Latest news with #ClaireStremple
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Alaska Legislature approves corporate tax for online business in Alaska, tied to education funding
The Alaska State Capitol is seen in partial morning sun on May 10, 2024. (Photo by Claire Stremple/Alaska Beacon) The Alaska Legislature has approved what would be the first state measure to raise significant new revenue in a decade and in the process has unlocked a key section of its own education-funding bill. On Wednesday, the Alaska House voted 26 to 14, to update the corporate income tax for companies doing business over the internet. The revenue measure is tied to pay for part of House Bill 57, a bipartisan education funding measure awaiting Gov. Dunleavy's verdict. HOW THEY VOTED In favor Robyn Niayuq Burke, D-Utqiagvik Jeremy Bynum, R-Ketchikan Ashley Carrick, D-Fairbanks Mia Costello, R-Anchorage Maxine Dibert, D-Fairbanks Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham Ted Eischeid, D-Anchorage Zack Fields, D-Anchorage Neal Foster, D-Nome Alyse Galvin, I-Anchorage Andrew Gray, D-Anchorage Carolyn Hall, D-Anchorage Sara Hannan, D-Juneau Rebecca Himschoot, I-Sitka Ky Holland, I-Anchorage Nellie Unangiq Jimmie, D-Bethel Andy Josephson, D-Anchorage Chuck Kopp, R-Anchorage Donna Mears, D-Anchorage Elexie Moore, R-Wasilla Genevieve Mina, D-Anchorage Justin Ruffridge, R-Soldotna Calvin Schrage, I-Anchorage Will Stapp, R-Fairbanks Andi Story, D-Juneau Louise Stutes, R-Kodiak Against Jamie Allard, R-Eagle River Julie Coulombe, R-Anchorage Bill Elam, R-Nikiski DeLena Johnson, R-Palmer Kevin McCabe, R-Big Lake David Nelson, R-Anchorage Mike Prax, R-North Pole George Rauscher, R-Sutton Dan Saddler, R-Eagle River Rebecca Schwanke, R-Glennallen Cathy Tilton, R-Wasilla Frank Tomaszewski, R-Fairbanks Jubilee Underwood, R-Wasilla Sarah Vance, R-Homer 'It's great news,' said Sen. Bill Wielechowski, D-Anchorage, sponsor of the legislation on Wednesday following the vote. 'This is a critically needed bill. It can generate some much needed revenue for education funding, and it is not going to result in any new taxes on Alaskans.' Senate Bill 113 would clarify that businesses that do at least 50% of sales of goods or services online, in Alaska or delivered to Alaska customers, must pay a state tax. Currently, businesses can argue a sale is taking place out-of-state at a company server farm or warehouse, not subject to Alaska taxation. But companies are still subject to taxes in those states where they're located, so supporters of the bill argue the update to 'market-based sourcing' will bring that tax revenue to Alaska. Wielechowski argued it's an issue of fairness for Alaskans. 'When a sale is made over the internet, they often use our state-funded broadband. When a product is shipped, it comes into our state-funded airports or Port of Alaska. It's trucked over our state-funded roads, and across our state-funded bridges,' he told the House Finance Committee on Friday. 'And who pays for all this? The people of Alaska,' he said. 'While the out of state corporation pays very little, or likely nothing in the case of highly digitized businesses, … this bill fixes this inequity.' The bill also garnered support from some more conservative Republican legislators, including Sen. Rob Yundt, R-Wasilla, who penned an op-ed published in the Anchorage Daily News. 'Today, highly digitized businesses can rake in hundreds of millions of dollars from Alaskans without ever setting foot in our state. They compete directly with our local retailers, undercutting prices and displacing local jobs,' he wrote. 'Because double taxation is illegal, if Alaska exercises its rightful authority to tax companies like Amazon on the income they earn here, they will not be taxed on that income again. This means the tax is already included in the company's budgets, and prices will not be changed for the seller or consumer.' The Alaska House voted 26-14 to pass Senate Bill 113, the first significant revenue measure in over a decade, on May 7, 2025. (Photo by Corinne Smith/Alaska Beacon) Under federal tax law, businesses are taxed based on apportionment, or a formula based on revenue from a company's property, payroll and sales. Under the legislation, only the sales in Alaska would be factored in for companies that are deemed 'highly digitized,' which means more than 50% of their business is done online. The legislation does not change Alaska's corporate income tax rates or brackets. Other Republicans, like Rep. Jamie Allard, R-Eagle River, opposed the tax, raising concerns businesses would shift the cost of the tax and raise prices on consumers. 'I think it's going to impact people greatly,' she said in the House Finance Committee meeting on Friday. 'I feel like this is a hidden cost to Alaskans.' Wielechowski said prices are usually set nationally, and pointed to at least 36 states that already have some form of this locally based corporate income tax. 