Senators move legislation to help low-income Alaskans with legal services

Legislation that could boost state funding to assist more low-income Alaskans needing help with civil law issues has advanced through its second state Senate committee and is waiting for a vote by the full chamber.

The measure would more than double a source of state funding that could be directed each year to the Alaska Legal Services Corp., a 56-year-old nonprofit legal aid organization that helps several thousand Alaskans a year with domestic violence, family law, housing, elder advocacy and other cases.

“They provide absolutely critical legal services,” the bill’s sponsor, Anchorage freshman Sen. Forrest Dunbar, told members of the Senate Finance Committee on April 12.

Senate Bill 104 passed through the Finance Committee without opposition on April 18.

“We have to turn away hundreds of families every year,” due to lack of staff and funding, Nikole Nelson, executive director of Alaska Legal Services, told committee members April 12.

“To me, it’s a travesty that these people are not being served,” responded Fairbanks Sen. Click Bishop, who signed on as a co-sponsor of the legislation.

“We are facing an enormous crisis” among Alaskans who lack any assistance in handling civil issues, Nelson said, listing domestic violence victims, grandparents trying to enroll children in school or for medical care, and veterans waiting on their benefits among the issues the nonprofit helps with.

“For all these problems, there is a legal solution,” she said.

Dunbar’s measure would direct that 25% of filing fees paid to the court system each year go into a civil legal services fund which the Legislature could appropriate to the aid organization. Current law directs 10% of filing fees to the fund.

At the higher rate, about $750,000 a year would be available as a grant to Alaska Legal Services instead of the current level of about $300,000. Annual appropriation of the money would be subject to legislative approval, and Dunbar acknowledges that winning support among his colleagues for including the additional spending in the state budget could be harder than gaining approval for the legislation.

Alaska Legal Services, with offices in a dozen communities, including Juneau, Ketchikan and Sitka, serves about 7,000 people a year. Its 2021 budget was about $6.5 million, with federal funds comprising the single-largest revenue source.

The agency doesn’t help with criminal cases, only civil.