Category: Alaska News

Two weeks after the Trump administration announced a U.S. Forest Service “restructuring” that would close regional offices and most of the agency’s research facilities, impacts to Alaska – home to the two largest U.S. national forests – remain unclear.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced on March 31 that the Forest Service’s national headquarters will move to Utah and that many of its facilities will be shuttered. Among the facilities on the closure list were two that are important to Alaska: the Anchorage Forestry Sciences Laboratory and the Oregon-based Pacific Northwest Research Station in Portland.

But other impacts on the 17-million-acre Tongass National Forest and the 5.4-million-acre Chugach National Forest were not disclosed.

A statement from the Forest Service headquarters provided few details about the Tongass, the Chugach or the visitor and recreational facilities located in either forest.

“The transition will occur in phases. Employees will receive clear information about relocation timelines, available options, and resources to support their decisions,” the statement said. “The number of relocations beyond those already identified in the National Capital Region is unknown at this time.”

U.S. Agriculture Department Secretary Brooke Rollins, whose department oversees the Forest Service, outlined the restructuring plan last year. In a July 24, 2025, memo, she said the plan included the replacement of the Alaska regional office with “a reduced state office in Juneau.” The state capital is currently the site of the Alaska regional office managing both the Tongass and the Chugach.

Alaska has Forest Service facilities throughout the Tongass and Chugach regions, from the southern tip of the Southeast to Anchorage.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, is also trying to learn about impacts to Alaska, a spokesperson said.

The senator and her staff are in a “fact-finding” mode and preparing to mount a “defense of the Forest Service in Alaska and make sure the employees are able to continue the good work that they’re currently doing,” said Murkowski spokesperson Joe Plesha.

The issue is expected to be managed through the Congressional appropriations process, Plesha said.

Murkowski is on the Senate Appropriations Committee and chairs the appropriations subcommittee on the Department of the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies.

The Anchorage lab that is scheduled for closure is located in the Ship Creek district of downtown Anchorage. It supports research in the Tongass National Forest, which is the nation’s largest, and the Chugach National Forest, the second largest. It also supports research on forests elsewhere, from the boreal forests of Interior Alaska to those on tiny tropical Pacific islands like Guam and Micronesia.

The lab is used not just by Forest Service scientists but by other federal agencies, state agencies, Native corporations, University of Alaska researchers and private industry, according to its website.

Up to now, the lab has had a year-round staff of about 22 scientists and administrative workers, but the numbers increase during summer field seasons.

The planned closure of the century-old Pacific Northwest Research Station in Oregon is part of a consolidation of research functions into a single site in Fort Collins, Colorado.

The Pacific Northwest facility, with about 250 employees, has an affiliated lab in Juneau. The fate of the Juneau lab remains unknown.

Among the Alaska projects undertaken by the Pacific Northwest Research station, sometimes with partner organizations, is study of the decline of yellow cedar in the Tongass and adjacent regions in the southeastern part of the state; the status of birds and rare plants in the Tongass; the study of rural Alaskans’ access to wild foods in the Chugach National Forest and the surrounding region; and the monitoring of human recreation’s impacts on brown bears.

The Forest Service closure plans follow deep cuts already made by the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. In the first half of 2025, the Forest Service lost 5,860 of its 35,550 employees, according to a Dec. 17, 2025,  report by the Agriculture Department’s inspector general.  

That includes losses in Alaska. As of January, Alaska’s Forest Service workforce was down to 467 from the total of about 700 before the DOGE-imposed cuts began, KTOO reported in January.

The post Alaska Forest Service facility slated for closure amid federal restructuring appeared first on Chilkat Valley News.

Two weeks after the Trump administration announced a U.S. Forest Service “restructuring” that would close regional offices and most of the agency’s research facilities, impacts to Alaska – home to the two largest U.S. national forests – remain unclear.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced on March 31 that the Forest Service’s national headquarters will move to Utah and that many of its facilities will be shuttered. Among the facilities on the closure list were two that are important to Alaska: the Anchorage Forestry Sciences Laboratory and the Oregon-based Pacific Northwest Research Station in Portland.

But other impacts on the 17-million-acre Tongass National Forest and the 5.4-million-acre Chugach National Forest were not disclosed.

A statement from the Forest Service headquarters provided few details about the Tongass, the Chugach or the visitor and recreational facilities located in either forest.

