Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 686
The school board has adopted a budget for the next school year that relies heavily on funds from two different reserve accounts to balance revenue with expenses. By withdrawing $976,000 from its operating reserves — just about emptying the longstanding account — and transferring $250,000 from its capital improvement projects reserves, the school district is able to cover its $5.98 million operating budget. The 2025-2026 spending plan includes two fewer full-time teaching positions than this year. Any increase in state funding for schools would...
Amid a severe state budget deficit, the Alaska Senate Finance Committee is proposing the lowest Permanent Fund dividend in five years and — if adjusted for inflation — the lowest dividend ever. On May 1, the committee unveiled a new version of its proposed state operating budget with a $1,000 dividend, a $400 reduction from its first draft. That cut reduces the Senate’s budget draft by $265 million, likely balancing it once additional legislation is considered. The dividend figure is not final: The full Senate will vote on the commi...
The Legislature is in its 10th year of struggling to balance Alaskans’ wishes and wants for a large Permanent Fund dividend with the checkbook reality that is much less than the wants. It’s been an annual political and fiscal battle ever since Gov. Bill Walker in 2016 bravely cut that year’s PFD in half after legislators had approved an unaffordable dividend while the state budget was in a deep billion-dollar deficit, dug deeper by low oil prices. Mike Dunleavy, who was then a state senator, vowed to push legislation to undo the gover...
For the third time in two years, the Alaska Legislature has approved a bill to increase long-term state funding for the state's K-12 public schools. On April 30, the state Senate voted 17-3 and the House voted 31-8 to approve House Bill 57, which would permanently increase the base student allocation, the core of the state's per-student funding formula, by $700 per student, almost 12%, at a cost to the state of $183 million for the 2025-2026 school year. The increase would send more than...
Alaska bars and liquor stores will be required to post signs warning of alcohol’s link to cancer, under a bill that became law on April 25. The new sign mandate, to go into effect on Aug. 1, makes Alaska the first U.S. state to require such health warnings specifically related to colon and breast cancers. The warnings about the alcohol-cancer relationship will be added to already mandated warnings about the dangers that pregnant women’s consumption can lead to birth defects. The requirement is part of a measure, Senate Bill 15, that allows empl...
As Alaska lawmakers confront a major budget deficit, disagreements over how to solve the problem appear likely to lead to a lower Permanent Fund dividend this fall and cuts to services, including public schools. In public statements, members of the Alaska Senate’s majority caucus have said they oppose spending from savings to balance the budget and want to see new revenue bills instead. Meanwhile, members of the state House and Gov. Mike Dunleavy have said they oppose new revenue bills and would prefer to spend from savings. Those different p...
As President Donald Trump marks 100 days in office, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski is urging anxious Alaskans to keep protesting against his administration. During an hour-long radio program on April 29, Murkowski expressed deep concerns with Trump’s use of executive power and the priorities supported by his administration and Republicans in Congress. She mentioned the 50501 movement, which has protested against the Trump administration, including with rallies in Alaska. “I think that type of engagement is important, and people shouldn’t feel discour...
The Legislature appears to have reached a deal on an education bill. The Senate passed the measure with a $700 increase in per-student funding, almost a 12% boost, on a 19-1 vote at midday Monday, April 28. The House was expected to take up the bill on Wednesday. House approval would send the bill to Gov. Mike Dunleavy for his approval or veto, though the wide margin of legislative approval indicates lawmakers could have enough votes to override a veto. House Bill 57 started three months ago as a measure to place limits on student cellphone...
The Senate Finance Committee is considering a draft of Alaska’s state operating budget that would cut more than $200 million from a version adopted earlier this month by the state House. The committee unveiled the first draft of its operating budget proposal at an April 24 meeting in the Capitol in Juneau. The committee’s version of the budget would send less state money to school districts than the House had proposed, though it appears a compromise has been reached on that number — less than the House and school districts wanted but more than...
Legislation passed April 16 by the Alaska House of Representatives would require school districts to adopt policies that restrict the use of cellphones by students during school hours. House Bill 57, which advanced to the Senate after a 34-6 vote, does not require districts to ban students’ cellphones but does require them to regulate students’ use of phones during regular school hours, including during lunch and the time between classes. Wrangell’s middle school already bans cellphones on the premises during school hours. The high schoo...
Members of the federal government’s ocean-mapping corps and Alaskans training for the merchant marine would continue to receive Permanent Fund dividends while away from the state, under a bill approved by the Alaska House of Representatives. House Bill 75, from Rep. Jeremy Bynum, is the first piece of legislation from a freshman lawmaker to pass either the House or Senate this year. Bynum, who was elected last year, represents Ketchikan and Wrangell. The legislation also would change state law to make the names of dividend applicants c...
Thirteen years ago, Palmer farmer Scott Robb set a world record with a 138-pound cabbage he brought to the Alaska State Fair. Not long afterward, Palmer’s local visitor center dedicated a statue to the cabbage and the other colossal world-record vegetables grown in the area. Now, at the urging of a leading visitor center volunteer, a state legislator from Palmer is proposing to enshrine Alaska’s giant cabbages in state law as the official state vegetable. If adopted by the House, Senate and Gov. Mike Dunleavy, House Bill 202 would declare tha...
More than likely, the Legislature and Gov. Mike Dunleavy will strike a deal next month to increase state funding for K-12 education in Alaska. That’s the big checkbook fight as lawmakers face a May 21 constitutional deadline to finish their work. The increase in state aid will not be enough to solve all the money problems at school districts across Alaska, but it will be enough to prevent the worst of the crisis from hitting students, teachers and parents for the 2025-2026 school year. In Wrangell’s case, it probably will be enough money to...
