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JUNEAU (AP) — The Alaska Legislature has passed a measure to formally recognize tribes in the state. The House on May 18 voted 37-2 to accept a Senate version of the bill that passed a week earlier on a 15-0 vote. The bill next goes to Gov. Mike Dunleavy. Supporters of the bill say it is an overdue step that would create opportunities for the state and tribes to work together. Putting tribal recognition into law would allow for continuity from one governor’s term to the next so that Alaska could work toward long-term solutions to issues wit...
JUNEAU (AP) — The Alaska Legislature has passed a measure to formally recognize tribes in the state. The House on May 18 voted 37-2 to accept a Senate version of the bill that passed a week earlier on a 15-0 vote. The bill next goes to Gov. Mike Dunleavy. Supporters of the bill say it is an overdue step that would create opportunities for the state and tribes to work together. Putting tribal recognition into law would allow for continuity from one governor’s term to the next so that Alaska could work toward long-term solutions to issues wit...
Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy announced Monday that Nancy Dahlstrom will be his running mate as he seeks reelection this year. Dahlstrom, a former state legislator from Eagle River who has led the state Department of Corrections under Dunleavy, submitted her resignation as Corrections commissioner on Sunday, according to a statement from Dunleavy’s office. The campaign announcement came just over a week before the June 1 filing deadline for the August primary. Candidates for governor and lieutenant governor run as a team under a new e...
The largest of the state ferries, the 499-passenger Columbia, was still listed as inactive on the Transportation Department website as of Monday, with no indication it will go back to work this summer as was planned nine months ago. Last August, the department’s draft summer 2022 schedule included the ship “penciled in” to run May 11 through Sept. 14, with weekly sailings to Southeast from Bellingham, Washington, “pending crew availability.” The run would have included weekly stops in Wrangell. After months of nationwide advertising for crew,...
Wrangell is moving closer to receiving at least a $4.1 million state grant to add to $11 million in federal funds for construction of a new $15.4 million water treatment plant. The House Finance Committee version of the state capital spending bill — the public works budget — includes a $5 million appropriation, while the Senate on Monday amended its version of the bill to include $4.1 million for the Wrangell project. Lawmakers will need to merge and reconcile the two versions of the capital budget in the next week. With money in both the Hou...
JUNEAU (AP) — Gov. Mike Dunleavy last Thursday reiterated his push for payments of at least $3,700 to residents this year, with the legislative session in its last weeks and the size of the annual dividend check paid to residents still unresolved. The House in its version of the budget approved one-time “energy relief” payments of $1,300 plus a Permanent Fund dividend of about $1,250. The Senate Finance Committee is weighing a dividend of about $2,600 as it works on a draft budget plan. Annual dividends to residents traditionally have been...
JUNEAU (AP) — Alaska lawmakers are considering a request by Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration that the state take over part of a federal environmental permitting program for development in wetlands, though some members of the Senate's budget-writing committee have expressed concerns with the potential costs. Administration officials have said the idea behind the proposal is to speed the construction of roads, bridges, mines and drilling projects. While the state would have to follow federal standards, critics of the proposal say the state has...
The Alaska Senate could vote this week on a new formula to calculate the annual Permanent Fund dividend, though proposed amendments and lengthy debate are expected and passage of the bill is uncertain. The bill that passed the Senate Finance Committee last Thursday would set this fall’s dividend at about $2,600 per person, putting the same cash in Alaskans’ pockets as the House plan to pay out half that amount as a dividend and half as a one-time energy relief check to help Alaskans paying the price of higher heating fuel, gasoline and diesel b...
The borough could receive about $300,000 under a Senate Finance Committee plan to pay back municipalities across Alaska for years of short-funding of the state’s share of local school construction bond debt. The committee version of the state budget includes $221 million to pay back municipalities for incomplete state reimbursement payments going back five years. Years of low oil prices and large state budget deficits prompted governors to short-fund the reimbursements, with legislators lacking enough votes to override budget vetoes. This y...
The commissioner of Alaska’s Department of Revenue was called into a special meeting last month to discuss a problem: The Permanent Fund Dividend Division was under cyberattack. In a short period of time, more than 800,000 attempts were made to get into the division’s systems, which are in charge of paying the annual dividend to Alaskans. The division shut down its computers, the department’s firewalls held, and “no Alaskans’ data was accessed,” said Anna MacKinnon, director of the division. “Our system repelled, as it should, the assault o...
ANCHORAGE (AP) - Alaska U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski continues to have a substantial cash advantage over her opponent backed by former President Donald Trump. Murkowski, in office since 2002, brought in more than $1.5 million in the three-month period ending March 31, according to a filing with the Federal Election Commission. Murkowski ended the quarter with $5.2 million on hand with no debt, the records show. Republican Kelly Tshibaka, who is challenging Murkowski, raised $673,383 during the last...
The Alaska House of Representatives voted Saturday to turn an oil-price surge into money for schools, repayment of tax credits the state has owed to oil explorers for years, and $2,600 payments for Alaska residents this fall. The House voted 25-14 to send its state operating budget proposal to the Senate, which is developing its own version. The two budget plans, which set spending for public services starting with the new fiscal year on July 1, will be negotiated into a compromise bill and sent to Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who can accept or reject...
The House Finance Committee has rejected the governor’s proposal to rely almost entirely on federal funds to operate the Alaska Marine Highway System next year, with the Senate Finance Committee moving in the same direction. The committees differ on the amounts but both want to see more state money in the budget for the ferries, using some federal infrastructure money to replace state dollars but not nearly as much as the governor. Total appropriations for the ferry operating budget next year would be the same under all three versions — gov...
