Category: Alaska News

A bill that would update the Alaska Public Records Act has stalled in the House of Representatives after multiple hearings and feedback from the public.

Rep. Ashley Carrick, D-Fairbanks, proposed HB 377 to unburden municipalities and update the law’s language by requiring records requesters to pay the actual personnel costs of producing them. The proposal comes after municipalities voiced frustration at the current statute, which includes a “five-hour rule” that requires municipalities and the state to provide public records requests for free if the records take less than five hours in one month to produce.

Carrick said that social media content creators abuse the five-hour rule to obtain free police body cam footage for content. She said that the intent of the bill is not to penalize the average Alaskan but protect municipalities from creators looking to profit off of body camera footage for free.

The bill would also expand the definition of public record to include electronic mail and audio and visual recordings.

According to Austin McDaniel, communications director for the Alaska Department of Public Safety, the department received 720 requests for audio and visual records in 2025.

DPS charges a flat fee of $36.49 for locating and copying audio and visual records requests.

Getting rid of the five-hour rule is one of Fairbanks Mayor Mindy O’Neall and the city council’s legislative priorities, according to a resolution passed in November 2025. 

Fairbanks Police Ron Chief Dupee called processing records requests a “time consuming process” during a committee meeting in March. He said that redaction takes evidence custodians four minutes of work per one minute of video. According to Dupee, body worn camera footage is the most commonly requested record.

Alaska Municipal League Director Nils Andreassen spoke in favor of the bill. AML published a resolution in 2023 calling for legislation to update the Alaska Public Records Act to lessen the administrative burden on local governments.

“I don’t know of local governments who currently have the ability to do what they need to to capture the costs that go into fulfilling these requests,” he said. 

Andreassen said that Alaska’s taxpayers are “subsidizing commercial activity across the nation” when content creators use visual recordings online. “We’re not able to do the job we’re supposed to do because we’re fulfilling requests from outside interests,” he said.

Some residents supported the effort to update the public records act but voiced concerns for raising the cost to access those records.

Legislators also attempted to increase transparency for victims and victim’s families.

A draft of the bill would require law enforcement agencies to provide an unedited copy of audio or video recordings to the victim or victim’s family involved in a use-of-force incident that results in death or serious physical injury.

Fiscal notes from the Department of Public Safety estimate that the requirement to provide audio and video recordings associated with certain use of force incidents within 30 days would cost the Alaska Bureau of Investigation and the State Crime Detection Laboratory approximately $1.6 million.

Gerald Rexford, the father of 24-year-old William Rexford, who was fatally shot by Alaska State Troopers while experiencing a mental health crisis in Fairbanks in January, supported the change and told legislators in a hearing on April 21 that his family is still trying to understand what happened to his son.

“This bill matters because families like mine should not be the last to know what happened inside their own home. Providing timely access to unedited footage to impacted families will help everyone,” Rexford said, adding that the bill would build trust between Alaskans and law enforcement.

Cynthia Gachupin, executive director of Empowerment Advocate Alaska, said that increasing costs to public records requests would create a “pay to play justice system” in which victims cannot afford the administrative fees to view evidence.

“We must modernize our records laws, but we must not do so on the backs of Alaskans who have already paid the highest price as victims of crimes or surviving family members,” Gachupin said.

Antonio Commack, a Missing and Murdered Indigenous People advocate in Wasilla, told legislators she thought it was “appalling” that they are trying to increase the cost to obtain public records.

“Making public records more expensive is going to make transparency less accessible,” she said. 

John McKay, an Anchorage-based attorney, encouraged legislators to take more time to work on the bill.According to McKay, who practices media law, the bill would create barriers for journalists to access public information.

“The changes that would be implemented through this bill would be the most harmful to the public generally and to the news organizations and others serving the public interest,” he said.

During a committee meeting Tuesday afternoon, legislators suggested a policy that would make victims and family members of victims the highest priority to receive body-worn footage and a policy that would create different classes of records requestors, such as victims or family members of victims, Alaskans, members of the new media and commercial users.

Legislators questioned the nearly $1.6 million fiscal note during the hearing and set the bill aside for future discussion.

“We’re trying to thread a needle that’s really difficult to thread amidst a public records statute that’s really outdated,” Carrick said Tuesday.

Steve St. Clair, R-Wasilla, said that there were still unanswered questions before the bill could move forward.

SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE

Several Haines student artists were honored for their work after a weekend of experimenting with new techniques and mediums over the course of four days. 

Students from all over Southeast Alaska traveled to the Chilkat Valley for the annual Region V Art Festival. Each chose two options for classes and spent an average of 30 hours working on pieces over the weekend. 

“It was super challenging, said Ronnie Fairbanks of Craig, who taught a workshop where students created formline art for longboards. “We only have 15 hours to learn how to paint formline. Have you ever tried that? It’s not fun.” 

Two Chilkat Valley students were honored for their efforts in his class, Ruby Martin who was awarded best in workshop and Ezra Nash who was given an honorable mention. 

“I chose Ruby because if you see this design, she like threw this killer whale together and you can tell she has experience with formline, but it’s super complicated,” said Fairbanks. “She stayed up until 2 a.m. painting. She put in a lot of time, so I’m super proud of her.” 

Zorza Szatkowski brought home best in class in both John and Sharon Svenson’s glass mosaic workshop and in a found-item mixed media workshop taught by Juneau artist Sam Jordan. In the latter class, Szatkowski’s distinctive creation “The Eternal Struggle” got a lot of interest during a student art show on Monday. 

It features a robotic creation with batteries for eyes,  a row of screws spiking down its back, feathered driftwood trees, and a smaller creature with a shell for a head appearing to hunt with a spear. 

“It’s so rad to dish out this MacGyver set of random items and see some kid come up with something out of their head,” said Jordan. “You can see that and it’s crazy cool.” 

Local artist Skweit Jessie Morgan taught a copper-engraving workshop for seven students. 

“Copper engraving is really hard and unpredictable,” said Morgan, who thanked the Chilkoot Indian Association for loaning her class its equipment.  She said students who came in with formline experience made the workshop an “amazing space.” 

Other local students highlighted for their work included MJ Hotch whose efforts in Tawney Crowley’s gelli-print class won her an honorable mention while Ezra Nash was awarded best in workshop for her work in a painting class taught by Ashley Lohr. 

Results: 

Glass Mosaic (taught by local artists John and Sharon Svenson) 

• Best in Class, Zorza Szatkowski, Haines
• Honorable mention, Zoe Lessard, Juneau

Copper Carving (taught by local artist Skweit Jessie Morgan) 

• Best in Class, Riley Soboleff, Juneau 
• Honorable mention, Ray Fairbanks, Klawock

Found Items Mixed Media (taught by Juneau artist Sam Jordan)

• Best in Class, Zorza Szatkowski, Haines
• Honorable mention, Hannah Hofstetter, Petersburg

Gelli Print (taught by Wrangell’s Tawney Crowley)

• Best in Class, Tera Hicks, Juneau
• Honorable mention, MJ Hotch, Haines

Beaded Earring Making (taught by Klawock’s Eva Rowan)

• Best in Class, Ali Kittams, Petersburg
• Honorable mention, Ellee Votzm, Wrangell

Glass blowing (taught by Haines’ Tassja Letchworth)  

• Honorable mention, Claire Davis, Kake
• Honorable mention, Claire Snyder, Juneau

Halibut Hooks (taught by Kake artist Joe Lewis)

• Blood, Sweat and Tears award (Best in Workshop) Riley Soboleff, Juneau
• Special Unicorn (honorable mention) August Rathbone, Juneau   

Formline Longboards (taught by Ronnie Fairbanks of Craig) 

• Best in Workshop, Ruby Martin, Haines
• Honorable Mention, Ezra Nash, Haines

Wash Painting and India Ink (local art teacher Kelleen Adams) 

• Best in Workshop, Quinn Rafferty, Petersburg
• Honorable mention, Hannah Hofstetter, Petersburg

Upcycled Photography (Skagway’s Valerie Larsen) 

• Best in Workshop, Rebecca Midkiff, Petersburg
• Honorable mention, Anna Rock, Petersburg

Painting (taught by Ashley Lohr, of Petersburg)

• Best in Workshop, Ezra Nash, Haines
• Honorable mention, Ayla Loges, Kake

Best for work completed at the event: Zoe Lessard, Juneau

Best for work from home (completed in their home town and brought to Haines): Eve Harrige

Kirk Garbisch award: Kiera Sanderson, of Klawock

Spirit of Art Festival award: Rick Mills

The post Chilkat Valley students honored for their work during annual Region V Art Festival appeared first on Chilkat Valley News.

