Latest news with #I-Dillingham
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Alaska state budget and other bills head to Gov. Mike Dunleavy
The Alaska State Capitol is seen on the last week of the 2025 session on May 19, 2025 (Photo by Corinne Smith/Alaska Beacon) The three pieces of legislation that make up Alaska's annual state budget are on Gov. Mike Dunleavy's desk. According to legislative records, the state's operating, capital and mental health budgets were transmitted to the governor on Tuesday, giving the governor until June 19 to veto the bills or sign them into law. The governor has the ability to use a line item veto to reduce or eliminate specific items within the budget, and Dunleavy has previously indicated that he may reduce funding for public schools below the amount prescribed by a formula in state law. State legislators voted to raise that formula in the session's last days, overriding Dunleavy's decision to veto the bill containing a $700 increase to the base student allocation, the core of the state's school funding formula. If Dunleavy reduces education funding below what's called for by the formula, it would be unprecedented and akin to former Gov. Bill Walker's decision in 2016 to veto part of the Permanent Fund dividend: Since the education funding formula was created, every governor has followed the law. Two policy bills also were transmitted to the governor on Tuesday. The first, House Bill 75, cleans up some state laws pertaining to the Permanent Fund dividend and was uncontroversial in the House and Senate. The second, Senate Bill 183, would require the executive branch to deliver reports in the form requested by the Alaska Legislature's auditor. Under the Alaska Constitution, the Alaska Legislature has audit authority over the executive branch, but since 2019, lawmakers have been unable to analyze the performance of the section of the Alaska Department of Revenue that audits tax settlements with large oil companies. Lawmakers say the Department of Revenue has switched policies and no longer provides a report that once allowed them to examine the section's work. Members of the department testified that they have turned over raw data, but the legislative auditor testified that her department lacks the information and capability to turn that data into actionable information on the state's oil revenue. The bill was transmitted to the governor's office with a letter from the Speaker of the House Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham and Senate President Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak, asking Dunleavy not to veto it. 'This letter accompanies the bill not as a routine legislative communication, but as a reflection of the extraordinary nature of the circumstances we face,' it read. 'The ongoing obstructions by the DOR must not be allowed to become a precedent for future administrations. We must reinforce, not erode, the norms of oversight and accountability that are vital to Alaska's republican form of government.' If Dunleavy does veto a bill, the Alaska Legislature is not expected to consider an override until January, when lawmakers reconvene in regular session.
Yahoo
09-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Alaska lawmakers are divided over state budget, stuck without agreement over dividend, schools
Alaska House Speaker Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham, speaks at a House majority news conference, April 8, 2025, in the Alaska State Capitol in Juneau. Rep. Chuck Kopp, R-Anchorage; Rep. Andy Josephson, D-Anchorage; Edgmon; and Rep. Louise Stutes, R-Kodiak, are seated left to right. (Photo by Corinne Smith/Alaska Beacon) As Alaska faces economic shocks from a tumbling stock market and an unstable oil market, leaders of the state House of Representatives are appealing to minority-caucus members and Gov. Mike Dunleavy to help balance the budget. 'Ladies and gentlemen, we're all in a pickle,' House Speaker Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham said in a news conference on Tuesday. 'It's not just the House majority: It's the House minority; it's the governor; it's the Senate majority; it's the Senate minority. We all own the situation in front of us.' The House Finance Committee passed a budget on Thursday that includes $1.9 billion more in spending for the 12 months that begin in July than the state is forecast to raise. But Edgmon said that committee would continue to work on the bill to try to bring it into balance, as required by state law. Edgmon, I-Dillingham, noted that the budget faces several challenges, including oil prices dropping over the past week. And he said the 21-19 split in the House meant that any one member has a veto power to block legislation. The House majority consists of 14 Democrats, five independents and two Republicans, while the minority has 19 Republicans. 