Sorted by date Results 76 - 100 of 763
Leading Alaska legislators said last week that there’s little appetite for spending from savings to pay a super-sized Permanent Fund dividend this year, likely killing a proposal from Gov. Mike Dunleavy. In December, the governor proposed spending almost $2.3 billion on a dividend of roughly $3,500 per recipient under a formula in state law. That would result in a $1 billion deficit and require spending from the state’s Constitutional Budget Reserve, but as a draft budget takes shape in the House, top members of both the House and Senate sai...
A $9.7 million bailout package to ensure that the Juneau School District can cover a nearly $8 million deficit this year and help toward resolving a projected deficit of nearly $10 million next year was approved March 4 by the Juneau borough assembly. The package, consisting of a loan and taking over some “non-instructional costs” from the school district, won final approval after several weeks of consideration by city and school leaders. The Juneau assembly voted to provide the district with an interest-free loan of up to $4.1 million dol...
The Alaska Senate voted without dissent Monday to allow the Department of Natural Resources to stop publishing some public notices in local newspapers. Senators approved Senate Bill 68 by a 17-0 vote. It now advances to the House for consideration. Sens. Lyman Hoffman, D-Bethel; Bert Stedman, R-Sitka; and Shelley Hughes, R-Palmer, were excused absent. Before the final vote, newspaper publishers unsuccessfully asked legislators to reconsider their plans. Allowing the state to control its public notice process poses transparency risks, they...
Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy issued an ultimatum to state legislators on Tuesday, saying he will veto a multipart education funding bill unless lawmakers pass separate legislation that contains his education priorities. Speaking from his office in Anchorage, the governor said lawmakers have two weeks to reconsider teacher bonuses and changes to the way charter schools are approved, two items that were voted down during the debates over Senate Bill 140, the education bill. If they don’t act, Dunleavy said he will veto SB 140, killing a permanent f... Full story
An Alaska House member has proposed a bill that seeks to establish definitions of “life” and “person” in criminal law, prompting dozens of Alaskans to testify against it, saying it would unconstitutionally limit abortions in the state. Rep. Kevin McCabe, R-Big Lake, said his bill is “simply my attempt to define life for the statute” and “ensure fair treatment and protection for all individuals including those yet to be born.” He said the bill would define a fetus as a person. Alaska is one of more than a dozen states considering wha... Full story
While Alaska’s mariculture industry is small by global standards, production of farmed shellfish and seaweed in the state has increased substantially in recent years, according to a new status report released Friday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Applications for Alaska mariculture permits averaged about six a year from 2014 to 2018 but increased to about 14 a year from 2019 to 2023, said the State of Alaska Aquaculture report, issued by the NOAA Fisheries. Oysters have been a pillar of Alaska mariculture for many y... Full story
The leaders of the $76 billion Alaska Permanent Fund voted unanimously on Friday to adopt a strategic plan that calls for borrowing up to $4 billion in order to increase the amount of money available for investments. Friday’s vote has limited effect: The borrowing could take place only if the Alaska Legislature and Gov. Mike Dunleavy change state law to allow it. “It’ll start out as a legislative effort, then it would take a bill,” said Paulyn Swanson, communications director of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corp., which manages the fund. The Ala... Full story
Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration introduced legislation on Wednesday that would criminalize unpermitted street protests and other activities that block passage through public places. Certain types of protest could be counted among the state’s most serious crimes. Dunleavy said the proposal is aimed at increasing public safety. Civil rights advocates say the potential infringement of Alaskans’ First Amendment rights is concerning. House Bill 386 would impose penalties for obstructing highways, navigable waterways, airport runways and other pu... Full story
The U.S. Department of Agriculture will purchase about 50 million pounds of Alaska seafood to use in national food and nutrition-assistance programs, state officials said on Tuesday. The seafood purchase is to benefit needy children and adults and school lunches, said the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, which announced the department’s plans. The purchases are authorized through a portion of federal law called Section 32, which allows the department to buy surplus food products, and through the department’s Commodity Credit Corp., a gov... Full story
The U.S. Census Bureau rejected Haines' appeal over the 2020 population count, which showed Haines’ population dropping by around 500 residents. “I’m deeply disappointed. I really thought that our response was compelling,” said borough clerk Alekka Fullerton, who worked on the appeal. “I was mad – it’s a big deal to our community.” The bureau counted 2080 residents in Haines in 2020. The borough appealed that number in June. Fullerton said a few weeks ago, she realized the borough still hadn’t received a response about its appeal. She reach...
The Alaska House of Representatives voted on Wednesday against increasing the amount written into law saying how much the state should spend per student in public schools. Wednesday’s action isn’t final, and the House could change course as soon as 11 a.m. Thursday, when debates are scheduled to resume. House Minority Leader Calvin Schrage, I-Anchorage, said it would be accurate to consider things in a holding pattern. “Obviously, we haven’t come to a deal yet. But the bill will be in second (reading) tomorrow. So we’ll still have the opportuni... Full story
“I’ve never seen market conditions as bad as they are now,” Doug Vincent-Lang, commissioner of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, told a conference of Southeast business, community and municipal government leaders last week. “Last year we said we reached rock bottom,” Jeremy Woodrow, executive director of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, said of low prices, weak markets and reluctant consumers. But then he added, “we’ve scraped off more levels,” reaching deeper to the bottom. All of the participants in the fisheries panel discussio...
