The Alaska State Office Building in Juneau, the state capital, is seen on Feb. 16, 2023. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
By the end of 2027, as many as 14,000 Alaska state workers could be paid by someone outside the state.
After years of trouble within the payroll department within the Alaska Department of Administration, the agency is planning to outsource the state’s public employee payroll to an outside company.
Proposals from interested companies were due Thursday, and in an internal letter, DOA Commissioner Paula Vrana said “it likely will be several weeks before a final decision is made.”
Vrana implied that if the proposals aren’t affordable or are otherwise unfavorable, the state will not proceed with outsourcing.
“As of now, we are exploring what options are available to the state and what value may be realized by this approach,” she wrote. “The final decision will be based on the proposals we receive.”
Vrana wrote that the department will begin talking with unions “to explore the options for transfers/placements of employees displaced by outsourcing” and if DOA does choose to outsource, “we will also work with the vendor to include as many existing state payroll employees as possible in their staffing plan.”
The state’s payroll department has struggled with staffing issues for years, leading to times when employees missed paychecks or encountered other problems with their pay.
In April, DOA published a request for information from companies that might be interested in providing “comprehensive payroll processing” for the state.
A three-page feasibility study dated Sept. 28 states that payroll work involves 78 employees in different agencies; all would be affected by outsourcing.
According to the state’s formal request for proposals, it is prepared to pay $4 million per year for a company to handle payroll. It currently spends about $10 million per year on payroll employees and functions, the feasibility study stated.
According to the study, in fiscal year 2025, state employees filed more than 1,500 “notice of pay problem” reports, and reducing the number of problems could make employees in other departments happier.
The first outsourced paychecks would come to a handful of departments on April 1, 2027, and other departments would be transferred to the outsourced payroll company through the rest of the year.
The outsourcing company would have to use the state’s existing payroll software programs, the document states, and the work would have to be done in the United States, but the contractor could get a waiver from the state that would allow payroll work to be done in a foreign country.
“The goal is not to change the system used to process payroll but to make payroll processing more efficient and ensure the state’s existing systems and processes are supported by qualified contracted professionals who can maintain continuity, reduce errors, and uphold the state’s obligations to its employees and the public,” the document states.
DOA provided a copy of the RFP documents to the Beacon this week; they were not previously published on the state’s public notice system, and the two public employee unions whose members would be affected by the outsourcing said they also had not previously seen the documents.
The Beacon asked DOA for an interview with Vrana or someone else involved with the outsourcing decision but was turned down.
In response to a written question asking why the department is planning to outsource, a spokesperson said by email: “Ensuring that employees are paid correctly and on time is the essential duty of payroll. Challenges stemming from high turnover and persistent vacancies within the Department have resulted in pay problems for some state employees. The administration has determined that outsourcing payroll may both provide significant recurring cost-savings to the State and improve services to its employees. However, no final decision on outsourcing payroll will be made until responses to the RFP issued earlier are evaluated.”
Jeff Kasper is the business manager of the Alaska Public Employees Association, which represents payroll workers. He’s not a fan of outsourcing.
“It usually costs more and doesn’t provide the efficiencies that you’re looking for. When you’re talking about public services, you’re essentially having the public pay more for something that’s probably not as good,” he said.
Kasper isn’t convinced that the Department of Administration has done enough to fix the problems that have deterred Alaskans from working for the payroll department.
“If people aren’t applying for jobs and accepting jobs, it’s usually because it doesn’t pay enough or it doesn’t provide benefits or it’s bad working conditions. This one could be all three, and I don’t think any of them have been addressed,” he said.
The state’s own feasibility study acknowledged those problems.
“Payroll processing occurs on a bi-weekly basis and does not have down time. This work environment and the entry level pay range are likely reasons for low retention and high staff turnover,” the study concluded.
As of last month, the study said, 58% of all payroll positions in the state are vacant, and it can take as long as a year of training before a new worker is capable of working independently.
MaryAnn Ganacias is the interim executive director of the Alaska State Employees Association, whose members are paid by the payroll department.
“Alaskans deserve to know what the problem is with the state and what they’re trying to solve by privatizing payroll,” she said.
Ganacias said state money spent outside Alaska is money that doesn’t benefit Alaskans.
“We need to do better investing in our own employees here in Alaska, and not outsourcing where the money actually goes,” she said.
