Sorted by date Results 26 - 50 of 611
Several of Wrangell’s requests are included in the state capital budget of public works projects that the Legislature approved last week, sending the spending plan to the governor for signature into law or veto. Unless the governor uses his veto powers to eliminate or reduce the appropriations, Wrangell would receive $5 million toward stabilization work at the earthen dams that hold back the community’s water reservoirs; $200,000 to start planning what’s being called an “escape route” for Zimovia Highway residents to drive across the island to...
Lawmakers have added four Alaska Native languages to the state’s official language tally and renamed the council that advocates for their survival and revitalization. Members of the Senate approved their version of House Bill 26 with a unanimous vote on May 6. State representatives concurred with the changes on May 10, which means it goes to Gov. Mike Dunleavy next. The House passed the original bill, sponsored by Juneau Rep. Andi Story, last year with a 37-1 vote. Wasilla Republican Rep. David Eastman was the lone no vote. In addition to a...
The Alaska Legislature voted May 7 to remove Bob Griffin from the state school board amid bipartisan unhappiness over his perceived political actions as a board member. The vote came amid the Legislature’s annual vote on gubernatorial nominees. Legislators approved 78 of the 81 people subject to legislative confirmation during a joint session of the state House and Senate. They rejected Griffin for a second term on the board. Legislators also rejected Anchorage radio host Mike Porcaro as a new appointee to the Commercial Fisheries Entry Commiss...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy has indicated he is willing to accept a one-year increase in state money for schools as legislators work toward a $175 million addition to the funding formula before their scheduled adjournment deadline May 15. The increase would cover almost two-thirds of the projected revenue gap in the Wrangell School District operating budget for the 2024-2025 school year. Districts statewide face significant budget deficits after more than seven years without an increase in the state’s per-student funding formula. Though both the H...
State laws allowing correspondence students to use public funds at private and religious schools will remain in place through the end of June, but not after, an Anchorage Superior Court judge ordered May 2. Judge Adolf Zeman last month struck down two statutes governing Alaska’s correspondence programs, finding that they violated a state constitutional prohibition on spending public funds at private institutions. The decision affect hundreds or thousands of correspondence students across the state, depending on how the Legislature and Gov. Mike...
The Alaska Senate is moving toward a final vote on its draft state spending plan for the coming fiscal year, with senators expected this week to approve a budget that includes enough money to pay a 2024 Permanent Fund dividend estimated at $1,580. The Senate’s draft operating budget is different from one passed last month by the House which included a $2,270 proposed PFD. Senate action will trigger the creation of a conference committee charged with writing a compromise budget deal to fund state services after July 1, the start of the fiscal y...
As the state Senate is launching a legislative push intended to quickly fix a looming problem with correspondence school programs in Alaska, the House of Representatives signaled that it is so split that it may need more than a year to act on the issue. House lawmakers spent more than three hours on April 24 debating an informal declaration asking Anchorage Superior Court Judge Adolf Zeman to postpone until June 2025 the implementation of a court ruling that struck down two laws which govern programs used by more than 22,000 Alaska...
State legislators said they are unlikely to immediately act to address an Alaska Superior Court ruling that struck down key components of the state’s correspondence schools programs — and will wait for the Alaska Supreme Court to consider the issue. Speaking to reporters on April 17, Gov. Mike Dunleavy said his administration is also waiting for the high court to take up the issue. The ruling said the state’s cash payments to the parents of homeschooled students violates constitutional restrictions against spending state money on private and r...
Less than two years ago, Alaskans voted overwhelmingly against convening a constitutional convention to amend the state’s founding document. More than 70% of voters said no thanks, it’s a bad idea. It was the sixth time in a row, going back to 1972, that voters by wide margins rejected the whimsy of shaking up the constitution as you would a game of Etch A Sketch and redrawing the fundamental laws of Alaska. While they oppose reopening the constitution to a potential wholesale rewrite, Alaskans have approved multiple specific amendments ove...
The school district is requesting $1.75 million from the borough for the 2024-2025 school year budget, an increase from the $1.6 million contribution of the past two years. Even with the increase, the budget will draw down more than half of the school district’s reserves to balance revenues with expenses. The uncertainty of any increase in state funding is adding to the budget stress at Wrangell schools and districts across the state. The state funding formula has increased little more than a few dollars in the past seven years. The annual b...
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has dismissed an appeal filed by the Pebble mine developer in its effort to obtain a key permit needed to build the controversial copper and gold mine upstream of Southwest Alaska’s salmon-rich Bristol Bay. The decision, released on April 15, lets stand a permit denial issued by the Army Corps in 2020. Rejection of the appeal is the latest setback for the developer. The biggest setback came in January 2023, when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency invoked a rarely used provision of the Clean Water Act to p...
The Alaska Senate has passed a capital budget to fund roads, school repairs and rebuilds, housing, water and sewer systems and other public works projects across the state — but the spending plan is short of funds to cover repairs to Wrangell’s three aging school buildings. The budget bill approved by the Senate on April 12 will move next to the House for its consideration and possible amendments before a legislative adjournment deadline of May 15, at which time the governor could exercise his authority to veto individual items in the spe...