Crew shortages continue to plague the Alaska Marine Highway, the ferry system’s director told a gathering of Southeast officials last week. “Our biggest shortage is in the engineering department,” where the 54 ship engineers on the payroll as of Jan. 26 were far short of the 81 needed for full staffing, Craig Tornga told a gathering of community, business and government leaders at the Southeast Conference on Feb. 7 in Juneau. “We’re short in the wheelhouse,” he added, down eight from a full contingent of 79 in the master, chief mate, secon...
Dear Friends and Neighbors: Last week was a bucket-filler: I was able to connect with constituents from across the district through the school administrators' fly-in and Southeast Conference. On Friday I was thrilled to be able to attend a workshop on how to fund schools to provide the opportunities we all want for our students. While I'm sure there's a lot going on behind the scenes on the bill to raise the BSA, it has not yet been scheduled for a floor vote. The part of the bill that funds...
Alaska’s courts have had a backlog of cases since courts shut down for months during the COVID-19 pandemic. The backlog has persisted, in part because of attorney shortages. The court typically carries many pending cases, but the number of pending cases is currently 27% higher for felonies and about 13% higher for misdemeanors than it was in 2019. “The overall numbers are going down, which is what we want to see,” said Stacey Marz, the Alaska State Court System’s administrative director. “We want to see fewer cases that are pending.” In the yea... Full story
The International Pacific Halibut Commission released the halibut numbers for 2024 on Feb. 5 following their annual meeting. The IPHC oversees management of halibut along the Pacific coast — from California, through British Columbia, and across coastal Alaska. During their annual meeting in January each year, the commission adopts the total mortality limits for halibut distributed across the areas they regulate. The adopted total mortality limits for 2024 amount to a net weight of 35.28 million pounds (Mlb), a decrease from the 36.97 Mlb d...
Sitka's Mount Edgecumbe volcano is wired. On Jan. 26, the Alaska Volcano Observatory announced the completion of a new instrument network intended to measure the activity of a volcano that could be awakening after a period of dormancy. The network includes four seismic stations and four sites that measure the way the ground is deforming as magma moves deep below the volcano. Since April 2022, the movement of that liquefied rock has caused hundreds of small earthquakes and raised concerns that... Full story
In January of last year, 10 Alaskans sued the state because they said the Department of Health failed to provide food stamps within the time frames required by federal law. The state has been able to push pause on litigation since last year, but now it has to begin the process. District Judge Sharon Gleason wrote in a court order that further delays would be “inefficient” and noted that the state has now had a year to try and resolve its backlog. The court granted the state a series of stays, or pauses in the process, to allow it to work on... Full story
The Ketchikan Police Department and Alaska State Troopers have announced the seizure of fentanyl and methamphetamine with a total street value of nearly $1.7 million. Tuesday's seizure by troopers and KPD drug investigators involved about 14,938 "counterfeit pills containing fentanyl" and about 1.8 pounds of methamphetamine, according to information contained in a troopers dispatch and a separate KPD social media post published early Wednesday afternoon. The KPD post indicated that the alleged pills weighed about 3.29 pounds. As of mid...
Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy issued a far-reaching administrative order on Monday that calls for public agencies to stop doing business with companies that support an economic boycott of Israel. The order makes Alaska the 38th state to take executive acts or pass legislation against boycotts intended to support Palestinians. Many of those actions are years old, but the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, a conflict that has killed more than 25,000 people since October, has intensified attention on a two-decade-old campaign that urges companies to boycott... Full story
In an unusual use of executive powers, Gov. Mike Dunleavy this month issued 12 executive orders abolishing state boards and granting new powers to the heads of state departments. The orders, which account for almost 10% of all executive orders issued since statehood and are equal to the number of all executive orders issued in the previous 20 years, will automatically take effect in March unless the Alaska Legislature specifically disapproves of them in a joint vote of the House and Senate. “We have never, in my experience, had 12 executive o... Full story
Dear Friends and Neighbors: It was an eventful first week of session. Using every parliamentary tool available to us, the House Coalition was able to compel the House to invite the Senate into a joint session. This is the first step in the process to consider a veto override of the governor’s cut to half of last year’s one time education funding. I was honored to make the motion to call for a joint session. I believe the Legislature was correct in responding to the needs of our public schools since the vetoed funds are sitting in an account an...
A Ketchikan woman faces a felony charge of first-degree arson after allegedly setting several small fires in her apartment before leaving the multi-unit building located on the 100 block of Inman Street on Saturday afternoon. Firefighters responded quickly to a report of smoke coming from the eaves of the building and were able to contain the fire to the one apartment, according to Ketchikan Fire Department information. There were no injuries. Belinda Nelson, 42, was taken into custody later in...
Unless the Legislature decides otherwise by mid-March, Gov. Mike Dunleavy will take over appointment of the entire nine-member Alaska Marine Highway Operations Board. State law reserves four of the seats for appointment by legislative leaders, but Dunleavy on the first day of the legislative session Jan. 16 introduced an executive order that changes the law so that the governor would control all of the appointments. The change will take effect 60 days after the order was issued — unless a majority of the 60 legislators vote in a joint s...
The Alaska Legislature’s big education funding bill will reach the floor of the Alaska House of Representatives by next week, a leading Republican lawmaker said Monday. “We’re going to get it out. It’s not going to sit anywhere,” said Rep. Craig Johnson, R-Anchorage and chair of the House Rules Committee. On Saturday, members of Johnson’s committee heard more than seven hours of public testimony, mostly in favor of a large increase in Alaska’s funding for public schools. The committee declined to fulfill that request before advancing Sen... Full story
