Sorted by date Results 51 - 75 of 78
The Alaska House Education Committee voted 5-2 Wednesday morning to raise the amount Alaska pays K-12 schools per student, a figure known as the base student allocation. The decision followed five hours of public testimony — almost entirely in favor of the idea — Tuesday night in the Capitol. Advocates for public schools say an increase is needed to compensate for inflation-driven increases in the cost to educate Alaska students. Two members of the House’s predominantly Republican coalition majority voted in favor of the increase, a sign that... Full story
Dozens of Alaskans testified in the state Capitol on Monday, urging lawmakers to advance a new anti-discrimination measure that would protect Alaskans from being denied housing or access to public accommodations because of their sexual orientation or gender identity or expression. House Bill 99, from Rep. Jennifer Armstrong, D-Anchorage, is being considered by the House Labor and Commerce Committee, which heard two hours of public testimony, almost entirely in support of the idea. Members of the committee have received more than 1,000 emails... Full story
Anchorage Democratic Rep. Jennie Armstrong, one of three newly elected LGBTQ members of the Alaska Legislature, has introduced a new proposal to ban housing discrimination based on sex or sexual orientation. House Bill 99 was scheduled for a hearing Wednesday in the House Labor and Commerce Committee. The bill’s introduction on Wednesday came days after the Anchorage Daily News published an article noting that the state of Alaska had dropped a policy that banned most forms of discrimination against LGBTQ people here. Armstrong said this week t... Full story
The Alaska House of Representatives voted 35-1 on Wednesday to approve a letter urging state and federal officials to fight a lawsuit that could shut down a major king salmon fishery in Southeast Alaska. “This fishery has come under attack,” said Rep. Rebecca Himschoot, I-Sitka, and the sponsor of the letter, House Joint Resolution 5, which now goes to the Senate. The resolution has broad bipartisan support in the Alaska Legislature, where lawmakers view the issue as one about an outside group attacking Alaskans’ way of life. “This resolut... Full story
More than 90,000 pounds of canned Alaska pink salmon purchased and donated by the state of Alaska is being distributed as wartime relief in Ukraine. The cans were donated to the nonprofit World Central Kitchen and arrived in Ukraine this month after months of shipping and customs delays. They are the state's biggest contribution to Ukraine's defense against a Russian invasion that's now almost a year old. Though Alaska borders one of the combatants, the war has remained a back-burner issue in...
Alaska’s backlog of untested sexual assault examination kits has all but disappeared after a five-year, multimillion-dollar effort, according to a report presented to the Alaska Legislature. The kits, colloquially known as “rape kits,” are used to collect physical evidence after a sexual assault. Figures published by the Alaska Department of Public Safety and dated Nov. 1 show only 75 untested kits, all at the state crime lab. In 2017, a statewide survey found almost 3,500 untested kits across the state, many held by local police depar... Full story
The Biden administration will ban new logging roads and most development in much of Southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Wednesday. The decision, which repeals a 2020 USDA action under the Trump administration, continues a quarter-century of action and counter-action over development in the region, which contains the world’s largest temperate coastal rainforest and is home to more than 72,000 people. “As our nation’s largest national forest and the largest intact temperate rainforest in the... Full story
An obscure clause in the just-passed $1.7 trillion federal omnibus budget law has awarded the University of Alaska a plot of land half the size of the state of Rhode Island. The clause begins on page 2,819 of the 4,126-page law and calls for the university to receive 360,000 acres of federal land within the next four years, fulfilling the amount owed to it because of its status as a land-grant school. The university earns between $7 million and $8 million per year in revenue from 151,000 acres it already owns, and development of the new land is... Full story
A joint House-Senate committee of the Alaska Legislature voted against accepting $20 million in federal aid to seafood processors, with lawmakers saying that a new state law prevents them from accepting that much money outside the normal state budget process. The 3-4 vote came Wednesday during a meeting of the Legislative Budget and Audit Committee, which makes financial decisions on behalf of the Legislature when lawmakers are not in session. The failed vote means seafood processing companies in Alaska will wait several more months to receive... Full story
The lowest crude oil prices of the year are coming at a bad time for Alaska. This week, as required by state law, Gov. Mike Dunleavy will unveil his first budget plan of his second term. Accompanying that plan will be a significantly smaller state revenue forecast. This spring, the Legislature passed — and Dunleavy signed — a budget that anticipated $8.3 billion in general-purpose revenue. With Dunleavy preparing to release his first draft for the budget for the 12 months starting in July 2023, preliminary indications are that the state wil... Full story
All three incumbents likely clinched final victory in Alaska's statewide elections Friday, as the Alaska Division of Elections updated results with thousands of additional absentee, questioned and early ballots from this fall's general election. Final unofficial results will not be available until 4 p.m. Wednesday, November 23, when the division implements the state's new ranked choice sorting system, but voting trends have made the results clear in most races. With 264,994 votes counted,... Full story
Democratic candidate Donna Mears overtook Republican candidate Forrest Wolfe in a closely watched Alaska House race as the Alaska Division of Elections counted 27,178 early, absentee and questioned ballots, about three-fifths of the number outstanding from the Nov. 8 general election. Additional absentee ballots are expected to arrive in the coming days, and the Division of Elections’ next scheduled count is Friday. With Mears taking a lead, the 40-seat Alaska House is split exactly in half. In 20 seats, Republicans lead. In the other 20, D...