Kasper said he doesn’t think the timeline described in the state’s RFP follows collective bargaining agreements or is realistic.
“The union’s not just gonna sit down and let this happen,” he said. “We don’t think the state has been following the process that’s in the contract.”
Kasper said his union’s contract with the state requires a 30-day consultation period before any outsourcing takes place, and even though the state’s RFP calls for a contract in November, he doesn’t think one is likely before Gov. Mike Dunleavy leaves office in the first week of December.
Kate Sheehan, policy adviser for the Department of Administration, said by email in response to Kasper’s comments, “The State engaged the Confidential Employees Association (CEA) on September 25th, and we have entered into the 30-day period for the union to submit any alternate plans to be considered during this process. DOA does not intend to contract out prior to the Union’s response and analysis of their input.”
NOTN- A secondary release of Suicide Basin is occurring.
The National Weather Service Juneau’s current forecast indicates Mendenhall Lake cresting near 9.8 to 10.3 feet sometime between 2 pm and 6 pm on Friday, October 2.
Ten feet is considered moderate flood stage. Flooding should be expected around the Mendenhall Campground, Skaters Cabin Road, some flooding in the View Drive area, between 1 and 3 feet.
The Weather Service says to expect closures of pedestrian paths near the Mendenhall River.
Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, speaks about Alaska natural gas at an event Wednesday in the White House. President Donald Trump, seated, announced what he said was a deal with the Republic of Korea to invest in the Alaska liquefied natural gas project. Korean officials, however, said the government has not committed to invest in the project but only to continue to examine it. Behind Trump and Sullivan are U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright. (Screenshot from White House video)
By: Yereth Rosen, Alaska Beacon
President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced that he had secured a deal with the Republic of Korea to spend $54 billion on a long-desired Alaska natural gas pipeline project, part of a $200 billion package of investments that include a major power plant in Texas and several nuclear power plants.
South Korea’s trade minister quickly shot down that claim, saying the government is simply reviewing the Alaska project and will proceed with investment “only if its commercial viability is established,” the Korea JoongAng Daily newspaper reported.
Trump spoke in glowing terms of an Alaska liquefied natural gas project as a sure accomplishment — even though half a century of efforts by state and federal officials and the energy industry have failed to make the project a reality, and even though Korean officials have disputed his claim that they are committed to investing in it.
“This alone will be one of the largest energy projects in American history and a gigantic win for the people of Alaska,” Trump said at the event, held in the White House’s Oval Office. “It will create up to 12,000 construction jobs immediately and 1,000 operational jobs. It’ll also save Alaska households up to $1,500, maybe even as much as $2,200 a year in energy costs. It’s amazing.”GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.SUBSCRIBE
The Alaska LNG investment is part of a “colossal package of investments” stemming from his trade and tariff policies that make “a major step toward securing our critical energy supply chain, ensuring American energy dominance, and making our partnership with South Korea and the entire Pacific region stronger than ever before,” Trump said.
South Korea’s industry, trade and resources minister quickly shot down Trump’s claim about securing $54 billion for the Alaska project. Minister Kim Jung-kwan said the Korean government is simply reviewing the Alaska project and will proceed with investment “only if its commercial viability is established,” the Korea JoongAng Daily newspaper reported.
Trump made the announcement while flanked by a crowd of men that included three cabinet members, Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy and U.S. Sen. Dan Sulivan, R-Alaska, and U.S. Rep. Nick Begich III, R-Alaska. Also in the group was Brendan Duval, chief executive of the Glenfarne Group, the investment company leading the current proposal for a natural gas project in Alaska.
The current proposal is to ship gas from the North Slope through a yet-to-be-built 807-mile pipeline from the North Slope to tidewater at Southcentral Alaska’s Cook Inlet, where it would be liquefied and put on tankers for shipment to Asian markets.
Alaska’s North Slope holds vast amounts of natural gas along with its oil resources. But geographic distance and costs have kept that natural gas stranded from markets, despite numerous schemes proposed over the years to build different types of pipeline systems to ship the product to either Asia or to the Lower 48.
The natural gas pipeline has been a perennial issue in Alaska elections, including this year’s U.S. Senate race, which is hotly contested. The energy investments Trump announced also affect Texas, another state where there is a competitive Senate race.
