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It didn’t work a year ago, but the borough and Wrangell’s state House member are trying again to restore the Alaska Office of Children’s Services caseworker position in the community. Same as last year, the borough is offering to cover half the expenses if the state will pay its half. The community has been without a caseworker for more than a decade due to state cutbacks. Bringing back a caseworker “is absolutely crucial,” said Bob Davis, lead teacher and assistant principal for the high school and middle school. “We’re seeing a huge uptick i...
To steal the line from a country-western song of almost 30 years ago — “Well that’s my story and I’m sticking to it” — Gov. Mike Dunleavy is sticking to his story that the Permanent Fund dividend is just about the most important thing in Alaska today. So much so that not only does he want the PFD enshrined in the constitution, but he wants the formula for calculating the annual payment to residents hard-wired into the everlasting document. Even education, public health and safety don’t get that kind of star treatment. The governor want...
Alaska’s lone seafood marketing arm gets zero funding from the state and, to date, has received no federal pandemic aid funds. The Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute is hoping to get something from the more than $1 billion coming to the state general fund in the latest round of federal relief dollars under the American Rescue Plan. ASMI put in a $20 million request two months ago, but Gov. Mike Dunleavy made no mention of it in mid-April when he released his proposals for the federal money, nor anything since. Dunleavy did include $150 million...
As of last week, almost half of the 99 Wrangell applications for financial help with rent and utilities had been approved or were pending a final decision, according to the state agency running the federally funded program. The Alaska Housing Finance Corp. received about 30,000 applications for assistance from across the state for $200 million in federal pandemic relief funds available under Alaska’s state and municipal allocation. The program closed to applications March 5, and AHFC staff and its contractor have been working to verify i...
The Alaska House passed a version of the state operating budget Monday that would bring back the Department Fish and Game and Office of Children's Services to Wrangell, but the spending plan still needs Senate approval and the governor's signature before the two jobs could be restored. Wrangell lost its children's service caseworker several years ago to budget cuts. The commercial fisheries office closed last year. The Legislature tried last year to fund both positions, but Gov. Mike Dunleavy...
Consistency is a good thing, whether it’s parents applying rules to their children or elected officials following the law. Inconsistency can mean children misbehave because they know they will sometimes get away with it. And inconsistency can allow elected officials to do what will politically please their constituents most of the time rather than what is right all of the time. Such as those elected officials who clamor and pound the campaign trail, demanding that the Legislature “follow the law” and appropriate money for the Permanent Fund...
Legislation to increase Alaska’s state motor fuel tax rate for the first time since 1970 is in a calendar crunch. It was still in the House Finance Committee as of Tuesday, with lawmakers facing a May 19 adjournment deadline. The measure would double the state tax of 8 cents to 16 cents a gallon, with the intent — but not a legally binding requirement — that the money go toward highway maintenance. The Alaska Constitution prohibits dedicated funds. The tax hike is overdue, said the bill’s sponsor, Anchorage Rep. Andy Josephson, who noted t...
The state Senate is considering House legislation that would restructure the 18-year-old ferry system advisory board, taking away the governor’s authority to appoint all of the members. House Bill 63 passed that body unanimously May 5, moving next to the Senate. The governor, however, does not believe a key provision of the legislation is legal. He had proposed his own restructuring bill that did not relinquish appointment authority for members to the board. Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s bill also would continue the provision in law that a governor can...
ANCHORAGE (AP) – The state has agreed to settle for $85,000 with a former employee whose job application was rejected because she supported the recall of Gov. Mike Dunleavy. The out-of-court settlement was announced April 26 by the Alaska chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, which represented Keren Lowell, a former employee for the Alaska State Council on the Arts. Lowell worked for the arts council in 2019 when Dunleavy vetoed the organization’s funding, causing Lowell to lose her job. She then became involved in the effort to rec...
JUNEAU (AP) - Alaska U.S. Rep. Don Young said he will seek reelection to the seat he has held since 1973. The Republican, in an April 28 statement announcing his reelection plans, said with the challenges facing Alaska, this is “not the time to take risks on someone untested and unproven.” Young, 87, is the longest-serving Republican in the U.S. House. He won his latest reelection bid in November, with 54.4% of the vote, against Alyse Galvin. Galvin also lost to Young in 2018, losing by a wider margin in 2020. The incumbent’s closest reele...
Nearly $77 million in federal pandemic relief funds would be used to cover the state contribution to the Alaska Marine Highway System operating budget through Dec. 31, 2022, bringing more certainty to scheduling the vessels, under a deal worked out between the governor and legislators. The money would come from the transportation section of a $900 billion relief bill passed by Congress in December. The governor announced the funding plan while in Ketchikan last Thursday. The federal money, when...
Legislators will focus the next few weeks on how to spend $1.02 billion in federal pandemic relief destined for the state treasury, with last week's opening acts of the fiscal play showing somewhat different budgetary scripts from the House majority coalition and the governor. Both proposals would direct money to construction projects, the tourism industry and repairing Alaska's damaged economy, though at differing funding levels. The House plan also would direct funds to communities worst hit by the pandemic. And while House leadership has...
