Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy talks to reporters during a news conference on Monday, May 19, 2025. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
NOTN – Governor Mike Dunleavy is criticizing the Alaska Legislature for failing to take action on education reform, pointing out that the state remains last in the nation for student outcomes.
In a letter to legislators Friday, he emphasized that increasing funding won’t improve results without meaningful policy changes, and called on lawmakers to act immediately.
According to lawmakers who spoke with News of the North, Dunleavy has declined to call a second special session this year.
Dunleavy warned that if the legislature does not pass education reforms during the next regular session, he is prepared to call additional special sessions in 2026 until changes are made, stressing that each year of inaction affects an entire cohort of students.
A sign marking the east entrance of the The streetside 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)
A trial underway in Anchorage this week is challenging the Alaska Office of Children’s Services and the foster care system, with plaintiffs claiming the system is failing Alaskan children and violating their rights.
“We hope that this trial will lead to significant reforms in Alaska’s foster care system. Alaska’s foster children deserve far better childhoods. It can be done,” Marcia Lowry, an attorney for the plaintiffs and with the nonprofit A Better Childhood, said in a written statement ahead of the trial.
There are about 2,500 children in Alaska foster care, a system that aims to provide a temporary placement environment after a child has been determined to be unsafe or at risk of maltreatment in their family home. Some placements are temporary, and families can seek reunification. If not possible or unsafe, OCS staff are tasked with finding other forms of permanent, safe placement for the child.
Alaska Native children make up a disproportionately high number of those in state custody – in July, the number was two thirds, or 68% of all children in custody, or 1,712 children.
The plaintiffs, who include five foster youths, are representing a class-action case that seeks wide-ranging changes to the system. The lawsuit, first filed in 2022, was brought on behalf of all Alaska children whom OCS has or will have in state custody.
The suit names Alaska’s Department of Family and Community Services (DFCS) and Office of Children’s Services (OCS) as defendants, as well as agency directors including OCS Director Kim Guay and DFCS Commissioner Kim Kovol.
The lawsuit, Mary B. et al. v. Kim Kovol, et al., alleges OCS is chronically understaffed and overburdens caseworkers, which poses a risk of harm to children. They argue the agency’s systemic failures include high vacancies and staff turnover, infrequent or poor quality caseworker visits, insufficient caseworker planning, and lack of adequate placements.
“Defendents knew and were aware of the serious harm to children, and ignored that harm,” said Julia Tebor, an attorney for the plaintiffs, during opening arguments on Monday, according to court transcripts. “Defendants have a policy and a practice of maintaining overburdened caseworkers. These caseworkers have 51 to 100 children, sometimes. They cannot do their job. They cannot keep children safe.”
Child welfare advocates, lawmakers, and foster youth themselves have raised alarm at inappropriate placements, including unnecessarily long stays at psychiatric facilities, homeless shelters, hotels with hired security guards and even overnights at OCS offices.
“Defendents fail to recruit and retain placements. They fail to connect children with services. And this places children at unnecessary risk of institutionalization,” Tebor said.
In defense of OCS, lawyers with the Alaska Department of Law are arguing that the child welfare system in Alaska is a complex network of government agencies and private partners, including Alaska Native tribes, working on children’s behalf — not just OCS.
They argue that superior court judges are routinely reviewing children’s cases and whether families are getting visitation, services and case planning, as required by law.
They say OCS is not ignoring the challenges presented by a shortage of caseworkers, caseplanning and access to services. But there are difficult logistics related to delivering services in Alaska, due to the vast geography, remote communities off the road system, and weather complications that can delay or complicate OCS staff’s work.
The lawsuit also alleges OCS overlooks or fails to seek out placements within an Alaska Native child’s family or community, instead placing them in non-Native households, violating their rights under the federal Indian Child Welfare Act.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs are arguing that “deliberate indifference” within OCS poses a substantial risk of harm to all foster children across the state.
The state rejects the claim, saying there is no deliberate indifference by OCS staff, and they are not violating children’s rights under federal child welfare laws, the Indian Child Welfare Act or the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Foster youth testify in court
A foster youth named Matthew was the first to take the stand on Monday. He entered OCS custody at 15 years old. In three years, he said, he was moved between 13 and 14 placements, including staying at an OCS office.