Trump and others who spoke at the ceremony spent much of their time praising Sullivan, whom he called “a great senator who is totally responsible for this pipeline,” and urging that he be reelected.
Sullivan is facing a stiff challenge from former Democratic U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, who led in votes in the primary election. But Trump spent much of his time at Wednesday’s Oval Office event talking about retired Petersburg teacher Dan J. Sullivan, the third U.S. Senate candidate on the Alaska ballot whose candidacy has been challenged by state election officials.
“That Dan Sullivan is a disgraceful fraud,” Trump said.
“It’s so corrupt. The Democrats are corrupt. . . When they put up a man with his exact name, they picked him out of a hat. They said, ‘Anybody named Dan Sullivan in Alaska?”
Trump has said he is planning to come to Alaska to campaign for the senator and against the Petersburg candidate.
Sullivan, in turn, praised Trump and also described the natural gas pipeline projects as if it is a sure thing.
“Mr. President, I would say this is the most important project in our state by far,” he said. “This is the project that is going to keep our kids and grandkids in Alaska, with a great, bright future. This is the project that our state has been working on to try to get done for almost a half century.”
Positive reaction, and also skepticism
Peltola, whom Trump did not mention but who finished 8.1 percentage points ahead of Sen. Sullivan in Alaska’s Aug. 18 open primary, issued a statement saying she welcomes Korean investment in the gas project.
She cited “bipartisan work” she did in the state legislature and Congress and said she will continue to do that work if elected to the Senate. “Today’s announcement is great news for Alaska, and I appreciate President Trump’s work to unleash Alaska energy. I look forward to continuing this bipartisan work with the President as Alaska’s next United States Senator,” she said in the statement.
Also issuing a positive statement was former State Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, a Democrat running for governor.
“Alaska should welcome foreign investment that helps responsibly develop our resources, creates good-paying jobs, and builds new markets for Alaska’s natural gas,” Kreiss-Tomkins said in the statement, in which he describes himself as “an enthusiastic champion” of the gas project. “I’m thrilled to see President Trump’s support, and interest from South Korea, for moving this project forward,” he said.
However, the statements made by Trump, Sullivan and others on Wednesday differ vastly from the position articulated by the Republic of Korea government, according to news reports in that nation.
A map shows various Alaska natural gas pipeline routes proposed as of 2011. (Map from the Congressional Research Service publication, “The Alaska Natural Gas Pipeline: Background, Status, and Issues for Congress,” by Paul W. Parfomak, Specialist in Energy and Infrastructure Policy, June 9, 2011)
The Korean government is not committing to spending any money on Alaska LNG, a project it considers to be a matter for further consultation, according to Korean publications. The actual commitment to Alaska LNG, as described in a memorandum of understanding, is to ‘explore the possibility of investment’ in the project, “while stopping short of making any binding financial commitment,” according to Korean reports.
Additionally, a law in Korea enacted earlier this year limits government investment in the U.S. to $20 billion a year.
One Alaska lawmaker pointed to the information from Korea as a reason to be skeptical about Trump’s announcement.
State Sen. Scott Kawasaki, D-Fairbanks, noted that Korea’s president had not backed Trump’s account.
Rather, Trump’s announcement seemed like one in a series of “boisterous” statements about things that people want, with details not provided, Kawasaki said.
“I think that, again, this is another bold pronouncement from a president who’s been known for making bold pronouncements but not following through,” he said.
It reminded him of Trump’s promise to build a wall at the Mexico border and make the Mexican government pay for it, Kawasaki said. “That never happened,” he said.
And he cautioned Alaskans against raising their expectations based on Trump’s announcement.
“I don’t want to tell the public and my voters that are just struggling, you know, trying to make ends meet that, ‘Don’t worry, the pipeline’s coming tomorrow; don’t worry, your gas problems are going to be solved overnight,’ because that’s just not going to happen,” he said.
Trump, in addition to making claims that are at odds with the Korean government’s public positions, made other questionable statements.
“For five decades, politicians have talked about the Alaska pipeline. I’ve been hearing about it from the time I’m a little boy: ‘The Alaska pipeline is going to be built someday.’ I was always fascinated by it,” he said.
It was unclear whether he was talking about the existing Trans Alaska Pipeline System, which has been shipping North Slope crude oil from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez since 1977, or the proposed gasline project. Discussions about either pipeline began after oil was discovered at Prudhoe Bay in 1968, when Trump, who is now 80, was 21.