Fiscal conservatives like to say that Alaska has a spending problem. Solve it, cut programs, and the good tax-free life can continue — along with a fat Permanent Fund dividend every fall. The other side in the budget debate says the state has a revenue problem. They cite the political refusal to consider changes in oil taxes, mining taxes or corporate taxes, the rejection of a return to the pre-oil-days personal income tax, even the denial of an increase in the lowest-in-the-nation motor fuel tax rate. They say raise new revenues and a good l...
Along with announcing his veto of an education funding bill on April 17, Gov. Mike Dunleavy introduced new legislation with less of an increase in the state’s per-student funding formula, along with additional funding and policy items to benefit charter schools and homeschool programs. At a news conference in the state Capitol, the governor said there were two reasons for his veto. “One of the reasons is that the (state) revenue situation has deteriorated a lot” in recent months, Dunleavy said. “And the second reason for the veto is there’s...
A change to Alaska’s corporate income tax structure could add as much as $65 million a year to the state treasury by expanding the tax code to collect more from digital businesses, such as online merchants located outside the state. The Alaska Senate voted 16-4 on April 15 to approve Senate Bill 113, which changes the state’s corporate income tax code to require online merchants and other businesses pay taxes in Alaska based on their sales into the state, even if they have no employees or property in Alaska. Selling goods or services to Alaskan...
As Alaska legislators confront a major state budget deficit, the state Senate on April 15 voted unanimously to approve a “bare bones” $162 million capital budget to pay for construction and renovation projects across the state. The spending plan, which would take effect July 1, remains a draft subject to approval by the House. Gov. Mike Dunleavy could also veto individual items in the spending plan. The budget bill passed by the Senate is almost entirely limited to the minimum in state money needed to unlock more than $2.5 billion in fed...
The Alaska Legislature last week passed a major increase in the state’s per-pupil base funding formula for schools, but Gov. Mike Dunleavy said he will veto the measure because it lacks any of the provisions he wants such as more state support for homeschooling. The formula change passed the Senate and the House with no votes to spare — 11 votes in the 20-member Senate and 21 votes in the 40-member House. Assuming the governor makes good on his veto pledge — he called the legislation “a joke” last week — it would take a supermajori...
The Alaska Department of Health is at risk of losing federal funding because of an ongoing backlog in reviewing food assistance applications, federal officials told the state last month. The state has repeatedly failed to comply with deadlines to process applications for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, leaving thousands of Alaskans waiting months for help. The processing backlog has persisted despite the state spending tens of millions of dollars to address it, and despite orders from state and federal judges for the...
The Alaska Legislature has voted to allow teenagers as young as 18 to serve alcohol in the state. The Alaska House of Representatives voted 32-8 on April 2 to pass Senate Bill 15, which lowers the minimum alcohol-serving age in restaurants, breweries, wineries, distilleries, resorts and similar businesses. The minimum age to serve alcohol at a bar or sell it at a package store remains 21. A separate provision of the bill requires alcohol-serving businesses to post a sign stating that alcohol causes cancer. The House’s vote follows a 19-0 v...
Midway through the decade, Alaskans have failed to make significant progress toward the 2030 health targets in numerous categories, according to an annual tracking report issued by state and tribal officials. The latest Healthy Alaskans update, compiled as of December, shows a lack of progress in reducing rates of drug- and alcohol-related deaths, continued sedentary behavior among adolescents, failure to improve inadequate rates of prenatal care for pregnant women and well-child care for young children, and continued high rates of death from...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy has been traveling a lot to Asia, Houston and Washington, D.C., working hard to sell government officials and the private sector on the decades-old vision of an Alaska North Slope natural gas pipeline to make the state rich again. But while peddling the dubious prospects of a megaproject — one of the most expensive natural gas developments anywhere in the world — the governor has been absent from his day job. He hasn’t been fiddling, and the state isn’t burning like it does during the wildfire season, but he has been playing...
Troy Sauve, a Fairbanks resident, submitted his applications for food and heating assistance to the Alaska Division of Public Assistance on Oct. 24. His eligibility hearing was held more than four months later. Sauve, who works seasonally as a cook at a resort, relies on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, to make ends meet. He is one of hundreds of Alaskans who have been waiting longer than three months for food assistance amid an ongoing backlog in the state office charged with processing aid applications. Sauve spent...
Vacation rental: Historic six-bedroom, 10-bathroom mansion with eight fireplaces and ballroom. Vacant much of the year. Conveniently located in the heart of downtown Juneau, within easy walking distance of the Alaska State Capitol and other attractions. A bill introduced on March 17 by Fairbanks Rep. Will Stapp would turn the Alaska Governor’s House into a short-term rental. House Bill 139 would allow rentals at the three-story, 14,400-square-foot residence “when the legislature is not in session and the governor has not reserved the mansion in...
The Alaska Department of Revenue forecast on March 12 that the state will see a bigger budget deficit in the next fiscal year due to lower oil prices. Oil prices have dropped about $10 a barrel since early January as the market reacts to risks of U.S.-instigated trade wars, a weakened global economy and new oil supplies exceeding demand. Oil taxes and royalties are the second-largest source of general fund revenue for the state budget, behind only Permanent Fund earnings. The Alaska Legislature is facing a combined $650 million shortfall over...