With more than $1 billion in federal pandemic aid heading to the state treasury, Gov. Mike Dunleavy and Alaska's 60 legislators are busy figuring out the best way to spend the money. Our elected leaders need to stick with spending decisions that will do the most long-term good for communities, resisting the temptation of politically popular cash payouts to individuals. It's disturbing to hear talk among some elected officials in the Capitol that the federal money could be used - in a roundabout...
HYDER - Gov. Mike Dunleavy has offered COVID-19 vaccines to residents of the small British Columbia town of Stewart, with hopes it could lead the Canadian government to ease border restrictions between Stewart and the tiny Alaska town of Hyder a couple miles away. "We couldn't ask for better neighbors than the Canadians. But ... their (virus) mitigating approaches have affected us greatly by slowing down traffic, limiting traffic," Dunleavy told The Associated Press as he ended a long day of...
A quarter-century ago, Congress appropriated $110 million explicitly to help Southeast communities get through the loss of the timber industry, the region's big economic driver. This year, federal money is coming to the aid of the new dominant industry, tourism. However, Sitka Sen. Bert Stedman said, there is a key difference between the loss of the timber industry and today's struggles in the tourist industry: Tourism will come back one day. But it will take time. Federal pandemic relief funds...
States and cities have tried a lot of creative slogans over the years to entice people to come visit. "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas." The iconic "I Love NY" slogan and logo. And there's the romantic "Virginia is for lovers." Now we have the newest entrant among tourism marketing campaigns. We could call it: "Get stuck in Alaska." The state of Alaska will offer free COVID-19 vaccinations for travelers who come to the 49th state this summer. If the fishing and scenery, the long summer nigh...
JUNEAU (AP) - Juneau residents have filed paperwork for citizens initiatives that would impose limits on cruise ships in Alaska’s capital city. The proposed measures submitted April 12 would ban large cruise ships at certain times and over a specific size from Juneau. Filing paperwork is the first step in getting on the ballot. The city clerk has until May 3 to certify or deny the paperwork. If supporters are allowed to go forward, they would need to collect signatures from nearly 3,000 registered Juneau voters for each of the three measures t...
Free COVID-19 vaccinations will be made available at four airports in the state starting June 1, Gov. Mike Dunleavy said April 16 as he unveiled plans aimed at bolstering the state’s pandemic-battered tourist industry. Dunleavy also outlined plans for a national marketing campaign aimed at luring tourists using federal aid money and said the airport vaccination offering is “probably another good reason to come to the state of Alaska in the summer.” The state plans to offer vaccines at airports in Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau and Ketchikan, the...
JUNEAU (AP) - Alaska state Sen. Lora Reinbold was removed as Senate Judiciary Committee chair on April 19, the 91st day of a legislative session in which she has often clashed with fellow Republicans, including other Senate majority members and Gov. Mike Dunleavy, and frequently ignored and protested legislative rules to wear a face mask and undergo regular testing for COVID-19. The committee change was approved by the Senate 17-1, with Reinbold the lone no. The Eagle River Republican, in her ninth year in the Legislature, was replaced as...
John Waghiyi remembers rushing his cousin to the clinic in the Bering Sea city of Savoonga in December, worried he was having a possible heart attack while out butchering a bowhead whale. Waghiyi arrived to see elders waiting in the lobby for a COVID-19 vaccine. Waghiyi, 66, said he joined them and got a shot before returning to the coast to help finish the whale harvest. Elders, he said, have set the tone in the Alaska Native community of 735 on the coast of isolated St. Lawrence Island....
The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan became law on March 11. Much of the federal money is directed to help states, cities, businesses and individuals recover from the economic damage of the pandemic. Aid for the beleaguered tourism, travel and hospitality industries - which suffered more that most with the near-total shutdown of events and vacations - was a major part of the congressional work. And yet, here it is a month later, and the governor's office has only now announced it will propose...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy said he wants to use federal pandemic relief dollars for a national advertising campaign to support Alaska's tourism industry, though he provided no details or budget for the marketing campaign in the April 9 announcement. The governor's office also said tourism businesses will soon receive relief grants from the state, with details to come this week. Legislative approval is required to appropriate state funds. Dunleavy said he has put Lt. Gov. Kevin Meyer in charge of...
State department operating budgets before the House Finance Committee this week for the fiscal year that starts July 1 include funding to restore the commercial fisheries position in Wrangell and also the Office of Children's Services caseworker job. The Legislature tried last year to fund both positions, but the money was vetoed by Gov. Mike Dunleavy. Wrangell lost its children's services worker several years ago to budget cuts. The Department of Fish and Game position was eliminated a year...
While Alaska legislators await federal rules for how the state can spend the almost $1.2 billion in federal pandemic relief funds headed this way, communities are waiting to see their allocations from a separate pot of federal aid - and ready to push the state to share some of its money. In addition to the general relief funding going to the state, Alaska communities will receive a share of a separate $231 million municipal allocation under the American Rescue Plan signed into law last month....
Back when the North Slope was pumping 2 million barrels of crude a day at its peak in 1988, and even for years after, oil provided upward of 90% of state general fund revenues in good years. But that was then, and now oil generates maybe 25% of the state's unrestricted dollars. The king of the budget hill is the Alaska Permanent Fund. The annual draw on the fund to help pay for public services and the dividend will provide about two-thirds of the state's unrestricted general revenues this year....