Folksinger and songwriter Jackson Emmer is headed to the Chilkat Valley this weekend as part of a tour of Alaska communities that starts in Seward on Thursday. 

He sat down with the Chilkat Valley News’ Rashah McChesney to talk about his music, outlook on life and what people can expect from his show. 

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity. 

You’ve described Battle Hymn of the Early Riser as a “tired dad” record. What did parenthood make you notice that you weren’t writing about before?

Well, it has changed my level of empathy and patience and my wide-open heart for all kinds of people. I felt like I was pretty loving and empathetic before, but now that I’m a dad and I just see how insane parenting is, I just feel like so much more grace towards everyone. 

Also, I used to just kind of walk around … letting my hair blow in the wind, just being like, when’s inspiration gonna strike? Now it’s like ‘you have an hour and a half to finish … whatever the project is, could be the song, it could be the mix, it could be planning this part of your tour.’ Things get done on a much tighter schedule. 

A lot of the new songs seem built around small domestic moments. How do you decide when an ordinary detail is strong enough to carry a song?

There are these little moments in life that just hit me. This is 50 things at least in one second of, you know, how my daughter asks me ‘can we play now?’ And whenever I feel that way … my ears perk up, and I think maybe there’s a song there. More get abandoned than get written, but sometimes it works out.

If you listen to Tom Waits versus pop country, I think these are two approaches to writing that are almost in opposition to one another. The Tom Waits thing is these rambling little vignettes, almost moments in time that are strung together with watercolors of lyric and sound. You can’t quite get your hand around it but it makes you feel something. A lot of pop country writing, like [Toby Keith’s] “Red Solo Cup,” there’s no mistaking what this song is about, right? And I am kind of interested in the writing that blends those two worlds where it’s like this small moment that could be the red solo cup, or it could be in my song “Clementine Unicorn Sacrifice,” [with] my daughter pretending to murder stuffed animal unicorns. 

Your songs often balance humor with grief or disappointment. It sounds like that’s intentional, or is it just how you naturally see things at this stage in your life?

I think I’m a little bit of a ‘every sunny day has a dark cloud somewhere,’ kind of person. I feel what everybody else does, which is, like, a lot of joy and a lot of disappointment. I live with both of those things, and I’m not the kind of person to ignore them, and I think a lot of people are like that, but maybe better at shoving the inconvenient parts away or compartmentalizing, and I just, I don’t know, I just carry them around. 

What can people expect from your live show here?

I’m going to be playing mostly original music, folk and country music, with my buddy Martin Gilmore, who’s backed me up on this tour. We do a lot of shows together, and he’s an amazing flat-picker like bluegrass guitarist and singer-songwriter in his own right. So we’ll do some of his music too. It’s just crushingly analog folk and country music. It will be intimate. You will not feel like you know us by the end of the show, you will know us. 

What makes a song finished for you?

When you sing it and you’re proud of every syllable and every note comes out smooth and true. You know there are a lot of people, I find, that are pretty good at writing a song to like 90-95% complete. And then you go play it for people and there’ll be one line that you know in your heart ‘that’s not really it.’ There are little burrs in a song that always happen when you’re that close to a finished song.  You’ve got to go sand those burrs off and it takes 30 minutes of extra work or it could take months of extra work to get it how you want it. But, when you do that the song flows out and feels true and that’s, for me, when I know that it’s done. 

For someone in town who has never heard you before, what song would you tell them to start with?

I’d tell them to go listen to “All Hat, No Cattle” and I’d tell them to go listen to “Colorado Line” and another favorite of mine is called “Jericho’s Diamonds” which is kind of a sleepy waltz with a lot of pedal steel. 

Jackson Emmer is playing in concert at the Chilkat Center on May 3 at 7 p.m. General admission is $15 at the door, students free. 

The post Emmer brings ‘crushingly analog’ folk and country music show to Haines appeared first on Chilkat Valley News.

Sunday, April 12

A caller reported smoke alarms going off in the 400 block of Fourth Avenue. The volunteer fire department responded. 

A caller reported someone banging on their door in the 100 block of Dalton Street early in the morning. An officer was advised.

Haines Borough police assisted another agency in Haines. 

Tuesday, April 14

A caller reported a person driving a motorcycle on the beach on River Road. Officers responded. 

Thursday, April 16

A caller reported that a neighbor at Third Avenue and Union Street had copious amounts of garbage in their garage and the door was open. An officer was advised. 