“The transition will occur in phases. Employees will receive clear information about relocation timelines, available options, and resources to support their decisions,” the statement said. “The number of relocations beyond those already identified in the National Capital Region is unknown at this time.”

U.S. Agriculture Department Secretary Brooke Rollins, whose department oversees the Forest Service, outlined the restructuring plan last year. In a July 24, 2025, memo, she said the plan included the replacement of the Alaska regional office with “a reduced state office in Juneau.” The state capital is currently the site of the Alaska regional office managing both the Tongass and the Chugach.

Alaska has Forest Service facilities throughout the Tongass and Chugach regions, from the southern tip of the Southeast to Anchorage.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, is also trying to learn about impacts to Alaska, a spokesperson said.

The senator and her staff are in a “fact-finding” mode and preparing to mount a “defense of the Forest Service in Alaska and make sure the employees are able to continue the good work that they’re currently doing,” said Murkowski spokesperson Joe Plesha.

The issue is expected to be managed through the Congressional appropriations process, Plesha said.

Murkowski is on the Senate Appropriations Committee and chairs the appropriations subcommittee on the Department of the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies.

The Anchorage lab that is scheduled for closure is located in the Ship Creek district of downtown Anchorage. It supports research in the Tongass National Forest, which is the nation’s largest, and the Chugach National Forest, the second largest. It also supports research on forests elsewhere, from the boreal forests of Interior Alaska to those on tiny tropical Pacific islands like Guam and Micronesia.

The lab is used not just by Forest Service scientists but by other federal agencies, state agencies, Native corporations, University of Alaska researchers and private industry, according to its website.

Up to now, the lab has had a year-round staff of about 22 scientists and administrative workers, but the numbers increase during summer field seasons.

The planned closure of the century-old Pacific Northwest Research Station in Oregon is part of a consolidation of research functions into a single site in Fort Collins, Colorado.

The Pacific Northwest facility, with about 250 employees, has an affiliated lab in Juneau. The fate of the Juneau lab remains unknown.

Among the Alaska projects undertaken by the Pacific Northwest Research station, sometimes with partner organizations, is study of the decline of yellow cedar in the Tongass and adjacent regions in the southeastern part of the state; the status of birds and rare plants in the Tongass; the study of rural Alaskans’ access to wild foods in the Chugach National Forest and the surrounding region; and the monitoring of human recreation’s impacts on brown bears.

The Forest Service closure plans follow deep cuts already made by the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. In the first half of 2025, the Forest Service lost 5,860 of its 35,550 employees, according to a Dec. 17, 2025,  report by the Agriculture Department’s inspector general.  

That includes losses in Alaska. As of January, Alaska’s Forest Service workforce was down to 467 from the total of about 700 before the DOGE-imposed cuts began, KTOO reported in January.

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In the annual public meeting with SEARHC officials on April 6, Sitka residents listed what they see as systemic issues with the Native-owned health care nonprofit that provides medical and hospital services for all of Sitka and serves 25 other Southeast communities.

Sitkans expressed concerns and ideas on how the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium could improve its communications,  care coordination, elder care, telehealth, medical recordkeeping, billing, patient portal functionality and patient follow-up, among other topics.

SEARHC leaders and Sitka Community Health Council members collected notes on sheets of butcher paper while listening to feedback from about 40 participants, including many longtime SEARHC patients and medical professionals. 

The two-hour meeting at Centennial Hall was held in accordance with the 2019 sale agreement wherein the city sold Sitka Community Hospital, its assets and business to SEARHC.

Staff from Spruce Root, a Native-owned business development organization, helped facilitate the meeting and is to create a report on public input to be sent on to SEARHC leaders.

Meeting participant Susan Litman said after the two-hour session that she hopes the meeting’s facilitated format, which was new this year, will bring about solutions addressing the issues raised by members of the public.

“I’m hopeful, because nothing happened after the last one,” Litman said. 

At last year’s public meeting, residents brought up challenges with SEARHC medical care in a two-hour “listening session.”

JJ Carlson, a Health Council member, said “there’s frustration from community members that there wasn’t any action from the feedback people shared last year.”

After last year’s meeting, the board of directors received a copy of the meeting minutes summarizing the dozens of personal stories. Carlson said that format didn’t give the board clear recommendations for action.