The Anchorage School District, which is considering the closure of six elementary schools amid a projected $68 million budget shortfall, isn’t the only district facing a major fiscal problem. At the end of the last school year, Fairbanks closed three schools. In Juneau, the school board is considering whether to fire specialists intended to help students recover reading skills lost during the COVID-19 pandemic. In rural Alaska, districts are trying to balance their books while dealing with high transportation and heating costs. Local and s... Full story
Gov. Mike Dunleavy has requested a federal disaster declaration and U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola has requested $250 million in relief funding after the failure of this year’s Bering Sea snow crab and Bristol Bay red king crab fisheries. Peltola asked Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and the chair of the House Appropriations Committee to include relief funding for crab fishermen and the crabbing industry in Congress’ year-end appropriation bill. Disaster relief funding could be available if Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo declares a fis... Full story
This year’s Alaska general election absentee ballot is a hefty document, weighing in between 1.1 and 1.2 ounces. If it were an ordinary letter, that’s weighty enough to need two stamps. But if voters forget, officials at the Alaska Division of Elections and the U.S. Postal Service say this year’s absentee ballots will still be carried — and counted — with just one stamp. “If a return ballot is nevertheless entered into the mailstream with insufficient or unpaid postage, it is the Postal Service’s policy not to delay the delivery of completed... Full story
The Alaska Department of Natural Resources is preparing a new program that would allow Alaska sawmills to sell lumber for local construction without having that wood graded for quality by an Outside inspector. The program was announced Tuesday at Southeast Conference, a gathering of Southeast Alaska political and business leaders, by Alaska State Forester Helge Eng. Eng said the program, which may take two years to implement, would encourage the growth of Alaska’s lumber industry by making it easier to use locally produced lumber. Many r... Full story
The Alaska Division of Elections on Friday certified the state’s Aug. 16 special general election for U.S. House, confirming Democrat Mary Peltola as the winner. Peltola will be sworn in as Alaska’s lone U.S. representative later this month after defeating Republican candidates Sarah Palin and Nick Begich III. Though elections officials are still compiling statistics from the vote, political advisers, pollers and independent observers say there are five early lessons from Alaska’s first ranked choice election: Ranked choice voting mostly worke...
Democrat Mary Peltola will become Alaska’s first congresswoman and the first Alaska Native in the U.S. House of Representatives. Peltola defeated Republican candidates Sarah Palin and Nick Begich in ranked-choice voting results announced Wednesday. All three candidates were vying to serve the last four months of the term left unfinished when Congressman Don Young died in March. A special primary election in June narrowed a field of 48 candidates to four, and the withdrawal of nonpartisan c... Full story
For the first time in a decade, the Alaska Permanent Fund Corp., source of more than half of Alaska’s general-purpose state revenue, posted negative investment returns for an entire fiscal year. As of June 30, the last day of the just-ended fiscal year 2022, the fund reported having earned minus-1.32% over the preceding 12 months. The decline will not have an immediate effect on state finances, but continued losses over multiple years would reduce the amount of money available each year for state services and the Permanent Fund dividend. B... Full story
Democratic candidate Mary Peltola left election day leading Alaska's special election for U.S. House, but the state's new ranked choice voting system may leave Republican candidate and former governor Sarah Palin the ultimate winner. As of Wednesday afternoon, with 395 of 402 precincts reporting, Peltola had earned 38.03% of first-choice vote in a race that will determine who fills Alaska's lone U.S. House seat until January, completing the term left unfinished by the death of Congressman Don... Full story
The top employees of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corp. are some of the highest-paid public workers in Alaska, but with wages rising across the country and employers competing for skilled labor, even the $80 billion Permanent Fund is struggling to keep employees from leaving. Nine of the corporation’s 66 employees have quit this year, including the manager of the corporation’s highest-earning investments and the entire three-person team in charge of finalizing trades. Seven other positions are new, and filling them is expected to be dif... Full story
Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy has signed a $14.4 billion state budget, the sixth-largest in state history, after vetoing about $400 million from a proposal passed by the Alaska Legislature this spring. With Alaska expecting a multibillion-dollar surge in oil revenue due to high prices caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, spending is up by $2.7 billion when compared to the budget passed by the governor and lawmakers last year. That increase is less than the rise in revenue, and the state is poised to end a decade-long streak of years in which...
Republican candidate Tara Sweeney cannot replace independent candidate Al Gross in Alaska's special election for U.S. House, the director of the Alaska Division of Elections said Tuesday, one day after Gross said he will withdraw from the race. Gross's action and the division's decision means only three candidates will advance to a special general election on Aug. 16, but that could change if the division's decision is successfully challenged in court. Sweeney's campaign will not file a suit,... Full story
The four finalists for Alaska's special U.S. House election have been decided. Based on results tallied through Wednesday evening, Republicans Sarah Palin and Nick Begich III, independent candidate Al Gross and Democratic candidate Mary Peltola will be the options for Alaska's first ranked-choice election on Aug. 16. The winner of that election will fill the remaining term of former Congressman Don Young and serve in Congress until January, when the winner of the November general election is... Full story
Months before Alaska’s state elections, the Legislature is set for major turnover. At least 17 of the Legislature’s 60 members will be in a new position or out of office entirely by next January — and that doesn’t count anyone who loses their seat this fall. The deadline to file for this year’s legislative elections is June 1, but many candidates have already made up their minds. Because a steep learning curve awaits new legislators, several departing incumbents said the turnover will slow the progress of complicated legislation, such as a... Full story
