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A state senator wants to direct a larger share of filing fees paid to the court system toward a nonprofit legal aid organization that helps several thousand Alaskans a year with their domestic violence, family law, housing, elder advocacy and other cases. The 56-year-old Alaska Legal Services Corp. “is part of our social safety net,” helping the most vulnerable community members, particularly survivors of domestic violence, said Anchorage Sen. Forrest Dunbar, sponsor of the legislation. Senate Bill 104 would amend state law to direct up to 25%...
The Alaska House of Representatives could vote this week or next on a bill that would block a 67% pay raise for state legislators and a 20% raise for the governor and top members of the executive branch. Passage of the bill is anticipated — multiple members of the House Republican-led majority coalition and Democratic-led minority have already expressed their support of the idea — but leading members of the Senate said the idea is dead on arrival when it crosses the building and arrives in their chamber. Under state law, the raises will go ahe...
More than 100 Alaskans spoke out against a “parental rights” bill proposed by Gov. Mike Dunleavy, in a wave of opposition to the legislation that many said would harm already vulnerable transgender youths. Of the 119 Alaskans who spoke during the nearly five-hour hearing held last Thursday evening by the House Education Committee, 103 opposed the bill and only 16 were in favor of it. Apayauq Reitan, the first openly transgender woman to run the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, was one of many gender nonconforming individuals who said the bill wou...
ANCHORAGE — A judge has dismissed a sex abuse case against former acting Alaska Attorney General Clyde “Ed” Sniffen, citing the statute of limitations that were in place when the alleged abuse happened more than 30 years ago. The case, thrown out on Friday, involved allegations that Sniffen, now 58, sexually abused a then-17-year-old student in 1991 when he was 27 and was the alleged victim’s coach of her high school’s mock trial competition team in Anchorage. Sniffen had pleaded not guilty. Alaska does not currently have a statute of limita...
It’s embarrassing that it took billions of dollars in losses for some legislators to acknowledge that the state’s fiscal house is leaking worse than a broken downspout on a Southeast Alaska roof. It’s too bad Gov. Mike Dunleavy acts like he has barely noticed the growing pool of mud at his feet. Start with the Permanent Fund, which generates investment earnings that have become the largest single source of revenue in the state budget. Last year was painful for most every investor, and Alaska was not immune to the downturn. The fund dropp...
The Alaska House advanced a targeted spending bill March 22, intended to address the state’s unprecedented backlog of unanswered applications for food stamp benefits and a shortage of public defenders in criminal cases. The budget bill is being fast-tracked through the Legislature so that the money can be made available quickly. It contains provisions to draw from the $2.3 billion Constitutional Budget Reserve — the state’s main savings account — to spend a maximum of $115 million for unanticipated spending needs for the fiscal year that en...
The Alaska Legislature is preparing to examine two new tax proposals after a state revenue forecast showed significant long-term budget deficits even with a sharply reduced Permanent Fund dividend. One proposal, introduced Friday by Anchorage Democrat Sen. Bill Wielechowski, would cut a popular oil production tax credit and expand the applicability of the state’s corporate income tax to privately owned oil and gas producers. The second proposal, filed Monday by Nikiski Republican Rep. Ben Carpenter, would impose a 2% state sales tax. The s...
Alaska legislators will get a 67% pay raise next January — from $50,000 to $84,000 a year — and the governor and state department heads will receive a 20% boost effective July 1. The wage hikes come after Gov. Mike Dunleavy replaced an independent salary commission that was unable to agree on a pay hike for lawmakers, with the new members convening on short notice to recommend the raises. An entirely new five-member commission met March 15 and added the legislators’ pay increase to an earlier recommendation that the governor, lieutenant governo...
Some state lawmakers have signaled their opposition to the nomination of the leader of a conservative advocacy organization to serve on the University of Alaska Board of Regents. Bethany Marcum is executive director of the Alaska Policy Forum, which advocates for limiting government and reducing state spending, including on education. Gov. Mike Dunleavy nominated Marcum for the board earlier this year. Her appointment is subject to confirmation by the entire Legislature, which will vote on the governor’s nominations in April or May. The H...
A crowded field of proposals to address the annual debate over the amount of the Permanent Fund dividend became even more so on Friday as the Senate Finance Committee proposed a new formula for setting the payment. In the first 60 days of the 2023 legislative session, lawmakers have introduced six different proposals to set a new dividend formula in either state law or the constitution. Four other bills or resolutions would substantially affect the amount of money available for dividends without specifically setting a new formula. Legislators...
After years of legislative debate over the size of the Permanent Fund dividend, reasonable voices are starting to grow louder, maybe even hopefully strong enough to outvote the irresponsible catcalls for an unaffordable dividend. It’s a welcome change. A bill in the House would restore dividend sanity by setting the free-money check at a percentage of the annual draw of Permanent Fund earnings, producing about a $1,300 PFD this year and growing from there. That would be about equal to the average dividend of the past decade, before the e...
The Senate Education Committee on March 13 advanced a bill to increase state funding for public schools, clearing the bill’s first legislative hurdle. The bill to increase the base student allocation, the per-student formula used to calculate school funding, heads next to the Senate Finance Committee. The Senate bipartisan majority has named increasing public school funding as one of their top goals for the legislative session, and the measure has support from a broad coalition of education advocacy groups who are warning that districts will b...