“SEARHC has that board as its governing body, and they don’t quite do the listening to the same degree that (the Health Council does),” Carlson said. 

Carlson said that hiring facilitators and focusing on systemic issues in this year’s public meeting represents a “move towards having more robust documentation that could be absorbed better by the SEARHC board of directors.” 

At the April 6 meeting SEARHC Chief Medical Officer Dr. Cate Buley, chair of the Health Council, said the goal of the new format “is to translate concerns into recommendations and priorities.”

Buley said she and Chief Operating Officer Martin Benning will deliver reports from the public meeting to the SEARHC directors. 

“We will bring that forward, and those recommendations are going to help guide our further discussions and our review with the Health Council,” Buley said. 

After Buley’s opening remarks, participants gathered in three breakout groups: one focused on community needs, another emphasized the quality of patients’ experience at SEARHC, and the third looked at the systems-level approach to clinical practices, policy and strategy. 

Participants spent about 40 minutes discussing concerns in one topic area, before moving stations to consider challenges and propose solutions in a second topic area.

In a group discussing community needs, Sitkans said they need better access to primary care providers; that SEARHC could improve services by building partnerships with other local organizations; and that expanded services are needed in patient advocacy, elder care, home health care, long-term care and end-of-life care.

In discussions on patient access and experience, Sitkans stressed the need for centralized communication between SEARHC, out-of-network specialists and patients; clear processes for care coordination between case managers, specialists and primary care providers; an improved online patient portal; and better communication in general. 

“Telephone, email, the whole system is broken,” Health Council member Dr. David Lam said in regard to SEARHC communications. 

While discussing systems, policies and strategy, Sitkans said they’d like transparency from SEARHC as to its strategic plan.

Nicole Miller, who worked at SEARHC for four years, and recently moved on to lead the Brave Heart Volunteers nonprofit, said “morale is very low” among SEARHC hospital staff.

“I feel like SEARHC has opportunities to fix it, and I just wish they would,” Miller said.

Meeting participants questioned why many SEARHC administrators like Dr. Buley live in Juneau, rather than Sitka, and why CEO Charles Clement lives primarily in Utah.

Miller acknowledged these concerns and said she believes Clement did a great service for Sitka by securing the federal funding required for SEARHC to construct the new Mt. Edgecumbe Medical Center facility.

“Now I just hope SEARHC uses it to its fullest potential and staffs it appropriately,” Miller said.

Participants also discussed how Clement is being paid more than $2.6 million a year, according to recent 2024 tax filings.

Commenting on the new hospital facility, Health Council member Lam said he’s “not sure why we’re spending $300 million to have the same number of hospital rooms that we have now.”  He expects SEARHC will eventually tear down the old hospital, which SEARHC took over from the U.S. Indian Health Service in 1986. 

A ceremonial opening of the new hospital and medical office building is set for April 23, and patients will be welcomed starting this summer, officials said. 

At the close of the two-hour meeting, note-takers for each of the breakout groups shared summaries of what they heard during discussions.

After the meeting Sitka resident Connie Kreiss told the Sentinel that she believes the new facilitated format “dilutes the process” of gathering public feedback.

The Health Council and SEARHC are responsible “to hear the concerns and figure out solutions,” Kreiss said. “It’s not our job to prioritize the concerns and come up with solutions. … They’re supposed to listen.” 

SEARHC pediatrician Dr. David Vastola told the Sentinel the new format could make room for more people to share their ideas. 

“It takes a certain kind of person to get up in front of a big group of people and speak, whereas somebody who’s maybe not so assertive will sit here and talk to you and share their good ideas,” Vastola said. 

Four-year Health Council member Susan Padilla told the Sentinel she was “skeptical” the format was going to work at the beginning, but felt the conversation was good. 

“We got a lot of good feedback,” Padilla said. “People were focused on the questions that they were asking, so I felt that that was good. … I’m not sure what direction or what path or how this will turn out, but this was another attempt to gain community communication for their health needs here in town.”

Alana Peterson, a Health Council member and executive director of Spruce Root, told the Sentinel today that the third-party meeting facilitators “are working on a report right now.”

Peterson said Health Council members have already received notes from the April 6 meeting and now “Spruce Root is preparing a report and then some recommendations for next steps for SEARHC based on what we heard, and based on how we understand and consider the best ways for organizations to be working in communities.”