“Mentally, it took a toll on me because I couldn’t get schoolwork done,” he said. “There was a lot that I could have got done, that I never got done because I was moving around so much, and mentally took a toll on me.”
He described a placement called the “Ramen House” where kids only got two packs of ramen to eat for the entire day. “And if you ate the two ramen packs in the morning, then you’d have no food for the rest of the day,” he said. When he reported it to OCS, there was little response. “I told them multiple times, and they didn’t move me until I sat in the office and was like, I’m not moving until you guys put me in a new foster home, because I couldn’t do it anymore.”
Matthew said during his time in foster care he attended four or five schools in the Anchorage and Matanuska-Susitna Borough areas, and did not have regular access to medical care, like for a potential broken bone or to see a dentist. Now at 20, he’s still working on finishing high school.
In court on Monday, he recounted sleeping in OCS offices in Wasilla multiple times, where he was sometimes locked in. In one instance, he said “there was no couch — or there were no pillows or blankets or anything like that. They never gave me a pillow or blanket or anything like that.”
He said he had three or four caseworkers, some he never met in person.
Asked why he chose to testify, he said “so another kid doesn’t have to go through what I went through.”
Social workers’ caseload burden
OCS has five regional offices — Anchorage, Wasilla, Fairbanks, Bethel and Juneau — and 22 regional offices across the state.
Between January 2018 and January 2024, an average of 45% of OCS caseworkers had caseloads with more than 30 children, and an average of 25% of caseworkers had between 51 to 100 children, according to the lawsuit. At one point in 2023, the OCS Western Region had three caseworkers for the 309 out-of-home foster children in the region.
Kim Guay, director of OCS, took the stand on Monday and argued the state is working to make improvements to the system. She said caseworkers often work with partners, including tribal organizations and village public safety officers to make visits in remote locations. She said high caseload data requires context.
“They’re good things to look at, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. More needs to be looked into, what’s going on with the case, that office, the staff. There’s a whole context besides just the data and the numbers,” she said.
Guay herself began at OCS in 2000 as a caseworker.
“A one-kid case may sound easy, although that child may be extremely medically complex or have behavioral health problems or actively suicidal, and they will spend an enormous amount of time on a one-kid case as compared to maybe a family of six that are in a relative’s home,” Kovol said.
When asked if a caseworker having more than 100 children poses a “risk of substantial harm,” Kovol replied it depends on the situation. “Would I like to see caseloads lower than that? Sure. I think everyone would. But it, the cases are — you know I don’t like to use the words ‘it depends,’ but it does depend on the situation.”
Kovol also pointed to ongoing challenges with recruiting and hiring OCS caseworkers. “We need more workers,” she said.
Attorneys with the Department of Law and the plaintiffs were not immediately available to comment on Thursday.
“Defendents will try to argue that there are factors outside their control that affects the child welfare system,” Tebor said on Monday. “But that is not an excuse for failing children and failing to ensure their substantive due process rights and their statutory rights.”
NOTN- Body Camera footage of the July 30 use-of-force arrest that left a man hospitalized will become available today.
The incident began after police responded to reports of a disturbance outside the Douglas Library, where a woman allegedly threw water in a man’s face while making racial remarks. Officers said when they attempted to arrest her, she asked Williams to intervene and it led to a confrontation. Police say he resisted arrest before being forced to the ground.
49-year-old Chris Williams, Jr. was medevaced to Anchorage after his arrest.
Awareness of the incident has grown since video of the arrest surfaced online and sparked a protest, the witness video prompted both city and tribal leaders to weigh in.
Officer Brandon LeBlanc is a 17-year law enforcement veteran hired by the Juneau Police Department in August 2024 after serving in Louisiana.
The department said an outside law enforcement agency is leading the investigation into the use-of force incident, which remains ongoing.
When it concludes, the Alaska Office of Special Prosecutions will review the case to determine whether the force used was consistent with state law.
LeBlanc is on administrative leave during the investigation. In line with city code, body-worn camera footage from the incident will be released today on the department’s website.