A caller in the 1000 block of the Haines Highway reported unsecured trash and was worried about it being a bear attractant. An officer responded.

A caller reported a person trespassing on their property in the 1000 block of the Haines Highway. An officer took the call. 

An OnStar automatic notification of a vehicle accident at 25 Mile Haines Highway was received by dispatch. Police, the Haines Volunteer Fire Department and Klehini Valley Fire Department responded. 

A caller reported stolen property from their vehicle in the 100 block of Third Avenue. An officer was advised. 

A caller reported a subject throwing lumber off the dock into the water. An officer responded. 

Friday, April 17

A caller reported damage to their vehicle after a vehicle backed into them on Main Street. An officer responded. 

A caller reported harassing and threatening behavior from neighbors in the 1000 block of the Haines Highway. An officer responded. 

Saturday, April 18

A caller reported smoke in their house in the 30 block of Tower Road. The Haines and Klehini Valley volunteer fire departments and police responded. 

The Haines Volunteer Fire Department performed a post-fire follow-up in the 30 block of Tower Road. 

There were two 911 hangup calls, no canine calls, 14 EMS calls and 27 burn permits issued during this reporting period. 

Monday, April 20 

Caller reported a vehicle parked for a week in front of the entrance to a business in the 200 block of Main Street. An officer responded. 

A caller in the 70 block of Deishu Drive reported multiple vehicles speeding in the area. An officer was advised. 

A caller in the 1900 block of the Haines Highway requested a welfare check on a family member. 

A caller in the 400 block of Main Street reported a stolen bicycle. A description was obtained and an officer advised. 

A caller reported that a customer left without paying for services on Main Street. The customer returned and paid. 

Tuesday, April 21

A caller reported moose in the Tlingit Park area. An officer was advised and a Nixle alert was sent out. 

A caller reported the suspicious behavior of a customer a Mile 3 Haines Highway. An officer responded. 

An officer checked out an abandoned vehicle at Port Chilkoot. 

A caller reported items missing from a property in the 30 block of the Haines Highway. An officer took the call. 

Wednesday, April 22

A caller in Haines reported a scam on social media. They were given the information for the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center. 

A driver on Beach Road was given a verbal warning for not meeting requirements to display a license plate. 

An officer put a 72-hour notice on an abandoned vehicle on Beach Road. 

A caller in the 100 block of Dalton Street reported a suspicious phone call. An officer responded and performed a welfare check. 

An officer checked a license plate during a vehicle stop. 

Thursday, April 23

A caller reported a moose on Fifth Avenue. A Nixle alert was sent out. 

An officer issued a trespass notice in the 800 block of Spruce Grove Road. 

Friday, April 24

A caller reported a parking violation on Main Street. An officer contacted the vehicle’s owner. 

A caller in Klukwan reported a vehicle fire. The Haines Volunteer Fire Department and state park ranger responded and extinguished the fire. 

A caller reported a boulder obstructing traffic on Lutak Road. The state’s Department of Transportation and an officer responded. A Nixle alert was sent out. 

A caller on Small Tracts Road was given a verbal warning for not meeting taillight requirements. 

An officer was advised of an abandoned trailer on the side of Mud Bay Road.

Saturday, April 25

A caller reported a person driving a motorcycle on the mud flats near Pyramid Island. An officer took the call. 

Officers were advised of a disabled vehicle on the side of Raven Road. It was not obstructing traffic and the vehicle was later retrieved by the owner. 

A caller reported the door of a public building in the 600 block of the Haines Highway was open after hours. Officers responded. 

Officers performed a tag check on an abandoned vehicle on Second Avenue. 

There were three 911 hangup calls, one canine call, nine EMS calls, and 38 burn permits issued during this reporting period. 

The post Blotter: April 12 – April 25 appeared first on Chilkat Valley News.

The Alaska House of Representatives voted to approve a revised bill to reinstate a pension system for all Alaska public sector employees, following passage by the Senate on Tuesday. The bill now heads to Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s desk for consideration.

With just 21 days to go in the second year of the 34th Legislature, the governor has 15 days, excluding Sundays, to approve or veto the bill, or allow it to become law without his signature.

A spokesperson with Dunleavy’s office declined to comment on the governor’s position on lawmakers’ pension plan on Wednesday. 

If enacted, the bill would revive the state’s defined benefit retirement system that was eliminated in 2006, a top priority of both the multipartisan Senate Majority and House Majority caucuses. 

