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Alaska lawmakers have been spending the final days of the 121-day legislative session disagreeing over the amount of this fall’s Permanent Fund dividend. As of Monday afternoon, the House and Senate appeared unable to agree on state spending for the fiscal year that starts July 1, likely pushing lawmakers into an overtime session. This would be the fourth year of extra session time since the cost of the dividend put a strain on tight state finances in 2017. The Republican-controlled House wants a $2,700 PFD this fall and is willing to draw hund...
Senior citizens and people with disabilities who need extra care would be able to get help at home under a bill passed by the Alaska Legislature and on its way to the governor for signature into law. The state House voted 39-1 to approve Senate Bill 57 on May 8, followed by unanimous Senate concurrence on May 10 with the House changes. The legislation would allow the state to license individual homes as the equivalent of assisted-living centers. A home would be permitted for up to two residents under normal circumstances, three with special...
Newly arrived residents and newly licensed drivers would have an easier way to get a commercial license under a bill passed by the Alaska Legislature. In a 40-0 vote last Friday, the Alaska House approved Senate Bill 123, which would repeal the requirement that someone hold an Alaska driver’s license for one year before getting a commercial driver’s license. CDL recipients still have to go through the normal application process, which includes a written test, road test and physical exam. The bill passed the state Senate 20-0 on May 3 and now...
The salmon crisis in Western Alaska is prompting new discussions in the U.S. and Canada about an idea that would have been a non-starter a decade ago: Maybe it’s time to build hatcheries to stem the steep fish declines on the Yukon River. Indigenous culture along the Yukon, in both the U.S. and Canada, is centered on wild salmon runs. Historically, those runs supported both commercial fisheries that rural residents depended on for cash income, and subsistence fisheries that kept freezers and dinner plates full through the winter in a r...
At its special meeting May 1, the borough assembly unanimously approved $266,920 for engineers to assess the condition of Wrangell’s three school buildings, in hopes of making the list for millions of dollars in state funding to repair and refurbish the decades-old structures. The borough is hoping to get the repairs on the Alaska Department of Education’s list of major maintenance projects at school buildings throughout the state. However, making the list is a highly competitive process that requires districts to demonstrate their need. The...
The Legislature has passed and is sending to the governor a bill intended to reduce the cost of Alaska-made lumber for housing projects. After it is signed into law by Gov. Mike Dunleavy, the legislation would set up an in-state quality testing system for lumber produced by Alaska sawmills. Currently, that lumber must be tested and graded by a national standards organization, and bringing an outside grader to Alaska adds significant costs, state forester Helge Eng said last fall. The state House overwhelmingly approved Senate Bill 87,...
The Legislature passed a bill Friday extending Medicaid coverage from two months to 12 months for a couple thousand new mothers a year. Senate Bill 58, proposed by Gov. Mike Dunleavy, is intended to prevent gaps in health care coverage and to address the state’s high and rising maternal mortality rate. State Department of Health officials told lawmakers that 51% of births in Alaska are covered by Medicaid; those new mothers would benefit from the legislation. The Senate passed the final bill 19-1 on Friday. The House passed the legislation f...
Thousands of Alaskans who depend on government assistance have waited months for food stamp benefits, exacerbating a long-standing hunger crisis worsened by the pandemic, inflation and the remnants of a typhoon that wiped out stockpiles of fish and fishing equipment in Western Alaska. The backlog, which began last August, is especially concerning in a state where communities in far-flung areas, including Alaska Native villages, are often not connected by roads. They must have food shipped in by...
A bill advancing in the Alaska Legislature would dramatically shorten the time needed to authorize logging of some state-owned lands, shrinking approval time from years to days in the most extreme cases. Proponents say the bill will alleviate fire danger and revitalize the state’s dwindling logging industry by expanding the amount of timber that can be sold from public land, but legislative and public critics contend that the bill’s lack of specificity gives the commissioner of the Department of Natural Resources almost unlimited discretion to...
As public employees rallied in front of the Alaska Capitol last week, demanding reinstatement of a pension system the Legislature abolished 18 years ago, leading members of the state Senate said their request was unlikely to be fulfilled this year. Members of the 17-member bipartisan Senate majority said at the start of this year’s legislative session that a bill intended to improve recruitment and retention of state employees was a priority. But with only a week left in the regular legislative session, Senate President Gary Stevens said a p...
Parents of Alaska public school students would be required to OK every lesson taught by their child’s teacher under newly revised legislation approved by the House Education Committee, but which is not expected to pass the Legislature this year. Without permission, the student would be held out of field trips, extracurricular activities, and even basic lessons on algebra, biology and history. The revised bill also requires school districts to make single-person restrooms available to students. An earlier version of the bill, proposed by Gov. M...
Legislative leaders focused on the Permanent Fund dividend and taxes as they described the budget choices facing lawmakers trying to find a combination that will win enough political support to balance state spending. “The dividend has been the massive rock in the middle of the road,” making it difficult to find an affordable path to a long-term state fiscal plan, Anchorage Sen. Cathy Giessel, the Senate majority leader, said during an online discussion with Alaska Common Ground last week. “The dividend provides a lot of benefits to Alask...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy, once a staunch opponent of tax increases, said last Thursday that they are now a core part of any long-term state fiscal plan. Speaking in a news conference, the governor said there is a broad recognition in the Legislature and in his office that the state can no longer rely on oil to balance the state budget. “To simply ride oil in a do-or-die situation for the state of Alaska is folly,” he said. Dunleavy confirmed reports that he intends to propose a statewide sales tax, saying work on the proposal was almost done — though...
