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JUNEAU (AP) — A federal judge last Friday sided with two psychiatrists who said they were wrongfully fired for political reasons when Gov. Mike Dunleavy took office in 2018. Anthony Blanford and John Bellville, who worked at the Alaska Psychiatric Institute in Anchorage, declined to submit resignation letters requested by the chair of Dunleavy’s transition team and later by his chief of staff, Tuckerman Babcock. Blanford and Bellville subsequently were fired. Attorneys for the men in court records argued that Babcock — in demanding resig...
Once again, Alaska legislators have gaveled back into special session because Gov. Mike Dunleavy wants to show his constituents that he believes in one thing above all else: The largest Permanent Fund dividend in state history. He’s like a wide-eyed kid in the candy shop, only he’s got a record-setting Permanent Fund balance jingling in his pockets and wants to spend some of it to buy chocolates for everyone in the state. Talk about a dangerous sweet tooth that can only decay the future growth potential of the state’s only savings accou...
JUNEAU (AP) — The state plans to emphasize telework for many of its 14,000 employees this month as the COVID-19 pandemic strains Alaska’s health care system. Gov. Mike Dunleavy, in a memo to state department leaders, said the state “must take measures to protect its health care infrastructure while still providing essential government services to its residents.” He wrote that effective Sept. 27, the state will emphasize telework “to the maximum extent practical,” while still maintaining public services. The policy will remain in effect unti...
TANACROSS — One Alaska Native village knew what to do to keep out COVID-19. They put up a gate on the only road into town and guarded it round the clock. It was the same idea used a century ago in some isolated Indigenous villages to protect people from outsiders during another deadly pandemic — the Spanish flu. It largely worked. Only one person died of COVID-19 and 20 people got sick in Tanacross, an Athabascan village of 140 whose rustic wood cabins and other homes are nestled between the Alaska Highway and Tanana River in the state’s Inter...
STEVENS VILLAGE — In a normal year, the smokehouses and drying racks that Alaska Natives use to prepare salmon to tide them through the winter would be heavy with fish meat, the fruits of a summer spent fishing on the Yukon River like generations before them. This year, there are no fish. For the first time in memory, both king and chum salmon have dwindled to almost nothing and the state has banned salmon fishing on the Yukon, even the subsistence harvests that Alaska Natives rely on to fill their freezers and pantries for winter. The remote c...
Aquatic farming in Alaska could be a big industry, and completely sustainable. That's according to Wrangell's Julie Decker, executive director of Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation, a nonprofit that focuses on research and development for the seafood industry. Shellfish and seaweed farming are the only types of aquatic farming permitted in Alaska. Mariculture includes saltwater farming, differing from aquaculture which "farms" in freshwater. Mariculture development, if managed properly,...
The first 100 out-of-state health care workers have started arriving in Alaska to help at medical facilities overwhelmed with record patient counts due to surging COVID-19 infections. The state health department has contracted to bring on 470 health care workers, including about 300 nurses, to help the strained workforce. Alaska is using $87 million in federal funds to cover the costs. The first health care personnel reported to the Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage for orientation on Tuesday. The contractor said the remaining nurses,...
JUNEAU (AP) — Officials are aiming to send out the first wave of Permanent Fund dividend payments to Alaska residents the week of Oct. 11, a Department of Revenue spokesperson said. The department’s Genevieve Wojtusik said in an email Sept. 22 that the first wave would include those who filed for their PFD electronically. She said the second round of payments, which would include those who filed paper applications, would go out about two weeks later. The Legislature mid-September appropriated $730.5 million for dividends this year of about $1,...
It was the same day that Gov. Mike Dunleavy announced the state would help hospitals cope with record numbers of COVID-19 patients by assisting with decisions to ration care, and the same day that the state’s chief medical officer, Dr. Anne Zink, said Alaska is “at the worst place in the pandemic that we’ve had this entire time.” It was the same day that the governor announced Alaska would spend $87 million to bring in out-of-state medical workers to help relieve pressure on overwhelmed hospital staff. And it was the same day Alaska set a r...
Earlier this month, the Alaska Legislature gaveled out of its third special session. During the special session, we discussed the recommendations of the Comprehensive Fiscal Plan Working Group, weighed the merits of a COVID-19 bill, and passed an $1,100 dividend. We also considered Senate Bill 3006, a health care bill aimed at providing temporary telehealth and flexible background checks for our hospitals. However, after additional amendments drew concerns from health care providers, the bill did not pass. As our communities fight against this...
Not content with the $1,100 Permanent Fund dividend adopted on the final day of the special legislative session that ended Tuesday, Gov. Mike Dunleavy three hours later called lawmakers back for a fourth special session starting Oct. 1 to “get the rest of this year’s PFD.” Dunleavy, who is running for reelection next year, has been promoting a dividend this year of more than double the $1,100 approved by legislators. The Department of Revenue has said it would send the payments to Alaskans about 30 days after the measure is signed into law,...
JUNEAU (AP) – An Eagle River legislator banned from Alaska Airlines for refusing to follow federal law that requires a face mask has been excused from attending state Senate floor sessions until mid-January — at her request. However, Republican Sen. Lora Reinbold decided to stick around for the final days of legislative action anyway, leaving her no apparent option but to take a ferry out of Juneau and then drive through Canada to get home. Reinbold on Sept. 9 requested the excusal to Jan. 15. Her request was accepted by the Republican-led Sen...