NOTN- Gov. Mike Dunleavy has appointed Stephen J. Cox as Alaska’s next attorney general. The appointment takes effect on Friday, pending legislative confirmation in 2026.
Cox, 48, is a former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Texas and senior Justice Department official under the Trump administration. He most recently served as senior vice president and chief legal and strategy officer at Bristol Bay Industrial, an investment arm of the Bristol Bay Native Corporation.
Cox has worked in both federal service and Alaska’s private sector.
In Alaska, the attorney general serves as chief prosecutor, legal counsel to the governor, and represents the state in civil and criminal matters.
Cox and his wife, Cristina, live in Anchorage with their three children.
““I am honored that Governor Dunleavy has invited me to be a part of the Alaska story,” Cox said. “And I am grateful to the Governor and the people of Alaska for the opportunity to serve. Since 2011, I have been privileged to work on Alaska’s development, and my family and I were blessed with the opportunity to move to Anchorage and make Alaska our home.”
Screenshot of Wednesday’s press meeting in Anchorage
NOTN- Governor Mike Dunleavy hosted a press event yesterday with members of the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources to ‘highlight Alaska’s resource development opportunities’, the 45-person committee deals with a variety of issues pertaining to public lands in the United States.
Committee Chairman Bruce Westerman, Congressman Nick Begich , and several other members are in the state reviewing current and future projects.
According to the Alaska Beacon, lawmakers visited Hecla Greens Creek Mine, which produces silver, gold, zinc and lead from a site west of Juneau. They overflew parts of the Tongass National Forest, the nation’s largest, and observed Suicide Basin in the Mendenhall Glacier.
The group joined the Governor at his Anchorage office to share their findings and discuss Alaska’s resource potential.
“you know, Alaska is a giant in the resource space.” Said Representative Begich at the meeting, “You know how you bind a giant? one little thread at a time. That’s what we’ve dealt with from the federal government, from not just my perspective, from the perspective of industry that has worked so hard for so many years to develop the resources of Alaska responsibly.”
Following the press conference, Dunleavy signed the nation’s first state-level FAST-41 memorandum of understanding with Emily Domenech, Executive Director of the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council.
They say agreement will streamline project reviews, enhance coordination between state and federal regulators, and increase transparency through the Federal Permitting Dashboard.
Dunleavy called the agreement a step toward “unlocking Alaska’s full potential,” saying it will help cut federal delays on resource and energy projects.
Permitting Council Executive Director Emily Domenech added that Alaska is the first state to formally partner with the council, giving projects like energy, mining, transportation, and broadband a path to streamlined approval.
The Alaska Department of Natural Resources will serve as the lead agency working with the council.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture also announced yesterday it will move forward with plans to rescind the Clinton-era “Roadless Rule,” which has restricted logging and development on millions of acres of national forest land for more than two decades.
The agency will open a public comment period on Friday through Sept. 19 before finalizing the repeal.
The rule, enacted in 2001, currently protects about 45 million acres of federal forestland, with Alaska’s Tongass National Forest among the most affected areas.
Sun shines through the canopy in the Tongass National Forest. (Photo by Brian Logan/U.S. Forest Service)
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, parent agency of the U.S. Forest Service, announced Wednesday that it is moving ahead with plans to rescind a rule that has restricted logging and construction on millions of acres of federal lands in the American West for more than two decades.
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said in a written statement that the agency intends to open public comments Friday on its proposal to end the so-called “Roadless Rule,” an act that will affect as much as 45 million acres of federal land as well as millions of Americans who live near it.
Opening a public comment period is the first step in repealing the rule. According to Rollins’ statement, members of the public will have until Sept. 19 to offer their opinions on the repeal, a timeframe that opponents of the plan denounced as inadequate.
Roads are a key prerequisite for large-scale logging and mining projects, and the rule — enacted in 2001 at the end of the Clinton administration — has limited the number of development projects on Forest Service land.
In Wednesday’s announcement, Rollins said rescinding the roadless rule would allow local land managers to make decisions on development and logging.
“It is vital that we properly manage our federal lands to create healthy, resilient, and productive forests for generations to come. We look forward to hearing directly from the people and communities we serve as we work together to implement productive and commonsense policy for forest land management,” she said.
