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For the second time in two years, the Alaska Legislature has passed a bill requiring a phase-out of firefighting foams with contaminants called “forever chemicals.” The chemicals, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances that are commonly known as PFAS, have become notorious for their persistence and widespread presence in the environment. Known for their resistance to flames and degradation, PFAS chemicals — which number in the thousands — have been used since the 1950s in a wide variety of products, from consumer goods like clothing and cookware t...
Lawmakers have sent to the governor legislation that would increase insurance coverage for birth control. A large bipartisan majority of the Senate approved the measure on May 9. Alaskans may access up to 12 months of contraceptives at a time and without a co-pay from pharmacies in the state if Gov. Mike Dunleavy signs the bill into law. The House approved Senate amendments to the bill on May 10. House Bill 17 requires health insurance companies to cover contraceptives without a co-payment and to retroactively cover existing prescriptions when...
The Alaska Legislature passed a couple of bills aimed at improving health care services. The measures are now headed to Gov. Mike Dunleavy for his consideration. House Bill 228 would set up a state task force to recommend regulations for use of psychedelic medicines that the federal government is expected to approve soon. The first of those medicines expected to be approved, called MDMA, is considered useful for treating post-traumatic stress disorder. Approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is anticipated within months. Anchorage Sen...
The Alaska Legislature has approved the state budget with a Permanent Fund dividend and bonus of about $1,655 per recipient. The exact figure this fall will depend on the number of approved applicants. The Legislature finished work and adjourned May 15. As has been the case the past several years, the amount of the annual payment was debated at length. Last year, senators wrote the budget so that if oil prices exceeded what the state needed to pay its bills, some of that extra revenue would be reserved for an “energy relief” payment att...
The 33rd Alaska Legislature came to a shuddering but active end early Thursday morning, May 16, as lawmakers passed the state’s annual budget and several high-profile bills. While legislators met their short-term goals, they didn’t hit some lawmakers’ big targets, including a long-term plan to bring state finances into order, significant changes to the state education system or a revival of a pension program for public employees. While the budget includes a one-time increase in K-12 school funding, legislators didn’t permanently raise the per...
Families who use Alaska’s homeschool program will soon have clarity on how they may spend their annual allotments of state money. Lawmakers directed the Alaska Board of Education to write temporary regulations for the state’s correspondence school program that comply with the state’s constitution. The law, passed on the last day of the legislative session May 15, also requires that the education department begin monitoring allotment spending for the first time in a decade. House and Senate members approved the bill unanimously. The move comes...
The Alaska Legislature has passed a bill that combines underground storage of carbon dioxide, new regulation of underground storage of natural gas, state financing for new Cook Inlet natural gas development and an expansion of the state’s geothermal energy program. The measure, House Bill 50, sets up a regulatory and commercial framework for Alaska to stash carbon gases that would otherwise stream into the atmosphere, where they reinforce the greenhouse layer that is heating the planet. The bill started as one in a pair introduced last year b...
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...