Trump also claimed that he won the presidential vote in Alaska by 22 percentage points. His margin of victory in Alaska in 2024 was 13.1 percentage points.
Long history of international efforts
Wednesday’s announcement about Korean investment comes as part of a decades-long history of highly touted international agreements aimed at developing North Slope natural gas.
Those date back to 1977, when the U.S. and Canada struck a deal to develop an overland system that was to deliver natural gas to the Lower 48.
Other agreements were promoted in the 1980s and 1990s. At the time Yukon Pacific Corp., which ultimately held federal and state permits to build an LNG export project, was actively negotiating with would-be Asian partners and buyers. During the time, Yukon Pacific announced agreements with potential partners in Korea and Taiwan.
There were bold pronouncements about exports made during that era that were similar to those made in the Oval Office on Wednesday.
“ALASKA GAS IS POISED FOR EXPORT TO ASIANS,” said a headline in the Jan. 11, 1988, issue of the Journal of Commerce. The story referred to efforts by President Ronald Reagan and Japanese Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita to try to secure that Asian country as a partner in the Alaska LNG project.
Other international negotiations and agreements followed.
In 2008, for example, the China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation, also known as Sinopec, submitted a formal proposal to the administration of Gov. Sarah Palin to build an LNG project with a pipeline running along the existing oil pipeline’s route from the North Slope to the port of Valdez.
Nine years later, the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation — which became the main sponsor of the project — and the state announced a “Joint Development Agreement” with Sinopec and other would-be partners from China. Along with Sinopec, parties to the agreement were CIC Capital Corporation and the Bank of China. It was “the most significant step forward for Alaska LNG,” AGDC said at the time.
The signing of that agreement was witnessed by Trump in his first administration during a trip to China, according to AGDC’s account.
In February of 2025, Trump announced a “joint venture” with Japan on Alaska LNG in terms similar to those he used on Wednesday to describe what he said was a commitment for Korean investment.
At the time, Sullivan praised Trump in terms similar to those he used on Wednesday.
“With his leadership, we will get the Alaska LNG Project built, which will create thousands of good-paying jobs, reinvigorate our American steel industry, significantly reduce our trade deficit in Asia, and deliver clean-burning Alaska gas for Americans, our military, and our allies in the Asia-Pacific, like Japan,” Sullivan said in a statement then.
Correction: Dan J. Sullivan is the U.S. Senate candidate from Petersburg.
A Wilson’s Snipe is seen in an undated photo published by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. (Larry Pace photo/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)
Incorrect information provided by a Google AI overview caused a Kodiak woman to hunt snipe illegally on Sept. 5, according to a citation filed this week at the Kodiak district court.
Writing in an affidavit attached to the citation, Alaska Wildlife Trooper Alex Wick said Weaver called troopers to self-report the violation.
“Christina stated that she Googled ‘Snipe season’ on her phone and that, according to Google, snipe season began on September 1st,” he wrote.
Based on that information, she hunted three snipe but became suspicious after learning that duck season didn’t open until Oct. 8.
Snipe are small game birds common in Alaska, Canada and the northern Lower 48.
“After conducting her own research, she learned that snipes are not legal to take under the general season until October 8th. Christina then contacted dispatch to turn herself in,” Wick wrote.
He said he performed a Google search identical to Weaver’s and received identical incorrect information.
Google did not respond to an email seeking comment on the incorrect information provided by its software. The platform provides an immediate artificial intelligence generated summary of search findings.
“I feel terrible, and I have a lot of shame with it. Obviously, that’s why I immediately self-reported once I got home and dived into the regs,” she said by phone on Friday. “It’s incredibly embarrassing.”
Austin McDaniel, a spokesman for the Alaska Department of Public Safety, said the agency doesn’t keep track of cases involving false information provided by AI software.
“This is the first time that I think we have seen AI cited,” he said.
“I expect we’ll see more of this type of thing in the future,” he said of AI being at fault.
McDaniel said Weaver acted completely correctly once she learned about the AI-caused mistake. Self-reported hunting violations are punished much less severely than ones uncovered by troopers.
“The potential consequences for self-turning in versus being caught can be pretty dramatic,” he said.
Weaver pleaded no contest to the citation on Friday and was fined $150.