Tree thinning could also reduce wildfire risks, she suggested.
Environmental groups, already prepared for Rollins’ announcement, were quick to denounce it as harmful and out of touch.
“America’s national forests give us clean air, water, wildlife, and the freedom for all to enjoy the outdoors,” said Tracy Stone-Manning, president of The Wilderness Society, in a prepared statement, “but now they are the latest target in this administration’s unpopular push to give away our lands to drill, mine, and log. Gutting the Roadless Rule — which has protected our forests for 25 years — would be the single largest rollback of conservation protections in our nation’s history.”
The Roadless Rule has been the subject of lawsuits for decades, and forests in Colorado and Idaho have already been exempted from it under state-specific guidelines.
Ninety-six percent of the Forest Service’s inventoried roadless areas are located in 12 western states, and no state is more affected than Alaska, which has almost a third of the 45 million acres affected by the pending change.
Alaska is home to the Tongass National Forest, a West Virginia-sized stretch of islands and waterways in the Southeast Alaska panhandle that make up the largest surviving temperate rainforest in the world.
Until the 1980s, the area was also home to a vast logging program and pulp wood mills that employed thousands of people.
“Across Southeast Alaska, we see the irreparable damage from so many decades of unsustainable clear-cut logging in the scarred landscapes and decimated fish and wildlife habitats — we cannot and will not go back to that, and we know that’s what public comment will show once again,” said Maggie Rabb, executive director of the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, in a statement released Wednesday.
Some Alaska Native tribes in the region support keeping the rule in place, as do some tourism businesses.
“Rescinding the Roadless Rule will devastate our community just as we are beginning to heal from clear-cut logging of the past. It’s clear the people making these decisions in Washington, D.C., don’t care about how it will harm those of us who live here and have lived here for thousands of years,” said President Joel Jackson of the Organized Village of Kake, which has repeatedly intervened in lawsuits seeking to defend the rule.
“We are the people of the forest and salmon people — our lives and our voices should count — this process makes it clear they won’t,” Jackson said.
Repealing the Roadless Rule also has powerful support in the region. Local electric utilities have advocated a repeal in order to ease the construction of clean hydroelectric power plants. The Alaska Forest Association, representing the logging industry, supports it, as do mining proponents.
Ten members of the U.S. House’s Committee on Natural Resources were in Anchorage on Wednesday as part of a weeklong tour of the state.
U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Arizona, said he believes the Roadless Rule “has really handicapped us in a number of areas,” including in firefighting.
Gosar said he believes the federal government needs to take a new approach on federal land in order to thin trees and reduce wildfire risks.
In Utah, which has 4 million acres of inventoried roadless land, Republican U.S. Rep. Celeste Maloy said she frequently hears from constituents upset about restrictions on the public use of federal land and supports the repeal.
“One of the complaints my constituents have frequently is that the federal government manages a lot of our resources but isn’t always great at listening to the people who live among the resources. … This Roadless Rule decision is a direct result of complaints from people who live with the Roadless Rule and the unintended consequences it’s having on economies and on resources,” she said.
U.S. Rep. Val Hoyle is a Democrat from Oregon also traveling with the committee. Her state has almost 2 million acres of inventoried roadless area, much of it in her district, but she said she would like to see a more balanced approach than the one being offered by the Trump administration.
“We have to protect our federal lands. We have to make sure that the public has access to our public land, and we have to make sure that we aren’t just wholesale taking out the protections that we worked really, really hard for, because we owe it to the people of this country to protect those lands that truly are theirs,” she said.
U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman, D-California, is the top Democratic member of the resources committee, and wasn’t on the trip to Alaska.
In an emailed statement, he said Rollins “is steamrolling ahead with Trump’s plan to deliver America’s last wild forests to corporate polluters.”
“Democrats will fight this reckless scheme and stand with Tribes, hunters, anglers, and families who rely on these forests — not corporations looking to cash in,” he said.
Members of the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resoures talk with reporters at Juneau International Airport on Monday, Aug. 25, 2025. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
Ten members of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Natural Resources are making an unusual visit to Alaska this week during a break from business on Capitol Hill.