The Sitka Community Health Council was established in 2019 as part of the city’s agreement selling Sitka Community Hospital to SEARHC.  No other Southeast Alaska community has a Health Council, or a mechanism by which to hold an annual meeting with SEARHC leaders. 

The Sitka Council meets quarterly, and each year opens a portion of its spring meeting to the public, according to the group’s charter. It sends all of its meeting minutes to the SEARHC board.

Current members of the Council are SEARHC officials Buley, Benning and hospital administrator William Spivey, PT; Sitka city administrator John Leach; Sitka Tribe of Alaska Tribal Council members Peterson and Woody Widmark; and at-large members Carlson, Lam, Amy Ainslie, Sally Tonkin and Susan Padilla.

The post Sitkans seeking results from SEARHC session appeared first on Chilkat Valley News.

Representatives from Moffatt & Nichol, the borough’s advisors on the Lutak Dock rebuild, presented elected officials last week with three potential dock design concepts.

The concepts represent a mostly new starting point after the borough cut ties with former dock contractor Turnagain Marine. The borough assembly is scheduled to make its top pick of the three Moffatt & Nichol options later this month. 

One of the options is essentially a more limited version of the design by Turnagain, Moffatt & Nichol project lead Paul Wallis said last month. 

Like the Turnagain design, the concept would build a new dock face in front of the existing dock, also known as encapsulation. Unlike the Turnagain design, it proposes a structure far smaller than the existing dock, with the rest of the old section demolished and replaced with rock pile, also known as rip-rap. 

The other two concepts would demolish the existing dock and replace it with a new type of structure. One would rebuild a new flat dock face, also known as a bulkhead, for barges to tie up to. The other would trade a flat dock face for a loading ramp on a float, allowing barges to unload over rip-rap. 

Each concept appears to have pros and cons. According to Moffatt & Nichol engineers, the encapsulation concept — the one most similar to Turnagain’s — might have advantages in permitting speed and level of functionality, both during construction and once it’s built. It might also be the least cost-effective, Wallis said.

At the moment, none of the concepts include cost estimates. 

The borough and Moffatt & Nichol representatives have stressed that the contractor’s role is to draw up a broad plan outlining shape and functionality, but will stop short of a detailed, ready-to-build design. 

That work will be left for a new contractor, expected to be selected from a bidding process at the end of July to finish and build the design. 

Despite the lack of specificity, Wallis assured officials last week that all the concepts are viable. 

That includes the ability to complete federal design-specific permitting before a key deadline: the source of much of the dock funding, the Federal Maritime Administration, has said permitting must be complete by Sept. 2027, or the funding could be taken away. 

Wallis said the subcontractor slated to handle the permitting process has said permitting for all three concepts would be able to meet that deadline. 

It also includes the ability to construct the concept within the borough’s total unspent dock funds — roughly $22 million, according to a March 24 memo from borough manager Alekka Fullerton. 

Some officials shared concern for unforeseen cost increases given cost overruns with the previous Turnagain design. 

Wallis seemed to draw a line between his firm’s process and Turnagain’s. 

“The previous constructor promised to encapsulate the whole dock for the money you had available, but eventually it came to light that was not economically feasible,” Wallis said. “At that time (Moffatt & Nichol) had been asked to provide a third-party review of what was purported to be (Turnagain’s) 95% design. Guys, you don’t get to a 95% design and then find out you can’t afford it.” 

Wallis followed by saying he couldn’t speak to exactly what went wrong with Turnagain’s process, but said he believed his firm could “rightsize any of these options for your scope, schedule and budget.”

One thing that is certain is all three designs will result in downsizing of the existing dock face. Wallis said at the meeting that the existing sections of the dock not covered by the new footprint would have to be demolished. 

“We can’t leave the cells there,” Wallis told officials. “If we leave the cells there, they’ll eventually collapse and the contents will spill out and that’s an uncontrolled failure.” 

The post Contractor presents Lutak Dock concepts appeared first on Chilkat Valley News.

A Slovakian musher living in Tok filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and three Biden-administration officials in April over her denied immigration petition.

Silvia Kleinova, 48, filed for permanent residency in the United States in November 2021 based on her accomplishments in sled dog racing. Under U.S. immigration law, green cards can be granted to immigrants at the top of their field in athletics under the extraordinary ability classification.

Kleinova started mushing at 18-years-old and stated in her petition that she has been dedicated to sled dog racing and the breeding and training of Siberian huskies since then. She moved to Alaska with her spouse in December 2012.