The proposed defined benefit system would be open to all state employees, including teachers, public safety workers and public employees of cities and boroughs statewide. Those municipal employers have six months to decide whether to participate in the program or opt out beginning in January, and the new program would be launched in July 2027. 

Within the new plan, retirement for teachers and public employees would be possible at age 60 or any age after 30 years of service. For public safety officers, including police and firefighters, it would be age 50 with 25 years of service, or age 55 with 20 years of service. 

The House narrowly passed the bill along caucus lines by a vote of 21 to 19 on Wednesday. The Senate passed the bill with significant revisions the day before, by a vote of 12 to 8. 

Sen. Cathy Giessel, R-Anchorage, a longtime proponent of reviving the plan, said it took two decades of work in the Legislature and praised the House vote at a news conference on Wednesday.

“We are pleased that it was successful. And it was designed to be a modest, and yet secure, pension for retirement. And it had some amendments made on the floor that kind of made it a little bit more moderated. Choice was put in for employers, which is a big deal,” she said.

But she pointed out that the governor has yet to weigh in: “We still have one more stop, though. We have the big red pen potentially. So we’ll see what happens.”

House Majority Leader Rep. Chuck Kopp, R-Anchorage, carried House Bill 78, and told the Anchorage Daily News that he’s discussed the proposed plan with Dunleavy and members of his staff and is “encouraged” by those conversations.

Kopp, speaking on the House floor Wednesday, said the new plan is entirely separate from the old plan, and has been revised with safeguards to prevent future unfunded liabilities. 

“Do we want to continue down this path, with high turnover, constant vacancies and a growing strain on public services?” he added. “Or do we want to move forward with the plan that’s been vetted, improved and supported by both chambers, a plan that’s involved a lot of collaboration and compromise, and a plan that reflects Alaska’s long term interests.”

State lawmakers voted to axe the state’s defined benefit contribution plan in 2006, after the system accrued a multi-billion dollar shortfall that was misreported by a state actuary. Alaska sued the actuary, Mercer, for $1.8 billion in damages for miscalculating liabilities and settled in 2010 for $500 million. But, opponents of the bill noted, the state still owes billions of dollars on the old system and is on track to pay it off in 2039. 

Proponents of the bill say the new pension system is structured differently to avoid repeating the same mistakes —  it includes mechanisms to adjust contributions up and down, safeguards in the form of three actuaries checking each other’s work and no healthcare insurance benefits — to prevent the pension system from going underfunded.

Health insurance benefits, a major driver of ballooning costs of the old pension system, isn’t included in the new proposal. Under the new plan, employers would pay into a health reimbursement fund of up to 3% of teachers salaries and 4% of public sector workers’ salaries to supplement Medicare for those over age 65. 

On Wednesday, members of the all-Republican House minority put up a potential technical hurdle by voting against the effective date clause of the bill, which needed a two-thirds majority vote to pass. That sets up a potential conflict between the effective date written in the bill and the Alaska Constitution, which says that the bill would be enacted within 90 days after the governor’s signature without a two-thirds majority vote to do otherwise.

SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE

This article originally appeared in National Fisherman and is republished here with permission.

Worn-out commercial fishing nets and lines from America’s Pacific Northwest are getting a new life protecting soldiers and civilians in Ukraine from exploding Russian drones.

These nets are hung over doorways and windows to entangle the drones before they can hit a target and explode.

On Wednesday, April 22, Nicole Baker of Net Your Problem, an Alaska-based maritime recycling firm, was in Newport, Ore., overseeing the loading of 29,000 pounds of worn-out trawl, gill, and seine nets and crab line from harvesters into a 40-foot container headed for Ukraine. The load included 19 trawl nets, four bags of seine web, one bag of gillnet web, and three bags of line.

Net Your Problem got involved last year when contacted by a Boston-based venture capital and private equity firm looking for commercial fishing nets to send to Ukraine. Nets from Net Your Problem became part of the firm’s first container load of nets to Ukraine.

“I could never have imagined this is what would happen to these nets, and I can’t think of a more fulfilling way to use them,” Baker said. “It’s literally saving people’s lives.”

“My sister is an ICU cardiac nurse, and she saves people’s lives. Now I do too,” she said.

The venture capital firm, Ground Squirrel Ventures, is a network of angel and seed stage investors founded by Eric Klose in 2018.