The 45-person committee deals with a variety of issues pertaining to public lands in the United States, and the visit is giving eight Republicans and two Democrats a chance to put their literal hands on the topics they cover.
On Monday, the lawmakers visited Hecla Greens Creek Mine, which produces silver, gold, zinc and lead from a site west of Juneau. They overflew parts of the Tongass National Forest, the nation’s largest, and observed Suicide Basin in the Mendenhall Glacier, the origin point for glacial floods that have inundated parts of Alaska’s capital city in recent summers.
Outside the hangars of Ward Air in Juneau, several House representatives talked with reporters.
“Obviously, Alaska is a big natural resources state, so we’re here seeing things on the ground, so that when we’re talking about (them) in Washington, DC, it’s not just an academic exercise for us,” said Rep. Celeste Maloy, R-Utah and a member of the committee.
Among the group was the committee’s chairman, Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Arkansas, as well as the home-state Republican Rep. Nick Begich.
U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Arkansas, speaks with reporters at Juneau International Airport on Monday, Aug. 25, 2025. At left is Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyoming. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
Begich called the visit “historic for Alaska,” citing the number of visiting Representatives.
Also attending were Reps. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyoming; Tom Tiffany, R-Wisconsin; Pete Stauber, R-Minnesota; Rob Wittman, R-Virginia; Val Hoyle, D-Oregon; Paul Gosar, R-Arizona; and Sarah Elfreth, D-Maryland.
“It is imperative that we visit these places, so that we have a better understanding when they come before us and ask for relief, whether it is in permitting reform or in ways to better manage the resources that we have,” Hageman said.
The legislators are expected to spend several days in southcentral Alaska, where they will address the annual meeting of the Alaska Oil and Gas Association in Anchorage on Wednesday.
Members are planning to meet with Gov. Mike Dunleavy and expecting to hold a news conference with reporters in Anchorage as well.
Members of the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources pose for a photo in Hecla Greens Creek Mine near Juneau, Alaska, on Monday, Aug. 25, 2025. At far left is Juneau Mayor Beth Weldon. (Natural Resources Commitee photo)
For many of the national lawmakers, fresh from a mine tour, minerals were on their minds. President Donald Trump and his administration have been talking at length about the need to increase American production of so-called “critical minerals” used in electronics and high-tech equipment.
Stauber, of Minnesota, said he saw Alaska’s potential to contribute to that effort.
“Alaska can drive that. They can lead the nation into both oil and gas and mineral exploration, if we’d allow them to do that. What we saw at that mine was spectacular,” he said, referring to the Greens Creek mine.
Westerman said he believes additional mining and refining are needed in the United States and Alaska.
“With the big demand on critical minerals and rare earth (minerals) that we have in the country right now, the dependence we have on China for that, I think it’s imperative that Congress work with everyone who’s in the business to help figure out how to get more mining done here in the US — and not just mining, but also the refining of the metals, which is a huge issue,” he said.
Neither of the two Democrats on the trip spoke publicly during their stop in Juneau.
Several of the Republican lawmakers said they believe there is room to increase logging in the Tongass in order to meet the demand for lumber to build housing, particularly locally.
“You ought to at least be able to cut enough timber to sustain your needs here at home, and that will make the forest healthier,” Westerman said.
Speaking nationally, Gosar of Arizona said he believes that selectively thinning national forests could reduce wildfire danger as well.
“You can’t let a lightning fire start where the undergrowth hasn’t been taken care of,” he said. “That’s how we lost the 19 firefighters in Yarnell. … I think there needs to be common sense in that aspect. Get people out on the timber, get the timber, use it for something like building homes. This place needs a lot of homes.”
NOTN- The Juneau School District Board of Education will hold a special meeting today, at noon via Zoom to consider a series of action items, from playground improvements to budget changes and contract approvals.
One of the key items up for a final vote is the acceptance of playground equipment donated by Juneau Rotary Clubs for the Dzantik’i Heeni campus. Rotary has secured $30,000 in funding to provide musical play elements for students at Montessori Borealis and the Juneau Community Charter School.
Volunteers have committed to installing the equipment this fall.
Also on the agenda is a first reading of a budget revision that would add universal free breakfast for all JSD students. The revision comes after an increase in state education funding, after the Base Student Allocation was restored to $700 per student.