'We need to work together,' Edgmon said of the House minority, before addressing the governor's office: 'Please step up. Work with us. We'll get through this. But if you leave us to our own designs, we are going to be stuck in this morass that unfortunately will carry forward into what none of us want: And that's a special session.' Two majority finance committee members — Rep. Neal Foster, D-Nome, and Nellie Unangiq Jimmie, D-Bethel — support Permanent Fund dividends at the level set under the formula in current law, which would be around $3,800 per resident and cost $2.46 billion. That size would make a balanced budget impossible without new taxes or significant draws from savings. The value of the Alaska Permanent Fund fell by $3.2 billion, and Alaska North Slope oil fell from $76 per barrel to $65, in the days after President Donald Trump announced new tariffs. Before the majority news conference, the House minority held one of their own. Finance committee members Rep. DeLena Johnson, R-Palmer, and Will Stapp, R-Fairbanks, both said the draft budget must be reduced. They raised the possibility of reexamining any new programs or positions that were added in the current budget, which started last July, or were proposed in the draft budget, including a hotly debated education funding increase. 'It's hard work,' Johnson. 'It's drudgery. … It's not one of those things you approach with a lot of excitement. You have to approach that with a lot of work.' Stapp questioned the affordability of the proposed increase in the funding per student in public education. House Bill 69 includes a $1,000 per student increase in the base student allocation, the core of the state's funding formula. For the next school year, that BSA increase would equal $253 million. 'Ultimately, you're going to have to take the education funding level and say, you want to prioritize education, but you probably can't do a $1,000 BSA,' Stapp said. He said the increase should look more like the one-time boost in state funding for the current school year, which was $680 per student. In terms of the total budget, that education funding increase was $174 million, compared with the $253 million in the draft proposal. In the majority news conference, leaders of that caucus took a different view. Majority Leader Chuck Kopp, R-Anchorage, said legislators shouldn't even be raising the possibility of a Permanent Fund dividend using the formula in current law. 'I ran and campaigned on a balanced budget,' Kopp said, adding that he would have joined the other caucus if it agreed to a balanced budget and what he described as 'the dividend we can afford.' Kopp also emphasized that the majority is not proposing paying for a larger dividend with legislation to increase taxes or other revenue. He rejected increasing oil taxes, saying that the industry is still rebounding from the COVID-19 pandemic and he doesn't want to discourage investment in future development. Finance committee co-chair Andy Josephson, D-Anchorage, said the draft budget includes some growth driven by necessity. As an example, he cited funding for child advocacy centers to interview children who have been sexually abused. And he noted that most of the increase in the budget was proposed by Dunleavy, with additions for public employee contract increases. Josephson described the education funding increase as a 'core principle.' 'We heard from scores of Anchorage citizens about the importance of that, and we have their back,' he said. 'Come hell or high water, we're going to stand for that principle.' The legislative session is scheduled to end by May 21. Special sessions have been called in 2017 and 2021 to avoid partial state government shutdowns, which would occur if there isn't a budget enacted by June 30. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
19-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Possible Postal Service changes present challenge to Alaska Bypass Mail
A plane flies over the town after taking off from the dirt runway on Sept. 14, 2019, in Kivalina, Alaska. (Photo by) In late February, Alaska Senate President Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak, and House Speaker Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham, issued a letter to the state's congressional delegation voicing concerns over active and proposed federal spending cuts. In a list of potentially targeted agencies and programs they included one unique to Alaska: Bypass Mail. Bypass Mail is an Alaska-only classification of parcel post mail that bypasses U.S. Postal Service facilities. It includes food and other products that are shipped from Anchorage and Fairbanks through private carriers to retailers off of the road system. Bypass Mail must be from a single seller to a single recipient, shrink-wrapped and moved on pallets for ease of storage, and in a minimum order of 1,000 pounds. The USPS subsidizes the service, at an estimated cost of $133 million in 2022. Alaskans' concern over Bypass Mail is rooted in recent comments by President Donald Trump, who recently suggested ending the independence of the U.S. Postal Service. On Feb. 21, the Washington Post reported that Trump planned to transfer the USPS to the Department of Commerce. The president added the next day that the Commerce secretary was 'going to look at' postal reform. On March 5, presidential adviser Elon Musk announced his support for privatizing the Postal Service, saying, 'I think we should privatize the Post Office and Amtrak for example …. We should privatize everything we possibly can.' Calls to privatize the Postal Service have occurred since the 1980s, with rural delivery serving as a primary target. That's especially true for Alaska, where much of the state relies on air mail