Preschoolers play in the snowmelt at Hillcrest Children’s Center in Anchorage on April 18, 2024. (Photo by Claire Stremple/Alaska Beacon)
Alaska childcare providers, families and employers are under intense strain with the lack of childcare availability and funding, according to advocates. They are calling for major state investment in the childcare industry and seeking policy changes under the next governor and Alaska State Legislature.
Leaders with several non-profit groups held an online webinar Wednesday focused on barriers and potential solutions to what they called “Alaska’s childcare desert,” which included advocates with the Alaska Children’s Trust, Southeast Childhood Collective and thread, a statewide resource and referral organization.
Advocates described a patchwork funding system of federal, state and some local municipal grants for childcare providers, which has resulted in a lack of childcare spaces to meet demand, long waitlists, high costs for families and a lack of qualified childcare providers, who also work for low pay.
“It’s a battle right now,” said Candice Vialpando, marketing and communications director with thread. “But every little bit helps, and every bucket of money that we are getting, we’re just putting out into the field to try and help, and keep programs open.”
Alaska has seen a wave of childcare centers close in recent years. Last year, one of Anchorage’s largest childcare facilities, Bright Beginnings Learning Center, closed due to rising costs and a shortage of workers, displacing 125 children and 35 staff. Since 2019, 25% of childcare facilities have closed, according to thread.
The organization estimates 50% of Alaskan families cannot fully participate in the workforce because they lack access to childcare. They estimate the average cost Alaska parents pay is nearly $14,000 per year per child.
Advocates are pushing legislators and state political candidates to make childcare a priority in this election.
“Alaska is a childcare desert,” said Blue Shibler, executive director of the Southeast Childhood Collective, which provides resource, funding and workforce development support throughout Southeast Alaska. “The good news is, advocates like us on here have been working for years on this issue, and there is quite a bit of framework systems development that could turn all of that around pretty quickly.”
She said that the state could make big changes quickly if a new executive branch and motivated legislators were open to their policy and funding ideas.
Shibler said childcare providers are struggling to recruit childcare workers and pay liveable wages, which can result in long wait lists for care.
“Childcare providers cannot charge families enough money to pay competitive wages in this labor market, and so they’re limited at how many kids they can take based on that,” she said. “So we’re working to improve that.”
This year, the Legislature approved $6.4 million to help boost pay and retain childcare workers, but Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed it.
“That really hurt us,” Vialpando said.
Dunleavy also vetoed Legislature-approved increases of $355,000 to the family support program Parents as Teachers, a $3.7 million increase for Head Start programs and a $3 million increase for infant learning programs to support children with developmental delays or disabilities.
A spokesperson for the Dunleavy administration, Jeff Turner, said by email Thursday that “substantial funding was provided,” for childcare. He pointed to the governor’s approvals in this year’s budget for $13 million in Head Start grants, $475,000 for Parents as Teachers and $12.3 million for early intervention and infant learning programs.
“Governor Dunleavy also proposed legislation for funding and opportunities to expand workforce training, unfortunately the legislature chose not to pass his legislation,” Turner said, referring to a bill that would have expanded the unemployment insurance trust fund.
State assistance grants, licensing and economic impacts
For state childcare assistance grants that are paid out to providers and families, Vialpando described issues with delayed payments, which can cause children to lose their spots.
Vialpando said one issue is if families miss renewal dates, they have to reapply for assistance all over again. “It’s not just a quick renewal. It’s like a whole new application period, which takes a very long time,” she said.
“And during that application period, they’re not getting assistance, so their childcare provider is not getting paid, so they don’t have care for their child during that time. And it’s like, does this person care for the kid without getting paid? Does the child stay home?” she said. “It’s a really bad effect that is happening, so I think that needs to be addressed: prompt payment.”
Officials with the Alaska Department of Health did not respond to a request for comment on state assistance delays on Thursday.
Nonprofit groups are working to boost childcare worker support and professional development opportunities, including apprenticeship programs, and helping new providers with licensing and regulatory standards for new childcare programs.
Shibler and others said providers continue to struggle with licensing issues and regulatory hurdles, and the Department of Health could do more to ease the strain.
“A lot of the licensing regulations are just really old and outdated. They just need a review,” she said. “To figure out how many of these are really important to maintain health, safety, and quality, and which ones are just sort of extra that we don’t need to be dealing with and putting on providers.”