The adjustment would provide an additional $1.5 million in revenue, allowing the district to potentially expand student meal programs.
The public can view the meeting online, and final adoption of the FY 2026 Budget Revision is expected at a subsequent board meeting.
NOTN- The National Indian Gaming Commission has approved and amended a proposal submitted by the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, authorizing gaming on a 20-acre parcel of restricted Native allotment land on Douglas Island, close to Eaglecrest ski area.
The land, leased by Tlingit & Haida for 25 years with an option for renewal, is restricted against alienation and taxation and falls under both tribal and federal jurisdiction.
The lease allows for the development of a lodge with a restaurant and gift shop, and bingo and entertainment facilities.
While the site is currently undeveloped, the approval clears a regulatory hurdle for potential future projects.
Students begin their first day of school at the Tlingit Culture, Language and Literacy program at Harborview Elementary School in Juneau on Aug. 15, 2025 (Photo by Corinne Smith/Alaska Beacon)
The Alaska Legislature opened an 18-month study of the state’s troubled public education system on Tuesday as lawmakers convened the first meeting of their Task Force on Education Funding, established by law this spring.
Alaska’s public schools rank among the worst in the country according to national standardized testing data, and members of the bipartisan, bicameral task force have been charged with identifying ways to improve performance by changing the way schools are funded and manage their students.
Legislative leaders have said the task force will also have the opportunity to examine funding for schools and ways to address rising costs of transportation, utilities, insurance and maintenance.
Members of the task force will hold a series of hearings and discussions before drafting recommendations for new laws that legislators might implement. Those recommendations must be delivered before lawmakers arrive at the Alaska Capitol in January 2027.
Gov. Mike Dunleavy called legislators into a special session to address education issues, but lawmakers have ignored that call and are not planning to hold formal meetings before the special session ends at the end of the month. Legislative leaders have said they prefer to work through the task force instead.
Dunleavy is term-limited and will be out of office by the time the task force’s recommendations are complete.
“The current state of Alaska’s education is not where we’d like it to be, but I know that we can get to a better place if we all work together, we find common ground, and we build upon what we agree upon,” said Sen. Löki Tobin, D-Anchorage and co-chair of the task force.
But on Monday, it appeared that finding that common ground could be difficult, as task force participants identified different areas they prefer to focus upon.
“John Muir said that when we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe. The same is true in education,” said Rep. Rebecca Himschoot, I-Sitka. If we take steps to improve teacher quality, that has an impact on the classroom. If we take steps to make sure kids are fed, that has an impact. If we take steps to make sure that we have the right ratios of teachers with students. All of these things have impacts.”
Rep. Justin Ruffridge, R-Soldotna, said he would like the task force to consider how it measures results. What standardized tests, if any, should be used to consider performance?
“I think accountability broadly is a place that I hope to go, and I hope that the (Alaska Department of Education and Early Development) can have some input on that,” he said.
Sen. Jesse Kiehl, D-Juneau, suggested that the task force should be “looking at how we empower local government” to deal with education decisions, while Sen. Mike Cronk, R-Tok, said he wants to make sure the task force is “focusing on policies like the READS Act,” which was a bipartisan bill intended to improve reading performance among younger students.
“We are seeing success in that, and those are the kind of policies we need,” he said.
This year, lawmakers voted to increase the base student allocation, core of the state’s per-pupil funding formula, but Ruffridge suggested that lawmakers need to examine other aspects of the formula to see whether they are delivering the intended results.
Alaska, for example, multiplies the base student allocation for students with “intensive needs” and those in rural Alaska.
“It’s a scary proposition to open up the foundation formula, but I think it’s something that we are really tasked with doing in this group,” he said, adding that the state has failed to properly maintain school facilities, particularly in rural Alaska.
Cronk, in prior comments, said he also is concerned about school maintenance. In most of Alaska, proper maintenance depends on funding from the state government.
“If we want to continue to have (stable) education funding, us as a collective group need to create a fiscal plan for this state,” he said.
“I’m hoping that if we’re talking about funding, that should be our goal as part of this, to make sure that we can come up with something so we do have a level funding for all the government services,” Cronk said.