Kleinova won the International Federation of Sledding Sports World Cup in the four dog class for registered Nordic breeds in January 2017 and the IFSS Global and Continental Europe World Cup in the 2016-2017 season as a member of the Czech Republic team. She went on to compete for Team USA in the 2018-2019 season where she won four gold medals.

In her petition for permanent residency, Kleinova included letters from the president of Czech Association of Sleddog Sports, president of the International Federation of Sledding Sports and former president of the United States Federation of Sled Dog Sports affirming that Kleinova is a top athlete in her field.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services denied Kleinova’s petition in October 2023, writing that the awards Kleinova received “do not appear to be major, internationally recognized awards.” Her application did not reflect that she had national or international acclaim, the denial said, and she did not provide sufficient evidence of her membership to the IFSS. 

Kleinova appealed the decision in 2023 and received letters upholding the denial in August 2024, May 2025 and November 2025. A motion to reconsider her petition was dismissed in March.

Kleinova filed her lawsuit in April. She asked the court to declare that the USCIS violated the Administrative Procedure Act and remand the case back to USCIS for reconsideration.

“As an athlete who has represented the United States to the best of my ability, with full dedication and commitment to training and competition, this decision has been extremely disappointing. I have devoted years of effort to building and training my team and achieving success at the highest level of my sport,” she wrote.

Kleinova filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and three officials under President Joseph Biden’s administration, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Ur Jaddou and Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. The case was assigned to Chief U.S. District Judge Sharon L. Gleason.

Kleinova wrote that “USCIS discounted Plaintiff’s [Kleinova’s] evidence of competitive success, awards, and recognition, including race results and gold medals, and failed to give appropriate weight to her participation at the highest levels of her sport.” 

The Department of Homeland Security and Kleinova did not immediately respond to the Alaska Beacon’s request for comment.

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The Alaska House of Representatives advanced a draft budget for the state’s operations next year, with a $1,500 Permanent Fund dividend for eligible Alaskans. It includes a nearly $158 million one-time funding boost for public schools and tens of millions for disaster relief, transportation and public assistance programs.

Members passed House Bill 263, the operating budget bill, along caucus lines by a 21 to 19 vote on Tuesday. 

Lawmakers spent four days debating amendments — additions, cuts and reallocations to the draft budget — on the House floor, amid deep political divides around state priorities, war-driven oil revenues and how to balance paying for government services versus distributing cash to Alaskans through the dividend. 

The draft budget now moves to the Senate for consideration, where it’s likely to be further revised. 

“I feel relieved,” said Rep. Andy Josephson, D-Anchorage and co-chair of the House Finance Committee that drafted the budget, after the vote on Monday.

“But the difficulty we’re in is that overall, the war in Iran, which is most unfortunate, is very helpful to budgeting,” he said. “But the Alaska people are hurting more, right, particularly when it comes to fuel prices. So that’s a problem as well.”

As Alaska has no personal income tax or state sales tax, more than 60% of funds for the general purpose budget comes from an annual draw from the Alaska Permanent Fund and roughly 30% comes from state oil revenues. 

Lawmakers have been closely watching Alaska oil prices, as they surged in recent weeks due to the Trump administration’s war on Iran. State forecasters project a potential $500 million boost in state revenues next year, but lawmakers are divided on what that should mean for state spending.

The all-Republican House minority caucus advocated for putting money towards a statutory Permanent Fund dividend, but the multipartisan majority coalition pushed the balance towards spending on state services.

The House draft operating budget made revisions to Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s proposed $7.75 billion budget unveiled in December, which included a $3,800 Permanent Fund dividend and a $1.8 billion draw from state savings. 

The House draft opted not to tap into the state savings account. The House draft does include a deficit of roughly $180 million, but that total may change depending on revisions in the Senate. 

Fairbanks Republican Will Stapp criticized the deficit as an “unfunded” budget. “It’s underwater,” he said Monday. 

The draft budget contains increased funding across divisions: nearly $158 million in a one-time funding increase for public education, including nearly $11 million earmarked for student transportation; $33.3 million for Medicaid rate increases; nearly $55 million for fire suppression and $38 million for disaster relief; $17.5 million in heating assistance; $23 million for Alaska Department of Corrections staffing and tens of millions in transportation, public assistance programs like child care, infant learning programs, senior services, public health and public safety grants, among others. 

