Gov. Mike Dunleavy is in the last two years of his two terms as governor. He must be thinking of his legacy, of what he accomplished.

It’s time for all of us to give the governor a report card, too. Like a student in the final semester, it’s not too late to bring up the grade.

What’s on the legacy ledger so far? I see three negatives, one partly corrected. This was the governor’s disastrous first-term budget cuts, when he took a meat ax to state programs and the University of Alaska.

I think the new governor got bad advice. He changed out his advisers and reversed course on many of the cuts. He is now supporting the university, for example, in restoring its funding. But the damage was done.

Two other blemishes are still on Dunleavy’s ledger. One is his refusal, so far, to increase school funding to offset several years of inflation. He has agreed to one-time increments of money, but that doesn’t count. We can’t hire teachers with one-time money.

A second stain on the ledger is Dunleavy’s ambivalence toward repairing public-sector pensions. There is an exodus of skilled state and local government workers who are recruited to other states with better benefits and salaries.

But the governor has some positives, too. One is his record on energy. He has strongly supported innovations, alternative energy and conservation. His annual conferences on energy — another one is planned in June — have attracted a lot of attention.

I’m impressed with a focused drive in Dunleavy’s administration to establish carbon sequestration, both forest-based and by underground injection and storage. These will help the planet by storing carbon dioxide, a leading cause of climate change. They also give Alaska industries a way to burnish their image among major financiers who score their loans for management of carbon emissions.

The carbon programs are complex and it took a sustained, two-year push by the governor and his Department of Natural Resources to get buy-in from the Legislature.

Another plus for Dunleavy: The streamlining, long-delayed, of regulation of long-distance power transmission. That will make larger regional renewable energy projects possible because new power can be moved through the grid with less delay.

This took another two-year push to get the Legislature’s buy-in, and this time the governor’s office led the effort along with the Alaska Energy Authority. Getting Alaska’s utilities to work together was an accomplishment. It was like herding cats.

So far on the report card: Two positives and three negatives, one partly repaired (the big budget cut).

There’s still time for Dunleavy to repair his record on school funding and pensions. Another legislative session looms. However, I see potential for a third positive for the governor in his advocacy of food security and agriculture. Dunleavy has always talked about food security, and this year he has a proposal for a new state Department of Agriculture.

This has prompted some head-scratching because many Alaskans don’t even know we have farms and many children don’t understand where food really comes from.

The governor talks about food security, but I think of agriculture for its economic development potential. There’s business here, and jobs.

We now have a small agriculture industry that’s highly regional, in the Mat-Su, Kenai Peninsula and Interior Alaska, and it really springs to life in summer. Farmers are the ultimate entrepreneurs as the vibrant summer farmers markets in many parts of the state demonstrate.

Can we build on the energy and entrepreneurship Alaskans show in those farmers markets? They prove Alaskans will buy locally made products and pay a premium for fresh and quality food.

Consumers show this nationwide, too. I think Dunleavy is on to something.

What could a Department of Agriculture do that our present Division of Agriculture, now part of the Department of Natural Resources, doesn’t do? The division, which is based in Palmer, does a lot now. Its Plant Materials Center does research on crops and inspects for the quality of food products. The division also administers loans for farmers.

But the Department of Natural Resources has a lot of other things on its plate. DNR looks after oil and gas, mining, forest firefighting and caretaking of Alaska’s 100 million acres of state lands.

Plucking a division out of a department with a lot on its plate can have benefits. We saw this when the governor reorganized the former Department of Health and Social Services into two new departments. The new Department of Health was able to focus attention on public health.

Raising the profile for farming (this includes ocean farming, or mariculture) has benefits in focusing attention in the Legislature. I saw this in the last legislative session when several worthy farm-related bills didn’t get the attention they deserved.

“Food security” is a nice goal, but is it just a sound-bite? Some worry about this because Dunleavy has talked agriculture before and not much seems to happen. Just creating a new state department won’t change anything without specific plans, and budgets.

I have a list of things the governor could do. It starts with making sure food banks and food assistance have support. Dunleavy could also press school districts to buy healthy local food rather than the processed stuff kids are fed.

Also on my list: Jaw-boning managers of big grocery chains so they’ll give locally grown products more shelf space over their own corporate food brands. Alaskans will buy local, but they need to see the products on store shelves.

I remember when we had dairy farms in the Mat-Su and Interior. Juneau once had its own dairy. Alaska-made milk was in the stores. Now we have corporate dairies in the Pacific Northwest supplying our milk. The worst part of this is that imported milk often goes sour, even before the “sell by” date on the milk carton.

We must do better if we really want food security.

Tim Bradner is publisher of the Alaska Economic Report and Alaska Legislative Digest.

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