D-Anchorage and chair of the committee, said it was made clear that funding for the centers was a priority. 'They're critically important, and they rose to the very, very top of my list,' he said. 'In other words, there was no ask, given their financial predicament and importance, that I thought was more significant.' Mari Mukai, executive director of the nonprofit Alaska Children's Alliance, said she was grateful for the funding. The alliance provides support, training and technical assistance to Alaska's 20 child advocacy centers around the state. 'I know what a difficult fiscal situation we're in right now and understand that many difficult decisions needed to be made,' she said in a phone interview on Monday. Child advocacy centers provide services for children and their caregivers after suspected physical or sexual abuse, including trauma-informed interviewing, forensic services, streamlined investigations, and victim advocacy through the life of the case. They served 2,061 families statewide last year, Mukai said. The centers are funded at $10.9 million through a mix of federal and local grants, as well as other funding they raise. Mukai said the state's backstop funding will make up about half of their budget, and enable the centers to continue current operations and services. 'Unfortunately, Alaska is consistently on the top of the nation for rates of child abuse and violence, and domestic violence, and so unfortunately, yes, I do think that there's still a lot of need, but this would be a great first step,' she said. The Alaska Legislature voted to approve the final operating budget on Tuesday, and Gov. Mike Dunleavy will issue budget vetoes of individual line items before July 1. Mukai added that another federal grant the centers rely on is in danger – the Victims of Crime Act, provided by the U.S. Department of Justice through penalties related to crimes. Alaska advocates are urging the congressional delegation to push the U.S. Congress to protect this funding, as the Trump administration has moved to cancel hundreds of grants and millions of dollars supporting victims services through the Department of Justice. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Decades of inaction by Alaska's leadership is leaving kids with the bill. Why are we OK with that?
A school bus drives in front of the Alaska State Capitol on Monday, Feb. 3, 2025. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon) For decades, our elected leadership at both the legislative and executive levels have neglected to look ahead and find ways to cement a sustainable future for Alaskans. Instead of working to establish and secure new revenue streams, we married ourselves to oil and mining companies that inexplicably continue to receive massive tax cuts, even as the returns of their industries decline. Instead of standing on issues like good schools, quality roads, and affordable energy, political debates are instead hogged by questions about how big of a Permanent Fund dividend one can expect. In the sphere of Alaska's public education, this has all culminated in a way that is nothing short of a crisis. The state has not significantly increased the per-student dollar amount that goes to education since 2012, even though inflation has risen a whopping 40% since then. Make no mistake, flat funding in an era of 40% inflation is in fact a cut of 40%. Is it really so surprising that our declining test scores have mirrored that? All the while, the state shuffles between excuses, claiming we can't afford to spend more on education (lack of revenue); blaming so-called 'special interest groups' (otherwise known as parents, and the teachers who spend 40 hours a week with your children); and insisting that more charter schools will solve all our problems. Charters in Alaska are a wholly unsustainable model that is not expandable in any way, shape or form. To be clear, instead of addressing the declining enrollment and financial exigency that has led school districts across the state to shutter and consolidate neighborhood schools, the governor is literally proposing we open more schools. He has advocated making the application process easier and having the state take over the approval process, even though it's the local school district that would have to foot the bill in their budget. We can't even afford to run the schools we have. We can't open more. What's more, it is imperative that Alaskans understand that every charter school is subsidized by hundreds and hundreds of hours of volunteer work — unpaid work donated by willing families. Charter schools in Alaska are public schools of choice, not neighborhood schools, meaning their enrollment is done by lottery. Families are often required to attend an information night and are asked to sign a document indicating they understand the special commitments associated with attending a charter before they are permitted to even enter the lottery. Those commitments include student transportation (not a single charter in the state is able to offer busing); supplying food (many charter buildings do not have kitchens and do not operate a food program for breakfast or lunch, and some are able to offer only cold lunch options); and volunteer hour quotas. Many charters do not have school nurses, PE teachers, libraries or librarians, music teachers, or counselors. Every family is expected to contribute significant time, labor, and/or money to the school to fill in the gaps. On no planet is this a sustainable model. This magnitude of commitment is not possible for many, many families. Advocating for more charters is not a way forward; instead, it is the foremost example of the short-sighted leadership that has led Alaska down this devastating path. Public education is not supposed to be a caste system. The governor is fond of claiming that charters are unilaterally responsible for superior academic performance. This is a spurious connection. Certain legislators are fond of impassioned speeches urging Alaska to prioritize charters because their constituents demand it. That does not legitimize continuing to grow an inequitable system. What constituents are really demanding is a better education and better experience for their kids. Sadly, the last few decades of underfunding have taught us that such an experience may only be attainable through enrollment at a charter school. Charters are like splinter cells, able to write completely well-intentioned education philosophy into their Magna Carta, allowing them to prioritize small student bodies, low student-to-teacher ratio, alternative learning models that can suit different learners, and immersion into things like place-based learning, the arts, or languages. Our neighborhood schools don't get to do that, because they can't afford it. That's not a reason to put more kids into charters. That's a reason to demand our government do better. You cannot blame parents and families. The short-sighted solution from the macro perspective is not short at all when you're on the ground as the parent of school-aged kids: that 'short' time is your kid's whole school career. As a friend recently observed, you can't begrudge people for simply utilizing an option that was made available to them at the time. You can't blame families for choosing what was best for their kids and sinking their hours into small schools of choice instead of lobbying for state-level structural changes that might take years, and generations of politicians, to come to fruition. Those improvements might be altogether too late. The thing is, it was not the responsibility of families to 'zoom out' and understand the complexities at hand in the fight for quality education for all kids — that was on our lawmakers. In our current landscape, charters are seemingly the only option parents have to make a better educational experience for their kids, so you can't blame them for saying they want it. That's the kind of short-sightedness you're entitled to when you suddenly realize you don't want your 5-year-old going into a kindergarten class of 28 kids. One can, however, blame the state for enabling only that one choice — especially since it's not actually a choice for so many. We can demand they do better. Thank you to Sen. Löki Tobin, Rep. Rebecca Himschoot and the other sitting and past legislators who have been education advocates. Now it's time for the rest of our elected leaders to pull up their bootstraps, look ahead, and get to the work of restoring public education so that it benefits all of Alaska's kids — not just the ones fortunate enough to attend charters. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