Klose said he learned on an earlier visit to Ukraine that discarded fish nets could save lives in the trenches of war zones and in buildings in besieged cities.

Klose hardly considers himself a hero, though. “I’m letting people do a lot and also keeping fishing nets out of the ocean,” he said. “I love that this also is saving lives and spreading freedom and democracy. I am just helping to connect people, and I am able to fund the shipping cost,” he said.

Klose, who earned a degree in public administration from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, has friends in the Boston area of Ukrainian heritage.

On a trip to Ukraine with a group of graduate students, he sometimes slept in basement bomb shelters in Kyiv and also saw extensive war damage in Kharkiv.

He spoke with aid groups who were bringing clothing, medical supplies, and other needed items to Ukraine and asked what else was needed. “Fish nets,” they told him. They put him in touch with another volunteer in Vancouver, Canada, who was sending fish nets, medical supplies and more.

In December 2025, Ground Squirrel Ventures assembled its first container load of fish nets, including those from Net Your Problem, and shipped them to Ukraine. Volunteers there put the word out that more nets were available, and soldiers began collecting them to cover doors and windows to entangle Russian drones.

Other discarded nets, once used in crop farming and commercial fisheries across Europe, are also being used to cover roadways in Ukraine. CNN reported in January on Ukrainian soldiers raising nets donated by French fishermen and volunteer groups in Brittany to cover roads and protect vehicles traveling to and from supply lines. The nets are also used to protect hospitals, generators, and shopping areas with canopies of netting.

Oleksandr Tolokonnikov, deputy head of the Kherson Military Administration, told CNN in November that the Russians are launching an average of about 2,500 unmanned aerial vehicles every week. CNN also reported that Life Guardians, run by Klaas Pot in the Netherlands, has sent over 8,000 tons of nets to Ukraine. Additional nets were donated by Norwegian Volunteer Air and Pickups For Peace in the United Kingdom.

Ground Squirrel Ventures’ main focus is on impact-driven investments in climate mitigation and frontier markets. The firm manages a portfolio of 30 companies and operates with a team that includes Brian Shaw as portfolio and operations manager.

As of April 21, Shaw said Ground Squirrel Ventures was working on shipping its second container of about 10 tons of retired commercial fishing nets to Ukraine, with two more container loads planned over the next three months.

“This is our own way of supporting human dignity and the rights of people,” said Shaw. “We are just people living our lives, and we found a need. I am a problem solver by nature.”

“The goal is somewhere in the range of four to six containers a year,” he said. “A lot of fishermen and companies would previously have dumped these nets in their yard.”

“This provides a way for these nets to have a second life. Soldiers will hang them in windows of buildings they are working in.” The nets are also being used over community open markets and other civilian areas to tangle Russian drones and prevent them from hitting targets and exploding.

“Ukrainians are trying to free their own country, which does not seem like too much to ask,” Klose said.

Back in the Pacific Northwest, Baker said she plans to keep participating in the project. Fishing vessel owners and others who are interested can find more information online here.

Members of the Alaska Senate voted to approve a long-awaited pension bill on Tuesday, amid debate on the cost of the new public retirement benefits system and responsibilities of the state and local community employers.

The Senate passed a revised version of a pension plan approved by the House last year. The vote was 12 to 8. Twenty years after lawmakers eliminated a public pension system, the vote marks the closest lawmakers have come to restoring a defined retirement benefit for thousands of Alaska’s public sector employees.

“It strikes me as a historic day,” said Sen. Cathy Giessel, R-Anchorage, after the vote. She has been working on the issue for several years. “When you figure 33 different offerings to correct this over the years — yeah, we’ve been trying for a long time.”

If enacted, the bill would reinstate a defined benefit retirement system for Alaska state employees, as well as teachers, public safety workers and municipal employees statewide. 

The move comes as the state struggles to fill positions across state departments, including public safety, corrections and in education roles. 

Supporters said the retirement benefit is crucial for hiring and retaining a skilled public sector workforce in Alaska for the long-term, while detractors say the uncertainty around the cost to the state and local municipalities isn’t worth the risk.

Senate Minority Leader Sen. Mike Cronk, R-Tok, said he opposes increasing state spending.

“We look at our federal government, we’re going to be $40 trillion upside down. That’s totally unacceptable,” he added. “And for adding this kind of burden for the future, generated cost is something that I just can’t be a part of. I know we have a problem. I think there are other solutions out there that can help this problem.”