An Anchorage Superior Court judge has struck down an Alaska law that allows the state to allocate cash payments to parents of homeschooled students, ruling that it violates constitutional prohibitions against spending state money on religious or private education. “This court finds that there is no workable way to construe the statutes to allow only constitutional spending,” wrote Judge Adolf Zeman, concluding that the entire law must be struck down. The April 12 decision has major and immediate implications for the more than 22,000 students en...
The Alaska House has sent to the Senate a state operating budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1 with an almost $2,300 Permanent Fund dividend that would be the single largest expenditure in the spending plan. The budget also includes $175 million in additional one-time school funding, raising the total state contribution to school district operating expenses to just over half of what House members voted to spend on this fall’s dividend. The boost in state aid for the 2024-2025 school year, if approved by the Senate and signed into l...
Hundreds of high schoolers across Alaska participated in an organized walkout April 4 in protest of the Legislature’s recent failure to override Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s veto of an education funding bill. The bill would have included a historic increase in state money for public education. Outside Eagle River High School in the Anchorage School District, more than 100 students stood outside in the blustering snow for nearly a whole class period chanting “Fund our education!” and “Save our arts, save our sports!” Similar protests — all organized...
Who better to talk about education in Alaska than students. They could continue leaving it to school administrators, elected officials, their parents and teachers to speak for them, but that would be the easy way out. It’s also been unsuccessful. Looking to break that losing streak with the governor and state legislators unwilling to adequately fund education, hundreds of high schoolers around the state last week showed they are frustrated at the outcome. From Ketchikan, Sitka, Juneau, in Anchorage, Eagle River, Homer, Bethel and Utqiaġvik, st...
The state ferry Tustumena is preparing for its 60th birthday party this summer. Over the years, the vessel has become a familiar and important part of life in communities between Homer and Dutch Harbor. But after years in rough waters, the cost of keeping the Tustumena running is ballooning. "This ship is a floating museum piece," said John Mayer, who has captained the ship for years. The Tustumena exemplifies the storms that the Alaska Marine Highway System has weathered. In March, Seward...
Alaska faces a seriously long list of long-term serious problems. Our population is aging, people are not moving here fast enough to replace those who leave, too many employers lack enough workers to fully staff their operations, and the state’s finances are as stable as oil prices — which is to say not. State funding for K-12 education is frozen in time from the past decade. We maintain our deteriorating public buildings about as well as a teenager cleans their room. And we seem in a contest to see which is in shorter supply in our com...
Alaska Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski has made headlines again with comments on her unwillingness to vote for former president Donald Trump, which puts her in an ever-shrinking group of GOP members opposing the party’s presumptive nominee for president. “I wish that as Republicans, we had a nominee that I could get behind,” Murkowski told a CNN journalist in a brief hallway interview posted online on March 24. “I certainly can’t get behind Trump,” Murkowski added. Her comments triggered stories on a number of national news sites. On March...
Tax credits have long been popular, growing more so every year. Supporters push them to provide government backing for new initiatives or ongoing programs, steering money to worthy causes — some unworthy ones, too — bypassing actual appropriations by federal, state or municipal lawmakers. With a tax credit, businesses or individuals can make donations to a program or invest in a project, such as housing, and reduce their taxes to the federal, state or municipal treasury. Tax credits divert private money that otherwise would become public mon...
Teacher salaries in Alaska are not competitive when compared to much of the Lower 48, according to new research from the University of Alaska Anchorage’s Institute of Social and Economic Research. Alaska teachers are paid below the national average once their salaries are adjusted for the high cost of living in Alaska, said Matthew Berman, a professor of Economics at UAA and one of two authors of the study published last month. The topic of public school funding and teacher pay has been a main focus in the Alaska Legislature this session and o...
Teacher salaries in Alaska are not competitive when compared to much of the Lower 48, according to new research from the University of Alaska Anchorage’s Institute of Social and Economic Research. Alaska teachers are paid below the national average once their salaries are adjusted for the high cost of living in Alaska, said Matthew Berman, a professor of Economics at UAA and one of two authors of the study published last month. The topic of public school funding and teacher pay has been a main focus in the Alaska Legislature this session and o...
Opponents of Gov. Mike Dunleavey’s proposal to criminalize unpermitted street protests and other activities that block passage through public places said it is unconstitutional, too vague and too broad to become law. If Senate Bill 255 or its companion, House Bill 386, is passed into law, certain types of protest could be counted among the state’s most serious crimes. Dunleavy has said the bill is aimed at increasing public safety. It would impose penalties for blocking highways, airport runways and other public places if it causes sig...
Alaska lawmakers fell one vote short Monday in an attempt to override the governor’s veto of a comprehensive school funding bill, which included a permanent increase in the state funding formula for K-12 education and which could have provided an additional $440,000 for the Wrangell school district. The additional funds would have covered about two-thirds of the deficit in the Wrangell district’s draft budget, reducing the amount of money it will need to pull out of reserves for the 2024-2025 school year. The vote in a joint session of the Hous...
The federal appropriations bill signed into law earlier this month includes a $2.5 million grant for Wrangell's new water treatment plant, which is under construction and scheduled for completion in June 2025. The latest federal grant, added to the budget bill by Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, will reduce the amount of borrowed money the borough will need to repay, Interim Borough Manager Mason Villarma confirmed Friday, March 15. President Joe Biden signed the appropriations bill on March 9, after the measure won approval by wide margins in the...