With support from an Anchorage initiative directing marijuana tax revenue to the Anchorage Child Care and Early Education Fund, Vialpando said thread is able to provide grants to childcare providers for supplies, equipment upgrades, rent and other operational costs. The organization is also using a mix of state and federal grants to provide health care benefits to childcare workers statewide. “Which is huge in a sector where people do not have healthcare,” she said.
Teresa Wrobel, director of policy and advocacy, Alaska Children’s Trust noted childcare is becoming a priority issue for employers, as there’s a loss of hours as employees need to tend to childcare needs. She and others acknowledged lack of childcare is a major factor in some families leaving Alaska.
Wrobel emphasized the Alaska Children’s Trust – which is focused on reducing child abuse and neglect — is advocating to address childcare issues to help alleviate stress on families. “Neglect happens with families when there is stress in the family, and we just know that childcare is one of those methods that can reduce stress on the family,” she said.
Shibler and others expressed hope that future state leaders will address the state’s growing childcare gap.
“So there’s all these little band-aids out there, you know, trying to fix the problem because nobody wants to take off the big bite, which is we really need to invest $50 million into a compensation system in Alaska,” Shibler said.
“Childcare is a public good: it needs a public subsidy,” she said. “We subsidize public goods all the time. We’re just not doing it for childcare for some reason.”
Correction: This story has been updated to clarify thread is a statewide resource and referral organization, and to clarify state and federal funding, not ACCE funding, is supporting childcare workers’ healthcare benefits.
Mary Peltola listens to a question posed by moderator Michelle Egan at a candidate forum held by the Alaska Oii and Gas Association on Aug. 27, 2026. Next to Peltola is i Sen. Dan Sullivan. Peltola, a Democrat and former U.S. House member, is challenging Sullivan. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
Alaska observers say it is too early to say how reports of bad behavior by Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Mary Peltola might affect the state’s closely watched election, and some supporters suggested this week that she may be subject to a double standard because of her gender.
“While it’s surprising news, I think there’s a very hefty proportion of people who go, ‘It’s a hit job. It’s typical politics,’ and kind of brush it off,” said Ivan Moore of Alaska Survey Research, a political polling firm active in the race.
“It takes a lot to swing someone over from being a Peltola voter to all of a sudden going, ‘Oh, OK, I’ll vote for Sullivan.’ So we’ll see,” Moore said.
On Wednesday, the New York Times published an anonymously sourced article documenting abusive behavior by the former Alaska congresswoman, now a leading candidate for Senate. The article said she was hostile to her staff and used slurs and profanity to privately criticize others.
The article detailed accounts from former staff members who said she required aides to feed her family’s pet chameleon and said that in 2024, she wrote that she hoped a local Planned Parenthood board member would “die of a botched abortion.”
That comment came after the group was slow to endorse Peltola in that year’s election. This year, she does not appear on the group’s endorsement list.
“Planned Parenthood has been called worse and withstood more in its 100+ years; we’ll talk with her about what was reported when she’s Senator-elect,” said Morgan Lim, Alaska state director for Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates. “Nothing has changed in the stakes of this race and we remain laser-focused on ousting Sullivan from the Senate — making sure Alaska voters know that Dan Sullivan is an anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ fanatic who will continue to rubber stamp Trump’s judicial nominees.”
Peltola was elected in 2022 to fill the remainder of Congressman Don Young’s term after his death that spring. She subsequently won the general election in November and served a two-year term of her own.
Her time in office coincided with a period of personal loss. Five months after she began her full term, her mother died. Three months after that, her husband died in a plane crash. She sued his employer a year and a half later, and a trial is set to begin in March.
Harry Child, a spokesman for Peltola’s campaign, said by text that the Times article is exaggerated.
“Like any person who has gone through multiple personal tragedies in the span of a few months, Mary sometimes struggled to deal with her grief. But she treats her staff with respect and care, and she maintains close positive relationships with her staff spanning her nearly 30 years in public service,” he said. “Exaggerating and outright lying about moments from the hardest period of her life, and falsely presenting them as a pattern of behavior, is wrong.”
A double standard for judging Peltola?
Polling indicates Peltola, a Democrat, is in a close race against Republican incumbent Dan S. Sullivan for one of Alaska’s two U.S. Senate seats. The winner of that election may decide whether Democrats or Republicans hold a majority of the Senate.