'So the extent that we think our implementing this is going to somehow outweigh the impacts of California doing it and New York doing it — and North Carolina doing it, and Ohio doing it, and Oregon doing it, and all those other states — I know we like to think very highly of ourselves,' he said, to laughs from the committee, 'but I just don't think we have that sort of market impact.' By updating the law to capture these corporate sales, the bill could generate $25 million to $65 million each year at full implementation, according to a state estimate. It would cost more than $250,000 to administer, the state Department of Revenue said. Lawmakers have tied the revenue to pay for part of House Bill 57, an education funding bill for next year, which is waiting for a decision from Dunleavy. Legislators passed the bill in late April, with an estimated $22 million earmarked for reading improvement grants, and $10 million for career and technical education programs — both policy items sought by Dunleavy. But lawmakers made that contingent on Senate Bill 113 also passing. House Speaker Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham, said the legislation would generate much needed revenue for the state. 'I don't think it's lost on a lot of members in the Legislature that we're now entering an era where we're going to have to look at other revenue measures. And you can interpret this as a first step in that direction,' he said, 'whether the governor approves it or not. But overall, I think for other legislators it's kind of considered low-hanging fruit.' The last time the Legislature approved a significant revenue measure was in 2015, when lawmakers voted to add a 0.95-cent-per-gallon surcharge to the state's fuel tax in order to fund spill response and prevention. The education funding bill is now with Dunleavy, who has until May 17 to sign it, veto it or let it become law without his signature. If he vetoes it, majority leaders say they believe they have the votes to override it. In the days leading up to the House vote on SB 113, lawmakers complained that Dunleavy's staff with the Department of Revenue declined to answer questions about the legislation. 'When you have a whole department that's just saying we're not going to help you with a piece of legislation, I've never experienced that in my time here,' Wielechowski said on Tuesday, ahead of the vote. SB 113 now goes back to the Senate chamber and then will be transmitted to the governor's office.
Yahoo
22-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Alaska Legislature will vote Tuesday on school funding veto, with override not expected
Students file past Gov. Mike Dunleavy's offices in the state Capitol as they protest his veto of a wide ranging education bill on April 4, 2024. (Photo by Claire Stremple/Alaska Beacon) Alaska's state House and Senate are scheduled to meet at 2 p.m. Tuesday to vote on whether or not to override Gov. Mike Dunleavy's veto of a bill increasing the state's per-student funding formula. Multiple lawmakers have said that the Legislature likely lacks the votes for an override. Under the Alaska Constitution, the votes of 40 of the Legislature's 60 members, meeting in joint session, are required to override the veto of a policy bill. House Bill 69, which seeks to increase the base student allocation — core of Alaska's per-pupil funding formula — passed the House and Senate by a combined vote of 32-25. HB 69 proposes an increase of $1,000 to the BSA, or $253 million per year in total. Last year, legislators proposed a $680 increase to the BSA, and the related bill passed the House and Senate by a combined vote of 56-3. Legislators failed to override Dunleavy's veto of that bill by a single vote. Public education advocates say years of flat state funding has led to significant cuts to Alaska's public schools, which have had to deal with inflation-driven cost increases. The governor, and a decisive number of legislators who support him, say funding increases must be paired with policy changes intended to improve school performance. Two years of negotiations have failed to result in a suite of policy changes that are acceptable to the governor and a majority of legislators. Without the formula change, the public-school funding level in the state's annual operating budget will be decisive. The House has voted in favor of a budget that includes one-time bonus funding equivalent to a $1,000 BSA increase, but because the House's budget also includes a significant deficit, the Senate may propose a smaller increase. The Senate's draft budget has yet to emerge from the Senate Finance Committee. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
05-02-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Alaska students continue to struggle in math and reading, according to ‘Nation's Report Card'
The halls are lined with lockers and portraits of elders at the Anna Tobeluk Memorial School in Nunapitchuk, Alaska. October 12, 2023. (Photo by Claire Stremple/Alaska Beacon) Alaska public school students are continuing to struggle in math and reading proficiency, as measured by a national standardized test known as the 'The Nation's Report Card.' The National Assessment of Education Progress is a congressionally mandated test which evaluates students' proficiency in reading, math, science and writing. Students are selected at random for the test, as a representative sample for their state. Tests are conducted every two years and administered to fourth, eighth and twelfth grade students. The latest test score report was released on Jan. 29. In 2024, Alaska's fourth and eighth grade students showed no significant progress from two years ago in reading and math, continuing a general downward