delivery. Virginia Congressman Gerry Connolly, ranking Democrat on the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform was succinct last month in his estimation of what privatization would mean for the state, telling CNN, 'If you privatize the Postal Service, there's not a piece of mail that could be delivered in Alaska for any kind of reasonable price.' Those who oppose Bypass Mail, including the national-level Postal Service leaders, have repeatedly argued that it is not a mail service like others provided by the USPS. Instead, it is more similar to a private freight service. A 2011 USPS report referred to it as 'a freight service that includes items seemingly considered nonmailable anywhere else in the United States.' Bypass mail grew organically, out of the inability in the 1970s for Anchorage post offices to process the high volume of parcel post that was shipped to the bush. This mail reached its final destination by air and postal employees at that time began shifting large orders directly to the air carriers in a system they devised on their own. Rural mail service through the U.S. has been protected against previous cost-cutting attempts by a mandate in the 1970 Postal Reauthorization Act, which was co-sponsored by Alaska U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, created the USPS as the independent agency it is today. It codified into law that the USPS must provide 'equitable service to all Americans.' Bypass Mail has periodically been targeted for criticism. It was the subject of a strongly negative 2011 USPS report, followed by a 2014 congressional hearing. Then-Congressman Don Young testified at the time to the often unspoken and unsolvable part of the Alaska mail problem: lack of roads. 'Now, you build me some highways, Mr. Chairman,' he challenged California Republican Congressman Darrell Issa, 'and I will go along with you.' The hearing resulted in no changes to the Bypass Mail system. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy suggested eliminating Bypass entirely in 2020, but backed down in the face of political opposition. While those seeking to eliminate Bypass have suggested that without it shippers would promptly turn to freight services, Grant Aviation's Vice President of Commercial Operations Dan Knesek is mindful of parcel post's history. He cautions that those seeking to discontinue the program should be aware of how parcel post was previously the overwhelming choice for most Alaskan shippers and what returning to it would entail for the USPS. 'If those [thousands of pounds of] boxes were not shipped via Bypass, every box would be taken individually into the local post office by the shipper, every box would be weighed individually by a postal employee, and every box would then have to be stored in the post office until every box was separately dispatched for delivery. When it arrived in the destination village, the USPS would have to have employees out at that airport to receive every single box and either store them in those post offices or deliver them immediately. Right now,' he concluded, 'none of that storage and none of that handling is done by postal employees. It is almost entirely done by the aviation industry in Alaska. If the post office was to remove Bypass then it would need to invest in warehouses, hangars, trucks, forklifts, staff and everything else to do what the carriers are doing, and have done, in Alaska for decades.' Under the current system, USPS's only responsibility for Bypass Mail is to cover some of its costs. Once received by a carrier, the shipments are always under their control. The USPS thus is freed from responsibility for storage, loading, unloading, and delivery. Last year, according to Knesek, Grant Aviation moved 17 million pounds of U.S. mail as a Bush air carrier, with the majority of it Bypass Mail. Bush carriers serve small villages, mainline carriers serve hub destinations where the mail is then disseminated to Bush carriers. Additionally, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, which currently has figures through November 2024, reports that Bering Air moved 13.8 million pounds that year, Alaska Central Express moved 11.3 million pounds, Ryan Air moved 11 million pounds and Wright Air Service moved 5.4 million pounds. Several other companies flew figures less than one million pounds and Everts Air Cargo, which flies both mainline and Bush mail, flew just over 25 million pounds. When asked to comment on privatization and how it would affect Alaska, a USPS spokesperson replied that there was no statement at this time as the 'inquiry is centered on action by the administration and cuts that haven't happened.' Meanwhile, on March 14, DeJoy released a letter informing Congress that the USPS had entered into an agreement with the General Services Administration and Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. The agencies were going to assist USPS in 'identifying and achieving further efficiencies'. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
13-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump is undermining Alaska's economy by removing one leg of a three-legged stool