House lawmakers rejected a roughly $3,800 Permanent Fund dividend proposed by the House Finance committee, which would have cost nearly $2.5 billion and was contingent on a draw from state savings, which requires approval of three-quarters of lawmakers.

House lawmakers instead approved a $1,500 Permanent Fund dividend that will cost the state $992 million. 

Members of the multi-partisan House majority caucus expressed support for the draft budget that focused on public programs and services to enhance future benefits. 

“Education, child care, parents-as-teachers, Head Start — moving upstream to try and give our youngest, our most precious resource in the state of Alaska, the best start that we can give them,” said Rep. Calvin Schrage, I-Anchorage, acknowledging that it is a balancing act for lawmakers. 

Republican minority legislators also proposed spending increases, which included $2 million for the Alaska Department of Public Safety to establish a new Trooper post in Talkeetna, and $2 million for a sport fish hatchery in Fairbanks. Both failed along caucus lines by a 21 to 19 vote. 

Minority Leader Rep. DeLena Johnson, R-Palmer, criticized the House draft budget in a statement following its initial approval on Monday.

“The budget passed by the Majority is a betrayal of the Alaskans we were sent here to represent,” said Johnson. “While Alaskans face one of the most unaffordable years of their lifetimes, this Majority has chosen to fund government agencies at record levels, while leaving families and communities behind.”

Minority lawmakers introduced nearly 50 amendments on the House floor over three days, which varied from cutting additional funding for education, funds for teacher recruitment and for community and regional jails, to cutting travel budgets and reallocating public employee salaries for vacant positions to add funding for school maintenance. Most of them failed along caucus lines.

The minority’s most strident call was for a maximum Permanent fund dividend. 

“The removal of the statutory dividend that equates to removing $42.5 million dollars from the economy of my district,” said Rep. Sara Vance, R-Homer. 

While lawmakers refer to the statutory dividend of roughly $3,800 per Alaskan, in 2017 the Alaska Supreme Court ruled lawmakers may ignore the formula since it’s not in the state Constitution. Since then, legislators have typically reduced the dividend to balance state expenses and avoid drawing from savings. 

Boost to education funding

The House draft adds $158 million in one-time funding for Alaska schools, equivalent to an additional $630 per student. 

That’s in the case that various education bills that provide a sustained increase to per student funding, through state’s formula boosting the base student allocation, fail to pass this year. Those bills are currently under consideration in education committees. 

Lawmakers said they decided on the additional $630 per student after assessing the current deficits of the five largest school districts by student population. Many districts are grappling with decisions on school closures, staff cuts and increasing class sizes to address large budget shortfalls this month — including the potential closure of three schools in Anchorage, three schools in the Matanuska Susitna Borough, four schools on the Kenai Peninsula and two of the four elementary schools in Ketchikan. 

Josephson said one-time funding this year for schools seems to be more viable than an attempt to permanently raise the per student funding formula, given the governor’s history of vetoing education funding increases — including three vetoes last year alone, one which the Legislature overrode in a special session last August.

“It’s far from a panacea, right? It’s far from anything that is the real solution. But I think if superintendents had it, they’d be delighted to have it,” he said. 

Members of the House approved an amendment to earmark $10.9 million of that $158 million for school districts’ transportation for students, to help offset rising costs due to a war-driven rise in fuel prices.

Representatives from Northwest and Western Alaska objected to the transportation earmark, saying they were unsure if the funding would be allowed for student flights in their rural districts, which are off the road system. Rep. Jeremy Bynum, R-Ketchikan, sponsored the amendment, and said all districts would be eligible for their transportation of students, whether by road, air or ferry. It was approved by a 33 to 7 vote. 

Lawmakers also debated earmarking an additional $10 million from the remaining one-time education funding for career and technical education grants for school districts, but the proposal narrowly failed by a 20 to 20 vote. 

With a little over a month left in the legislative session, the House draft budget now goes to the Senate for consideration and likely further revisions.

On Monday, the Senate Finance Committee introduced a draft capital budget, a proposed $247 million for state facilities maintenance and construction projects, including for deferred maintenance of schools. The draft will go to the House for consideration in the coming weeks.

The legislative session is set to conclude on May 20. 

Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the governor’s budget proposal, it was $7.75 billion not million. 

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