The Alaska Senate rolled out its latest version of the operating budget on April 26, with a $1,300 Permanent Fund dividend, a $175 million one-time boost for public schools and a $90 million surplus to cover contingencies or if oil prices drop. The 17-member bipartisan Senate majority caucus — unlike the House Republican-led majority — has insisted that lawmakers should not draw from state savings to balance the budget. Following gloomy revenue projections last month, the House spending plan — with a $2,700 dividend — was projected to create...
Almost two weeks after Gov. Mike Dunleavy told lawmakers he would propose a new sales tax, legislators have yet to see the governor’s bill — and are still far from reaching agreement on the state’s fiscal future. Lawmakers broadly agree on the need for new revenue sources amid declining oil taxes. But any proposal from the governor, along with other revenue measures considered by lawmakers this year, are unlikely to pass with only two weeks until the constitutional deadline marking the end of the regular legislative session, key lawma...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy told legislators in a pair of closed-door meetings last week that he will introduce a state sales tax as a component of a budget-balancing, long-term fiscal plan. But with just three weeks left in the legislative session, with no details about the governor’s tax bill as of Monday, and with strong opposition from lawmakers who represent communities with a local sales tax, the odds of passage this year are extremely low. If the governor goes ahead with a sales tax bill, it would join more than a dozen proposals offered by H...
Alaska is 30 years into state budget deficits, borrowing billions from savings to pay the bills. Gov. Mike Dunleavy is five years into the job, still pledging mega Permanent Fund dividends even if the money isn’t there. Three months ago, Dunleavy in his State of the State address couldn’t even manage to acknowledge the need for a long-term fiscal plan, despite the budget math that adds up otherwise. Then the governor had an epiphany last week. Not a religious one, a fiscal one. He said the word “taxes.” Only he didn’t say it in public. That wou...
The budget battle between the Alaska House of Representatives, the Senate and the governor is shaping up as a fight between the size of the Permanent Fund dividend and a proposed increase to public school spending after years of flat funding. Dozens of education advocates rallied on the Alaska State Capitol steps last Thursday evening in support of a substantial increase to the state’s per-student funding formula. The formula has not been significantly increased since 2017, and school administrators have reported struggling to balance their b...
Alaska posted the nation’s highest rate of increase in electronic cigarette use by young adults from 2016 to 2021, according to a report tracking patterns in all 50 states. The rate of e-cigarette use by Alaskans in that age group more than tripled, from 4.8% in 2019 — the lowest rate in the nation at the time — to 15.8% in 2021, according to the report. The sponsor of a bill in the Alaska Legislature to impose a tax on e-cigarettes, vape sticks and other electronic smoking devices has said the tax is intended to deter young people from vapin...
After waiting six months for a license to operate, an Anchorage psychologist asked Senate Majority Leader Cathy Giessel for help. But when the Anchorage Republican called the licensing office, she was greeted by voicemail. The person in charge of answering the phones had quit and wasn’t replaced. “Professional licenses are required to get people to work. That division doesn’t have enough people to even answer the phone,” Giessel said last month. That person wasn’t alone — last year, the state reported that 39 occupational license-exa...
With four weeks left before the May 17 adjournment deadline, legislators are focusing on the state budget and how to resolve big differences between the House and Senate over school funding and the amount of this year’s Permanent Fund dividend. The House approved its version of the budget on Monday, sending it to the Senate for certain changes. And while the major disputes are over how much to spend on education and dividends, and how to pay for the spending this year, many lawmakers also are kicking around ideas to generate new revenues in t...
Will Carol Beecher, who was appointed to serve as director of the Alaska Division of Elections, comply with Alaska state statutes in the future? The relevant statute clearly states that the elections director must be nonpartisan and may not make political contributions. The Sentinel reported Feb. 22 that Beecher made recent contributions to the campaigns of Republican candidates including Donald Trump, Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy and Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom. Four months later, Dahlstrom appointed Beecher as director of the Alaska Division of...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy said he does not support a request to add millions of dollars to the state budget to help child care providers, instead announcing the formation of a task force to examine the issue and provide policy recommendations by the end of the year. Child care, expensive and in short supply in Alaska, has benefited from more than $50 million in federal pandemic aid paid as grants to providers since 2020. With the end of federal funding, child care advocates have asked legislators to add $15 million to the state budget to boost...
For the third time in as many legislative sessions, Kodiak Sen. Gary Stevens is leading the push to get a tax on e-cigarettes and vaping products into state law. “Taxes have been proven to reduce youth tobacco use, resulting in fewer kids becoming life-long smokers,” Stevens said in offering his legislation, which would add a 25% state tax to the sales price to dissuade youth from vaping. Senate Bill 89 also would raise the legal age to buy vape sticks, electronic smoking devices and other similar nicotine products in Alaska to 21, mat...
The governor last Friday signed an emergency funding bill to help resolve the crisis-level backlog of food stamp applications from needy Alaskans. The Legislature had approved the measure days earlier. The budget bill includes $3.1 million for overtime pay and to hire about 30 new employees to help with the applications backlog at the Division of Public Assistance, which processes food stamps and other benefits including Medicaid. Deb Etheridge, the division’s director, told lawmakers that the end of the backlog that has affected at least 8...