In an unannounced move, the State Board of Education unanimously passed a resolution March 14 that urges the Alaska Department of Education to limit the participation of transgender girls in girls school sports. The resolution, which is non-binding, encourages the department to adopt a policy that would ban transgender girls from competing alongside girls who are cisgender — meaning their gender identity matches their sex assigned at birth — in school sports. The resolution asks the department to create two sports divisions: one exc...
The first legislative hearing on Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s proposal to restrict discussion of sex and gender in schools included testimony from only two invited public guests, both supportive of the measure. The bill, which Senate leaders say is unlikely to pass that chamber, got enthusiastic backing from those invited to testify during the House Education Committee meeting March 13. Aside from two top state Department of Education officials who provided details of the bill, testimony was limited to two retired teachers supportive of conservative c...
While education advocates continue to push for increased state funding to Alaska public schools, Gov. Mike Dunleavy last week opted to introduce proposals that would limit sexual education in schools and impose new requirements on gender-nonconforming students. The governor at his March 7 news conference did not propose any increase in the state’s per-student funding formula for school districts, essentially unchanged in six years, though he did ask legislative approval of retention bonuses for teachers. Most legislators have said an i...
ANCHORAGE (AP) — Alaska’s human rights commission has reversed an earlier policy and now is only investigating LGBTQ discrimination complaints related to workplace discrimination and not for other categories like housing and financing. The Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica reported the Alaska State Commission for Human Rights deleted language from its website promising equal protections for transgender and gay Alaskans against most categories of discrimination. It also began refusing to investigate complaints. The commission is only accepting...
A state House committee last week held its first hearing on a bill intended to settle the Legislature’s biggest annual political battle: The amount of the Permanent Fund dividend. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Dan Ortiz, who represents Ketchikan, Wrangell and Metlakatla, would amend state law so that 75% of the annual draw on Permanent Fund earnings goes toward paying for schools and other public services, with 25% designated for the PFD. “Tonight, we’re going to open a can of worms,” Chairman Ben Carpenter, of Nikiski, said at the March 1 meeti...
State funding is being directed to help stock Alaska food pantries — including those serving rural communities — as part of a broader effort to address a monthslong state backlog in processing food stamp benefit applications. Major delays in processing applications for the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program have stressed thousands of Alaskans who depend on the monthly benefits to feed their families, and strained food bank resources across the state. State officials have attributed the processing delays to staffing sho...
Nearly six months after Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed a bill aimed at reducing youth use of electronic cigarettes, its primary sponsor is trying again to pass similar legislation. Senate President Gary Stevens on March 1 introduced Senate Bill 89, which seeks to impose the first-ever statewide tax on e-cigarette products. The bill would also raise the legal age in state law for purchasing, selling or distributing the products to 21, aligning with federal law. Currently, the legal age in Alaska is 19. Stevens said the bill is needed to counter a tre...
State regulators say that taking over what are known as Clean Water Act Section 404 permits will allow more flexibility to benefit businesses and the environment in “Alaska’s unique conditions.” Most construction, resource and community development projects require such permits, and regulators hope the state could take over up to 75% of them beginning in 2024. But since almost every other state is opting against such control, the question is if Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration is pitching only the positive aspects while ignoring the drawback...
A proposed overhaul of Alaska’s public employees retirement system would provide a new pension plan for state and municipal workers, intended by supporters to address the ongoing inability to recruit and retain enough employees. Half of the 20-member state Senate have signed onto the bill, sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Cathy Giessel, an Anchorage Republican. The measure was outlined in a news conference March 1 by members of the bipartisan coalition that controls the Senate. Coalition members said the 2006 legislation that moved Alaska f...
In her annual address to the Alaska Legislature, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski urged state lawmakers to avoid spending too much time on the amount of this year’s Permanent Fund dividend and to focus on problems causing people to move out of the state. For a decade, the number of people moving out of the state has exceeded the number of people moving into Alaska. Only the addition of new births has caused the state’s population to plateau, rather than continue to fall. “They’re counting on us to have a vision and to push that vision, whether for res...
At its special meeting last Friday, the borough assembly unanimously approved a resolution supporting the Alaska Trollers Association in its fight against a lawsuit that could shut down the Southeast Alaska commercial troll fishery of chinook, or king salmon, this year. Though the association also requested a $7,500 donation to the fishery’s legal defense, the assembly did not approve funding for the cause. The Wild Fish Conservancy filed a lawsuit against the National Marine Fisheries Service in 2020. The Washington-based nonprofit alleges t...
Alaskans will no longer need college degrees for most state jobs, under an administrative order issued Feb. 14 by Gov. Mike Dunleavy. The action is needed because of the labor shortage that affects Alaska and the nation, Dunleavy said in a statement. “Today people can gain knowledge, skills and abilities through on-the-job experience. If we’re going to address our labor shortage, we have to recognize the value that apprenticeships, on-the-job training, military training, trade schools and other experience provides applicants. If a person can...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy made a smart decision last week when he issued an administrative order directing state personnel officials to review and change job requirements where appropriate so that applicants could more easily substitute “practical experience” for a college degree. Almost one in six state government jobs were vacant in December, according to the governor’s Office of Management and Budget. The most empty desks were at one of the most important agencies: Almost one in four positions at the Department of Natural Resources were vacan...