JUNEAU (AP) - Gov. Mike Dunleavy said President Joe Biden’s push to require millions of U.S. workers to get vaccinated against COVID-19 is “ill conceived, divisive and un-American.” “At a time in which we are called to work together, forced medical procedures run counter to our collective sense of fairness and liberty,” the Republican Dunleavy said Sept. 10. “My administration is aggressively identifying every tool at our disposal to protect the inherent individual rights of all Alaskans.” Biden a day earlier outlined plans to mandate that...
With less than a week to go before the deadline to finish this year’s third special session of the Legislature, not only are the governor and most legislators unable to agree on the amount of the Permanent Fund dividend, they also don’t agree on two key numbers central to the fiscal debates. Legislative leadership and the nonpartisan Legislative Finance Division see a billion-dollar average annual budget deficit if the governor wins his push for a Permanent Fund dividend of $2,400 or so. The governor wants to cement the annual PFD into the con...
Assembling a long-term fiscal plan for Alaska has been like putting together a jigsaw puzzle with some key pieces missing from the box. It's frustrating and you can't win, no matter how much you try pounding the pieces to fit together. In this case, the puzzle would fit together better with a governor who doesn't stretch the numbers to suit his arguments, and who thinks more about public services that can build the state's future and less about dividends that can build his reelection campaign....
The Department of Fish and Game decided that money appropriated to partially restore a commercial fisheries job in Wrangell would be better spent this year to provide in-town assistance for moose and elk hunters who need to register their harvest. Legislators had added $66,000 to this year’s budget, intended to go toward bringing back a commercial fisheries management position to Wrangell which lost the job to a budget veto by Gov. Mike Dunleavy more than a year ago. But the $66,000 would not cover the full salary for a year-round staffer, p...
The Alaska Symphony of Seafood competition is back and the call is out for entries. The contest has showcased new products since 1994 but was canceled last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “It encourages value-added seafood production and promotes high-quality Alaska products that are coming into the marketplace. And we help promote those across the country and the world. There isn’t anything else like this for Alaska seafood,” said Julie Decker, executive director of the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation which hosts the event. A panel...
The state House has approved a Permanent Fund dividend of about $1,100 this fall, but even if the Senate agrees and the governor signs the appropriations bill, it is too late to avoid a delay in sending out the payment to Alaskans. Full approval was needed by Tuesday if the state were to meet its traditional date of issuing the annual PFD by the first week of October, according to a Department of Revenue spokesperson, who added that the dividends could be issued about 30 days after elected officials settle on the amount. The House passed the...
ANCHORAGE (AP) - Alaska last week reported its highest daily number of resident COVID-19 cases so far this year as health officials struggle to keep pace with testing and contact tracing and hospitals juggle a surge in patients amid staff shortages. Gov. Mike Dunleavy told reporters Aug. 26 that Alaskans should talk to their doctors about getting vaccinated “if that’s what they want to do.” “We know what we need to do. People know what they need to do,” Dunleavy said. “They need to have conversations with their doctor and make a decision, i...
JUNEAU (AP) - The campaign aimed at recalling Gov. Mike Dunleavy is closing down, with a gubernatorial election looming next year and the group short of the signatures needed to force a recall vote. The Recall Dunleavy group said that as of Aug. 21 it had gathered 62,373 signatures, shy of the 71,252 needed. Collecting signatures during the pandemic has been difficult, said Joelle Hall, a member of the group’s steering committee. Hall called the decision to halt the recall effort strategic and wise. The primary election for the governor’s rac...
JUNEAU (AP) - Former state Rep. Les Gara on Aug. 20 announced plans to run for governor in next year’s election. The Anchorage Democrat joins Gov. Mike Dunleavy, a Republican, and former Gov. Bill Walker, an independent, who have previously announced their intentions to run. Libertarian William “Billy” Toien, who unsuccessfully ran in 2018, is the only official candidate listed so far with the state Division of Elections. In a statement, Gara cited as concerns state public works construction needs, Alaska’s education and university systems...
JUNEAU (AP) - The state’s decision to not seek further legal review of a split court ruling that struck down several campaign contribution caps in Alaska has been criticized by a state lawmaker who said the state should have pressed forward with a legal fight. The case was heard by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Gov. Mike Dunleavy has an obligation to defend the laws of the state, said Sen. Bill Wielechowski, of Anchorage. “He doesn’t get to pick and choose which laws he wants to defend and not defend,” Wielech...
As legislators meet in special session this week, Gov. Mike Dunleavy continues to push his plan for much larger Permanent Fund dividends, saying “cash is the ultimate program” to help Alaskans. “Cash in the form of the Permanent Fund dividend … is really the answer to helping Alaskans and our private economy,” the governor said in a prepared statement Monday, the day lawmakers went back to work in Juneau. While promoting his plan to pay dividends almost double the average of the past 10 years without any new revenues to cover the state spe...
Just over 20 years ago, half of the Alaska House of Representatives banded together - Democrats and Republicans, urban and rural - in a concerted push to balance the budget, raise new revenues and put the state on a path to a long-term, fiscally responsible future. They called themselves the Fiscal Policy Caucus, and even wore lapel pins of an open umbrella to signify that the rainy day had arrived and Alaskans needed to protect themselves from falling oil revenues. They studied the math,...
For years, critics of state finances have said government should run more like a business. OK, let's see how that works. When companies are short of revenue, they first look at how to boost sales. Makes good financial sense to go out and attract more business, draw in new customers, maybe even raise prices while staying competitive. And companies look at their expenses. Are there better ways to run the operation that would save money. The absolutely last thing a well-run company would do is pay...