The Alaska Supreme Court ruled Friday that a new map of state Senate districts for Anchorage “constituted an unconstitutional political gerrymander violating equal protection under the Alaska Constitution” and must be redrawn before its use in this year’s statewide election. In a combined summary decision, the court said it is upholding a lower court ruling that instructed the state’s five-person redistricting board to redraw the Senate map or explain why it is impossible to do so. As part of the decision that combined several lawsuits against...
A state Department of Transportation official told legislators that the ferry system is “burning out our crew” with lots of overtime amid staff shortages, and that the problem jeopardizes tentative plans to bring back the Columbia to service in Southeast for the first time since fall 2019. The Alaska Marine Highway System as of March 16 was down 125 employees from the minimum needed to staff its full online summer schedule plus the addition of the Columbia, according to a department presentation to the Senate Finance Committee. Deputy Commissio...
High oil prices driven by the war in Ukraine, tight global oil supplies and OPEC’s decision not to pump more crude are adding tens of millions of dollars per month to the Alaska state treasury. The rush of oil revenues is boosting the governor’s push for a larger Permanent Fund dividend for individual Alaskans this fall, while also fueling legislative interest to increase funding for education and deferred maintenance — or just save some of the money for the next time oil prices fall. The Alaska Department of Revenue last week issued its annua...
The new election system approved by Alaska voters in 2020 will get an unexpected first test this summer with a special election to fill the seat left vacant by the death of Congressman Don Young, Alaska’s sole member in the U.S. House of Representatives. Alaskans will pick a temporary replacement for Young using a top-four special primary election and a special ranked-choice general election. The prospect is adding a historic extra dimension to what was already expected to be a major year in Alaska politics. Alaska hasn’t had a statewide spe...
It's been too long, more than a decade, since a state Office of Children's Services caseworker has been assigned to Wrangell. Welcome back, we missed you. The borough and school district have been trying for years to get state officials to put back money in the budget for a caseworker in town. The position is so important to help children struggling with the emotional challenges of life that the borough offered two years ago to share the cost of the position with the state. News of the offer was well publicized in town, winning strong support...
For the first time in more than a decade, Wrangell has a state child protection services caseworker. Jennifer Ridgeway was the Office of Children's Services worker in Petersburg from October 2021 until February, when she transferred to Wrangell. She first visited Wrangell from Tennessee in July 2018 to officiate and attend her daughter's wedding, according to a release from the state. She had no plans to move but loved the area and moved to Wrangell that fall. "Southeast Alaska offers so much...
The Alaska House has narrowly passed legislation that would set a limit on individual contributions to candidates after previous limits were struck down by a court The bill passed 21-18 on March 16, with all the no votes coming from Republicans. It next goes to the Senate, with about eight weeks left before the Legislature’s adjournment deadline. If the bill fails to win Senate approval and the governor’s signature, there will be no restrictions on the amount of money that can be donated to candidates in Alaska elections starting this yea...
The 64 million salmon returning home to Alaska hatcheries accounted for nearly one-third of the 2021 statewide commercial harvest. It was the eighth-largest hatchery homecoming since 1977. At a payout of $142 million, the salmon produced 25% of the overall value at the dock. An additional 220,000 salmon that got their start in a hatchery were caught in Alaska sport, personal use and subsistence fisheries. Counting the fish taken at the hatcheries for brood stock, nearly 69 million adult hatchery salmon returned last year, according to the...
The state has started negotiations to sell the Malaspina to a company owned by a business that operates a new multimillion-dollar cruise ship terminal at Ward Cove in Ketchikan. M/V Malaspina LLC and the Alaska Department of Transportation “have agreed to negotiate in good faith on the sale of the 59-year-old vessel,” the state announced Monday. “MVM’s letter of interest outlines a plan to use the Malaspina to showcase Alaska’s maritime history and support a Ketchikan-based tourism business,” the state said. “Among other uses, they propose...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy and Alaska state senators said Friday they support legislation to temporarily suspend the state’s 8-cents-a-gallon tax on gasoline and also taxes marine and aviation fuels for one year, in an attempt to reduce the hit of rising fuel prices on Alaskans. No such legislation had been introduced, but Dunleavy, who is running for reelection this year, called for a suspension of the taxes to be added to a bill sitting in the House Finance Committee since last year. That bill would raise the state’s tax on gasoline by 8 cents a gal...
KENAI (AP) — Republican Charlie Pierce, Kenai Peninsula Borough mayor, has picked the chair of the Alaska Parole Board, Edie Grunwald, of the Matanuska Valley, to be his running mate as he campaigns for the governor’s job. Grunwald previously ran for lieutenant governor in 2018, finishing second in that year’s Republican primary to Kevin Meyer, the current office holder. Under a new voter-approved election system, which will be used for the first time in Alaska this year, candidates for governor and lieutenant governor will run as a team from...
State House lawmakers have proposed paying Alaskans almost $1,300 as an “energy relief check” on top of the annual Permanent Fund dividend. As presented by the House Finance Committee on Friday, the two payments would total about $2,500 this year for every eligible Alaskan. The energy relief payment would use some of the state’s unexpectedly high oil revenues to help residents hit by rising fuel prices, record inflation and ongoing financial recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, lawmakers in the House majority said in a written statement on Ma...