Moore said he doesn’t know whether the Times article will affect the eventual result.
Readers of the Anchorage Press said they don’t think it will, with some labeling the Times article a “nothingburger.”
The Times found something similar in a followup article of its own. A spokesperson for the Alaska Democratic Party called the initial article “a hit piece.”
“Mary grew up working on a fishing boat and was made in the mold of great Alaskan leaders that came before her. She’s the only candidate in this race who will actually fight to lower costs and put Alaska first, and Alaskans will send her to the Senate this fall because she will deliver,” the spokesperson said.
Nate Adams, a spokesperson for the Sullivan campaign, said by email, “Nearly 30 people close to Mary Peltola were interviewed and more than 100 screenshots informed this reporting. What the Times printed is only a fraction of it, so imagine what was left out, and what else Mary Peltola is hiding from Alaskans.”
Jim Lottsfeldt, a veteran political campaigner who is working on pro-Peltola efforts this year, said he sees somewhat of a double standard in the way she’s being treated.
“Stevens blew his stack, and we were all like, ‘That’s great, because he blew his stack for our benefit.’ And then you had Don Young saying the most outrageous things occasionally, but got like tons of things passed,” Lottsfeldt said. “So when all this stuff happens with the guys, nobody really clutches their pearls, and now we have little Mary Sunshine, Mary Peltola, who may have said the word f**k when she was mad, and now we’re acting like it’s a major political story, and I don’t think it is.”
Some former staffers back Times reporting, others dispute it
After the Times published its initial article, the Beacon contacted more than a dozen former Peltola aides in an attempt to verify its contents. Some, speaking anonymously, said they could not confirm all the incidents described by the Times but said the article matched the tone and mood of their time in her Congressional office or with her campaign.
They asked to not be named in order to offer frank opinions and because their current jobs may require them to work with Peltola in the future.
But at least some defended their former boss.
Kate Consenstein worked for Peltola in the Alaska Legislature and now runs a communications firm in Anchorage. The Peltola campaign suggested her as someone whose experience doesn’t match the Times article.
“I wouldn’t want to engage in denying the veracity or the accuracy of those people’s accounts, especially because I don’t know who they are,” she said, “but I would just say the person that I worked for, and the person that I still know, is kind, generous, and not an abusive boss.”
Current U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski is a Republican who endorsed Peltola’s 2024 U.S. House run but is backing Sullivan this year. She told reporters in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, “I do acknowledge that while she was here in her first term, she was not only thrown into a very challenging situation immediately running for campaign, but then to lose her husband in that airplane crash and to deal with all of that. That’s pressure that is hard for anybody to bear.”
Sullivan, also interviewed by D.C. reporters on Thursday, said, “I think it’s very sad, very disturbing that so many Alaskans had to get put through that kind of severe abuse, which is very disturbing, but not surprising.”
Tyson Fick, a fisherman from Juneau who worked as a special assistant in Peltola’s congressional office, said there’s no doubt that Peltola would want a “mulligan” for some of the things she said, and he feels she was frequently second-guessed by East Coast staff.
“She never, I thought, was abusive, but also she often got some inadequate staff work,” he said.
“Having been around some operations where they were a little more, you know, systematic and organized, it was hard for me. I had to get out of there. I love Mary. I’ll be with Mary till I die, but I knew I couldn’t sign up for them again,” he said.
Fick and other Alaskans interviewed for this article were particularly critical of Anton McParland, who replaced Alex Ortiz as Peltola’s chief of staff. Ortiz, who declined to comment for this article, had previously worked for Young. When Peltola was elected, McParland did not live in Alaska; he has since registered as an Alaska voter.
In addition to the personal losses that Peltola suffered, there was also a conflict between the people Peltola brought from Alaska and the people she hired from the East Coast.
Peltola and Fick are fishermen and accustomed to salty language, he said. Someone with a trust fund may not understand it, he said.
“Sometimes you say some salty stuff just for effect, and it doesn’t reflect a cultural bias … I get that words mean things, and words hurt, and people get their feelings hurt, and maybe it’s not right, but there’s also times when you’re under super stress, and you’re grieving, that stuff comes out like in inopportune moments, and it’s like, yeah, we could communicate better, we could do better, but also we could have — I could have done better for her,” Fick said.