trend over the last 20 years. For fourth grade reading, almost half, or 47% of students scored at or above the NAEP basic reading level in 2024. Twenty-two percent of students scored at or above the NAEP proficient level. The average score for fourth graders' reading was 202, lower than the national average of 214 out of 500, putting Alaska below most of the nation at 51st of 52 U.S. jurisdictions, which include the 50 states as well the District of Columbia and Department of Defense operated schools. Students in Puerto Rico are assessed in some NAEP tests, but not included in the fourth grade reading comparison. New Mexico was the only jurisdiction with a lower score. For 8th grade reading, 57% of students score at or above basic level, a decline from two years ago, when 63% of students scored at or above basic. Twenty-two percent scored at or above proficient level, also a decline from 26% scoring at a proficient level in 2022. Alaska eighth graders' average reading score was 246, below the national average of 257, also ranking 51st in the nation, ahead of New Mexico. For math, fourth grade students scored slightly better, with 64% scoring at or above the NAEP basic level, and 30% at or above proficient level. Scores were not significantly different from two years ago. The average score was 226, below the national average score of 237, ranking 51st of 53 in the nation, ahead of New Mexico and Puerto Rico. For 8th grade math, 54% of students scored at or above the NAEP basic level, and 22% scored at or above proficient levels. Scores declined since 2022, when 59% of students scored at or above basic levels, and 23% scored at or above proficient. The average score for math was 264, below the national average of 272, a decline since 2022 of 270. Alaska ranked 43rd out of 53 nationwide. In 2024, male students had lower scores than female students in reading among fourth and eighth grade students — by 7 percentage points among fourth graders and 12 points among eighth graders. Vice versa for math, female students scored lower than male students among fourth and eighth graders — by 7 percentage points among fourth graders and by just 1 point among eighth graders. Students who identified as socioeconomically disadvantaged had an average score that was 25 points lower than those who did not, for fourth grade reading. For eighth graders, those students had an average score that was 22 points lower for reading. For math, the gap was wider. Students who identified as belonging to socioeconomically disadvantaged groups scored 25 points lower among fourth graders, and 29 points lower among eighth graders. Nationally, reading scores continued to decline between 2022 and 2024 in both fourth and eighth grades. Math scores showed no measurable difference in eighth grade. 'The Nation's Report Card is out and the news is not good,' said Peggy Carr, the commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, on a news conference call last week to discuss the 2024 results. The center is a federal agency within the U.S. Department of Education that collects and analyzes education statistics. 'We are not seeing the progress we need to regain the ground our students lost during the pandemic,' Carr said. Low reading proficiency is particularly concerning, she said. Carr emphasized the lower performance level is not just due to lapses during the COVID-19 pandemic – reading scores have declined beginning in 2017. Reading performance continued to drop for both fourth and eighth grades through the pandemic to 2022. The lowest performers are struggling the most, she added. 'In 2024, the percentage of eighth graders reading below NAEP basic was the highest in the assessment history, at 33%, and the percentage of fourth graders scoring below NAEP basic was the highest in 20 years: 40%. This is a major concern,' she said. The reasons why reading performance is dropping are complex, she said, and varies across the country. Carr pointed to student absenteeism, as well as a decline in students pursuing reading for enjoyment. 'Our students, for the most part, continue to perform below pre-pandemic levels, and our children's reading skills continue to slide in both grades and subjects, and most notably, our nation's struggling readers continue to decline the most,' Carr said. The nation's math scores show a mixed picture. 'Where we are seeing signs of the recovery, they're mostly in math and largely driven by higher performing students,' she added. 'Lower performing students are struggling.' Scores increased in the 50th, 75th and 90th percentiles, and a higher percentage of students scored at or above proficiency levels. 'Math performance has increased, but only among fourth graders and higher performing eighth graders,' Carr said. 'There's a widening achievement gap in this country, and it has worsened since the pandemic, especially for grade eight.' While national scores have trended upward over the last 30 years, the overall average scores last year dropped below 2019 scores. Carr called for attention to student learning, especially to those struggling the most. 'We all need to come together as partners to catch these students up and improve achievement,' she said. 'And these results, as sobering as they are, show that once you unpack them, there is hope.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
