By: Corinne Smith, Alaska Beacon
Alaska schools, students and education funding will continue to be in focus in the 2026 legislative session set to begin on Jan. 20, but early signs show they are unlikely to be at the center of the political spotlight as they were last year.
Gov. Mike Dunleavy will not be pursuing education policy changes this year, according to a spokesperson with his office on Friday. Instead, he will focus on a state fiscal plan and the proposed development of the Alaska LNG gas pipeline, his office said.
Those policy changes were at the heart of Dunleavy’s objection to increased education funding last year, and he said they were essential to boosting student achievement. He called a special session in August for lawmakers to address his policy items, but legislators took no action other than overriding two of his vetoes.
One of those veto overrides was an historic win for education advocates: it restored a $700 increase to per student funding, known as the base student allocation, adding $50.6 million in education funding to the state’s budget.
Yet many Alaska school districts continue to face steep budget deficits, and struggle to address the rising cost of operations, school maintenance, teacher retention and lost of federal funding. The Anchorage School District — the state’s largest district — is grappling with an $80 million shortfall, however the district and the union representing teachers reached a tentative agreement over the weekend on a new three-year contract. There may also be changes on the federal level because the Trump administration has promised to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education.
Sen. Löki Tobin, D-Anchorage, and chair of the Senate Education Committee, said it is still unclear whether lawmakers will again take action this year to increase education funding through the base student allocation. Tobin also co-chairs the special task force on education funding created this year.
“It is difficult to know what the body is willing to do at this point in time,” Tobin said, as lawmakers are in transit back to Juneau this week, and caucuses are meeting to discuss policy priorities.
But Tobin said she anticipates some kind of funding increase to help districts keep up with inflation. “Inflation continues to be a pressing issue in the state, and we don’t want the gains we made by increasing the basic allocation by $700 this last budget cycle to diminish because of inflation,” she said.
Rep. Andi Story, D-Juneau is co-chair of the House Education Committee and agreed an inflation adjustment is a major priority. “We don’t want to lose any ground,” she said in an interview Friday, pointing out the increase to the BSA only added $20 per student more than the year before.
Dunleavy told reporters in December he hoped the legislature would pass a bill to launch a pilot program for schools run by Alaska Native tribes, known as tribal compacting, introduced last year. Tobin said the initiative is a priority, and said she supports tribal compacting statewide and wants to see greater tribal consultation and engagement throughout all districts.
She said increasing funding for school maintenance will also be a major priority, as many rural districts grapple with deteriorating facilities and an estimated $800 million in deferred maintenance.
Tobin said members of the task force recently made a visit to a school in Fairbanks with one of three boilers working — in subzero temperatures — and a plan to evacuate students if the last one failed. “That’s 726 students that will be displaced. It will be a huge hit to the Fairbanks education community,” she said. “It has the potential to really harm our students’ learning and what we need to do in Juneau, during this 34th legislature, to set us up for a long term solution on rebuilding our schools, is very much at the forefront of my mind.”
Tobin co-chairs the task force on education funding, which was established this spring to conduct an 18-month study and create policy recommendations for how the state funds schools. Members have expressed interest in a wide variety of policy initiatives: from revisiting the school funding formula, to investigating chronic absenteeism, to student performance and accountability measures, and policy changes sought by the governor like open enrollment and reading incentive programs. They are slated to deliver their recommendations at the start of the next legislative session in 2027.
Tobin said task force members have made visits to schools in Fairbanks, the Matanuska-Susitna, Anchorage and Kenai Peninsula boroughs, and have plans to visit Skagway, Juneau, Bethel and Western Alaska.
Republican leaders of the Senate and House minority caucuses did not respond to interview requests on their priorities for education.
Veto override for additional education funding still in question
Lawmakers could also take up another veto override vote within the first five days of the session. Last year, lawmakers passed a corporate tax bill tied to online sales in Alaska that could generate up to $65 million in revenue that would go to fund career and technical education and K-12 reading improvement programs. Dunleavy vetoed it in September.
Whether lawmakers will take up the override vote next week is unclear. At least 40 of 60 legislators are needed to override the governor’s veto within the first five days of the legislative session.
In August, lawmakers narrowly overrode the governor’s budget veto of last year’s education funding increase by a vote of 45 to 14.
Tobin and Story, as education committee chairs, said the override vote and restoring additional education dollars is essential, especially for reading, and funding programs instituted by the Alaska Reads Act.
House Speaker Rep. Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham, said via text that the Majority caucus is meeting to discuss legislative priorities this weekend. “Protecting education and public safety items in the budget along with other core services will be a priority in an environment that will be fiscally constrained,” he said.
Edgmon did not confirm whether an override vote would take place, as of Thursday.