The move was applauded by the state’s largest public employees union, the Alaska State Employees Association, which represents roughly 8,500 public employees.

“The impact is almost difficult to overstate,” said Heidi Drygas, its executive director, by phone on Tuesday. “Our membership overwhelmingly supports a defined benefit pension. And I think this will mean security for them, so that they can feel comfortable staying in their state jobs. It will attract more employees to work for the state.” 

The bill passed the House last May, and the revised version now goes back to the House for a concurrence vote, before heading to Gov. Dunleavy’s desk for consideration. 

The governor has been critical of previous pension proposals. Dunleavy receives a state pension for his previous employment as an educator and superintendent. 

If the bill becomes law, current state employees would be allowed to switch from a defined contribution or a 401(k) style retirement plan to the new system. Retirement for teachers and public employees would be possible at age 60 or any age after 30 years of service. For public safety officers, including police and firefighters, it would be age 50 with 25 years of service, or age 55 with 20 years of service. 

“Every other state offers a pension for at least some of the public servants. We do not,” Giessel said on the Senate floor. “And we are seeing the results. We ask our public employees to do difficult work, often in the hardest conditions. The question is whether we will give them a reason to build a career here.”

After several hours of debate, the Senate approved several amendments, including a change to allow cities and boroughs to choose whether to opt out of the new defined benefit retirement plan, instead of opt in.

“It’s better policy for local governments to follow the state’s lead,” said Sen. Matt Claman, D-Anchorage, who sponsored the provision. “If they don’t like our choice, they’re certainly allowed to make their own choice and opt out, but if they don’t take any action, they’re in.”  

That means local cities and boroughs can choose whether to opt out of the plan, if enacted, between January and June of 2027, and then the new system would begin July 1 next year. 

Under the revised bill, employees would contribute 8% of their pay to the pension plan. Employers would pay up to 22.5% for public sector employees, and up to 12.5% for teachers. Senators debated the cap and arrived at 22.5%, noting municipality officials public testimony and concern about cost. 

Employers would also pay into a health reimbursement fund of up to 4% of workers’ salaries to supplement Medicare for those over age 65. Disability and death benefits would be included.

Senators debate pension plan, Alaska’s workforce challenges

If passed, the bill would revive Alaska’s state pension that was eliminated in 2006, after the state ran into a multi-billion dollar shortfall and unfunded liabilities in the retirement system.

Sen. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka, a co-chair of the Senate Finance Committee, opposed the bill, citing the risk that the state will repeat the mistakes of the early 2000s.

“This proposal in front of us today diminished the benefit to the retired employee when it goes underfunded. Yeah, it won’t go unfunded until people retire. Normally, it takes about 30 years, but we’ve got 20 years already with the current defined contribution. So about 10 years out,” he said. 

A recent estimate by the state’s actuary, Gallagher, projected state costs to total $467 million for the first 13 years, until FY 2039. 

Stedman said the state is also still on the hook to pay billions to account for the old pension system. But Giessel said the new pension system has built in safeguards to prevent it from going underfunded, according to the actuary’s analysis.

“Even with a never before seen ‘black swan’ event of three consecutive years with zero investment returns, even then this pension holds up,” she said. 

Giessel and other lawmakers cited the state’s current ballooning costs paying state employee overtime to cover vacancies and essential public services, called “premium pay.”

“It is costing us over $200 million a year in premium pay,” she said. “Just to keep basic services running — that number has grown nearly 80% in the past five years. We have, in effect, turned Alaska into a training ground, a place where people come, gain experience and then leave.”

Sen. Bill Wielechowski, D-Anchorage, described a crisis of families leaving the state, in part due to a lack of stable retirement. Alaska has seen more than a decade of consistent outmigration, according to state data. 

“There has been a quiet, heavy crisis unfolding all across Alaska, in our schools, in our state office buildings, in our courts, in our communities all across Alaska, it’s the sound of a door slamming shut. Another family packs up to leave,” Wielechowski said on the Senate floor.

“We talk a lot about fiscal responsibility in this chamber, but I ask you, what is responsible about watching our most precious resource, our people walk out the door?”

Supporters of the pension plan also pointed to the state’s struggle with high turnover rates, including up to 30% of teachers in urban and rural districts alike each year. 

Sen. Löki Tobin, D-Anchorage, and chair of the Senate Education Committee, said the high unseen costs of turnover of educators is magnified throughout the state.

