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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
Dear Friends and Neighbors: Greetings from Juneau! The 2nd session of the 33rd Legislature started this week. It is thrilling to be back, and I hope everyone in House District 2 is enjoying a healthy and prosperous new year. During this year's second regular session of the 33rd legislature I will continue to serve on the Education, Community and Regional Affairs and Fisheries committees. Please watch for updates on the committee work in this columnas the session progresses. Fisheries: Trident -...
In a major hit to Southwest Alaska’s fishing industry, Peter Pan Seafood Co. will keep its huge plant in the village of King Cove shuttered this winter, meaning that the company won’t be processing millions of dollars worth of cod, whitefish and crab. “It’s one of the most difficult days of my life,” Rodger May, one of the company’s owners and a longtime player in the seafood industry, said in a brief interview Thursday. “It’s just a devastating time for the industry.” The closure is the latest sign of the widening turmoil in Alaska seafood ma...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Alaska lawmakers opened a new legislative session Tuesday, with the House failing to support an attempt to override Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s veto of $87 million in additional education funding last year. Under the state constitution, the Legislature has the first five days of the regular session for a veto override attempt. If a joint session were held to consider a veto override, three-fourths of lawmakers — or 45 members — would need to vote in favor of an override for it to be successful. House Minority Leader...
This fall’s energy relief payment, which would go out along with the annual Permanent Fund dividend, is looking smaller than expected several months ago. The “bonus” on the 2024 dividend would come from state revenues in excess of what is needed to cover the spending plan approved by lawmakers and the governor last spring. The Legislature included a provision in the state budget that said half of any surplus would go into savings and half into an energy relief payment to Alaskans. The latest projection for the fall payment is about $175, Alexe...
The Boeing jetliner that lost a door panel inflight over Oregon on Jan. 5 was not being used for flights to Hawaii after a warning light that could have indicated a pressurization problem lit up on three separate occasions over the past month, a federal official said Sunday, Jan. 7. Alaska Airlines decided to restrict the aircraft from long flights over water so the plane "could return very quickly to an airport" if the warning light reappeared, said Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Trans...
Almost 110,000 Alaskans applied for the fall 2024 Permanent Fund dividend in the first eight days after the application period opened on Jan. 1. Applications close in 11 weeks, on March 31. Last year’s dividend was $1,312. This year’s amount will be determined as part of annual state budget deliberations, which will begin next week when legislators reconvene in Juneau. The annual dividend is paid from the state general fund, which gets most of its money from investment earnings generated by the $78 billion Alaska Permanent Fund and from oil...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy said education is among his top priorities in the coming fiscal year. He proposed spending millions on education, but did not include an increase to per student funding, known as the base student allocation, in his proposed budget. His proposed budget puts $1,267,522,300 to the education department, a 9% decrease from last year, due to shrinking enrollment. “I want the public to understand that, as a former educator, I understand that schools cost money, education costs money, there’s no doubt about it,” Dunleavy said. “The... Full story
Alaskans could pay significantly more next year for mailing packages to, from and within the state with two price increases planned by the U.S. Postal Service. In an effort to reduce its projected $160 billion loss over the next 10 years, the Postal Service announced it is planning a 5.7% average nationwide price hike in 2024 for some shipping options. Customers using USPS Ground Advantage for shipping within Alaska would see a 9.2% average increase. The price increases are set to take effect Jan. 21, but some Alaska mailing rates from Outside...
Nikita Chase doesn’t have a Christmas tree yet this year. She said she is more worried about staving off an electricity shutoff notice than getting into the holiday spirit. Her food stamps, known as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, were nearly two months late. “I am pretty much tapped out going into Christmas. That’s not a great place to be,” she said. She ran up debt on her credit card to pay for heat and electricity after she spent all her cash to feed her family. She paid significantly higher prices for piecemeal groceri... Full story
With the rusty Matanuska out of service pending repairs, the Kennicott scheduled for tie-up due to lack of crew and the Tazlina in the shipyard to add crew quarters, the state ferry system’s draft summer 2024 schedule is limited by the number of vessels in service and looks about the same as this past summer. The Columbia would make a weekly northbound stop in Petersburg on Sundays and a weekly southbound visit on Wednesdays on its run between Bellingham, Washington, and Southeast Alaska. The marine highway system released its draft schedule D...