The east entrance of the James M. Fitzgerald United States Courthouse and Federal Building is seen on July 8, 2024. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon) For decades, Alaska's economy has been described as a three-legged stool. As explained by economist Scott Goldsmith, one leg is the oil and gas sector, another leg is the federal government — which includes federal spending — and the third leg is all other basic sectors like commercial fishing and tourism. This analogy of the three-legged stool is commonly used by the oil and gas sector to secure their importance to Alaska. The guiding rule is that Alaska's overall economy, represented by the stool, collapses if any one of these three legs falters. According to newspaper accounts, the Trump administration has frozen $750 million in resource development projects. Also, up to 1,400 Alaskan jobs are now threatened or terminated by Elon Musk's indiscriminate layoffs. And now slashing Medicaid is being proposed. This combined economic affront to Alaska was recently highlighted by Senator President Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak, and Speaker Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham, in a letter to Alaska's congressional delegation. According to these legislative leaders, Alaska could experience a loss of $2 billion in federal funds if Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program are threatened as proposed in the budget resolution just passed by the House of Representatives under President Trump's direction. Stevens and Edgmon write, 'absorbing a $2 billion plus reduction in the return of federal funds to our state is not an option. It is a direct threat to Alaska's future, plain and simple.' After touching upon Alaska's fiscal situation and how federal resources play a critical role in Alaska, leaders Stevens and Edgmon closed their letter with this statement – 'It is our duty to inform you that the legislature cannot fix the financial havoc that is being wreaked on Alaskans by the federal government.' These are words that all Alaskans need to take to heart. If all these layoffs, cuts and freezes are left unchecked, Donald Trump and Elon Musk will essentially be taking a chainsaw to the federal leg of our stool; risking a collapse of our economy. And let's not forget this leg of the stool was once made exceptionally strong by former U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens. To the majority of Alaskans who voted for Donald Trump, I say don't let the distant lure of Arctic National Wildlife Refuge oil or the liquefied natural gas pipeline project blindside you from seeing how Alaska's economy is being seriously threatened by the Trump administration. These projects are at least a decade away and highly speculative. For instance, Japan has only agreed to look into the Alaska LNG project, not invest it in. And let's not forget no major oil company stepped up to bid on ANWR under the first Trump administration. These types of megaprojects in the distant future will not offset the economic harm now being unleashed, nor does reinstating old-growth logging in the Tongass or permitting the Ambler Road. None of the provisions under Trump's Alaska executive order will offset the potential harm of collapsing our federal leg. This is an economic reality that I hope Trump voters will come to realize. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
25-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Top Alaska House legislators reject plan to allow fish farms
Rep. Louise Stutes, R-Kodiak, and House Speaker Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham, listen to information on Jan. 9, 2025, at an Anchorage hearing of the Joint Legislative Task Force Evaluating Alaska's Seafood Industry. Stutes and Edgmon are two of the task force's eight members. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon) Two leading members of the Alaska House of Representatives on Monday announced their opposition to a proposal from Gov. Mike Dunleavy to lift the state's 35-year-old ban on fish farms. In a written statement, Speaker of the House Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham, and House Rules Committee Chair Louise Stutes, R-Kodiak, said the bill will not aid the state's commercial fishing industry. Stutes also chairs the House Fisheries Committee, and Edgmon is the committee's vice chair; without their support, House Bill 111 is unlikely to advance. Dunleavy has proposed keeping a ban on salmon farming but is seeking permission for farming other types of fish. Alaska has banned all types of fish farming for decades under the belief that allowing farming poses social and environmental risks to the state's wild fish. 'Alaska's commercial fishing industry, our coastal communities, and fishing families across the state are suffering through historically poor market conditions, inconsistent returns, and unfair trade practices,' Stutes and Edgmon wrote. 'Make no mistake, the industry will recover; however, lifting a ban on freshwater finfish farming sends the wrong signal, at the wrong time. It also erodes the spirit of the current ban and provides a foot in the door for possible salmon farming in Alaska,' they said. 'We need to be focusing on solutions for our fisheries that positively impact our industry, market conditions, and the bottom line for our fishermen, not legislation that distracts from that.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