“Because of high teacher turnover, we’re already paying $20 to $30 million a year,” she said. “We can either continue to pay that in turnover costs, or we can fund a quality retirement program that retains our quality educators, attracts new quality educators, and ensures that our kids get the best education they deserve.”

Senators in support of the pension plan noted a recent state audit of Alaska state government that reported hundreds of millions lost in federal reimbursements or incorrectly accounted for due to a variety of factors, including “staff turnover,” “competing priorities” or “inadequate supervisory review.”

Wielechowski pointed to one example of the Alaska Department of Military and Veterans Affairs underreported disaster spending for federal reimbursement by $297 million. The error was corrected once identified by auditors, according to the report. 

“Dozens of projects incorrectly reported. And that’s just that’s just a fraction of the inaccuracies and the mistakes,” Wielechowski said. 

Opponents of the pension bill pointed to other factors contributing to high turnover like work environment, leadership and a need to raise salaries.

That included Cronk who said he receives a pension after teaching for 25 years. “I would say focus should be on our pay,” he said.

Drygas, with the state’s public employees union, said while the pension plan is one important part of Alaska’s workforce issues, she sees it as crucial for stemming the tide of outmigration from the state.  

“I cannot tell you how many people, just personal, friends and acquaintances that I know, that are leaving state service in particular because they can’t retire here. They can’t live on the retirement that our state offers,” she said. “So I think a lot of us are hopeful that, you know, five or 10 years in the future, if this legislation should pass and become law, we’ll see a turnaround in our state workforce again.”

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All-terrain vehicles are ubiquitous in Alaska, especially in rural areas, where they make up a key mode of transportation.

That heavy use, often on uneven terrain, leads to high numbers of injuries and deaths from ATV accidents, according to state health officials. In recent years, Alaska’s ATV-related fatality rate has been four times the national average.

The Alaska Division of Public Health’s epidemiology section released a bulletin Tuesday detailing that toll.

From 2019 to 2024, Alaska’s rate of ATV-related fatalities was quadruple the U.S. rate — 1.6 per 100,000 people in Alaska, versus 0.4 deaths per 100,000 people nationally.

During that period, the state recorded 4,421 ATV-related visits to hospital emergency departments. Seventeen percent of those cases involved traumatic brain injury, 40% involved breaks to bones other than the skull and 17% involved lacerations. Some patients had multiple types of injuries, the bulletin said.

Children were frequent victims of ATV accidents; 30% of the recorded emergency department vehicles for ATV-related injuries were among patients under 18 years of age, according to the bulletin.

Children and adolescents accounted for 15% of the state’s 71 ATV-related deaths recorded in the study years, the bulletin said.

Northern and Southwestern Alaska had the highest rates of ATV-related injuries requiring emergency department treatment, followed by the Matanuska-Susitna Borough. Such injuries were most likely to occur in the summer and late spring months, according to the statistics presented in the bulletin.

The statistics analyzed in the bulletin concern four- or three-wheeled ATVs, utility terrain vehicles and multi-passenger vehicles known as “side-by-sides.” They do not include snowmachines or motorcycles. And they do not include injuries that went untreated at any emergency department, the bulletin notes.

With so many young people at risk, operators of the vehicles should take care to abide by several precautions, the bulletin said. Riders should use helmets, follow speed limits and avoid intoxicants, and vehicles should not carry more passengers than their stated capacities, the bulletin said.

State agencies, the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, Southcentral Foundation and other organizations like Alaska Safe Rider have tried to improve ATV safety.

According to the Division of Motor Vehicles, ATVs used on public roadways must be registered, and people driving them must be licensed. But those rules and others, including one requiring passengers to wear helmets, are often ignored. The Alaska State Troopers have at times reminded residents of laws concerning ATV use.

The troopers’ public education campaign is ongoing.

“State law prohibits operating a vehicle while under the influence of an intoxicating substance whether you are on or offroad. We also strongly encourage riders to follow all safety guidelines — this includes ensuring that equipment such as headlights, taillights, and brakes are in proper working order. Wearing a helmet and other protective gear, including goggles, gloves, long pants, and over‑the‑ankle boots, is also highly recommended,” trooper spokesperson John Dougherty said by email.

Some municipalities have ordinances governing ATV use that are stricter than state law, he noted.

Safety has also been promoted by gubernatorial proclamation. Over the past few years, July has been designated as ATV/Off-Highway Vehicle Safety Awareness Month.

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