A sign seen on April 9, 2025, advertises rental availability at an apartment building in Anchorage’s Turnagain neighborhood. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
Apartment rents in Alaska rose 2.1% over the past year, the most modest increase in five years, according to analysis by the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development.
The statistics on rental costs are part of a package of articles about housing costs published in the September issue of Alaska Economic Trends, the monthly magazine of the department’s research section.
Rental statistics, based on prices recorded in March of this year, show some striking geographic differences.
The Wrangell-Petersburg area in Southeast Alaska had the cheapest rent of the 11 cities and areas analyzed, with a median monthly rate of $1,288 for a two-bedroom apartment. Bethel, a rural hub in Western Alaska, had the highest rents, with a median of $2,030 a month for a two-bedroom apartment.
Kodiak, Anchorage, the Fairbanks North Star Borough and Juneau were behind Bethel with monthly median rentals above $1,700.The Matanuska-Susitna Borough, just north of Anchorage, was on the low side for median rents, at $1,567 a month, but it had the biggest yearly increase, measured at 12.8%.
That reflects demographic characteristics in the bustling borough, where many residents are commuters who work in Anchorage, said Gunnar Schultz, a state labor economist and one of the authors of the housing-cost stories.
“Mat-Su obviously has been growing in contrast to most of the rest of the state,” he said. “So I think that that obviously puts upward pressure on price.” Proximity to Anchorage is another contributor because it means money is coming into the borough from the state’s largest city, he said.
The analysis is part of the department’s regular monitoring of housing costs. The rental comparisons covered much but not all of the state; the North Slope Borough and Bering Strait region, for example, were not included.
For homebuyers in Alaska, there are some economic headwinds, according to the economists’ analysis. Mortgage costs are much higher than they used to be, they said.
For a 30-year fixed rate mortgage on a $415,000 Alaska home — the median value — the monthly payment in 2025 was about $2,050. That is 84% higher than the estimated median monthly mortgage payment in 2019, the analysis said.
A big driver is the rise in home values, from an average of about $300,000 in 2019 to an average of $415,000 just six years later. Another factor is the increase in interest rates, from a median under 3% in 2020 to 6.5%in 2023, the analysis said.
But while home values and thus monthly mortgage costs increased, so did wages in Alaska.
The result of all those combined changes was that purchasing a home became marginally more affordable in 2025 than in the two years prior, according to the analysis.
Alaska’s Housing Affordability Index, the number that represents how many people earning the average monthly are needed to make mortgage payments, dropped a bit in 2025 to 1.37. That is down from last year’s index of 1.39 and from the 2024 index of 1.4, which was the highest in recent years. But it is above the indexes measured in previous years; from 2019 to 2021, the index was below 1, indicating that a single person earning average Alaska wages had enough money to afford monthly mortgage payments.
Despite the slight improvement in the affordability index, buying a house remains a hefty burden in Alaska, Schultz said. “It’s still so much higher than it was during COVID and before,” he said.
A slight decline in interest rates last year was a contributing factor to the small improvement in housing affordability. However, interest rates are now heading up, the analysis pointed out.
Also affecting housing affordability is the availability of homes, and on that subject, there is positive news for would-be buyers, according to the economists’ analysis.
Housing construction in 2025 hit a 10-year high after years of increases that followed the big drop during the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 2,261 single-family and multifamily housing units were built last year, the analysis said. That compares to 1,747 in 2020 and 1,726 in 2021. Home construction has been steadily rising since those years, according to the data.
The Alaska Economic Trends articles did not compare housing costs in the state to those nationwide, but the U.S. Census Bureau has some U.S. statistics that provide some contest.
Nationally, home ownership costs remained flat from 2020 to 2024, while rents increased by $100 more a month to a median $1,413 during the period, according to the Census Bureau. The analysis considers areas around the nation with populations over 5,000, so most of Alaska’s rural communities are not included.
Former state Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, third from left, speaks at a gubernatorial candidate forum on Sept. 16, 2026, while former Attorney General Treg Taylor, Anchorage business owner and talk-show host Bernadette Wilson and former Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson listen. The forum was held by the Alaska Hospital and Healthcare Association and the organization’s annual conference in Girdwood. Taylor, Wilson and Bronson are Republicans. Kreiss-Tomkins is a Democrat. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
In a candidate forum Thursday, three of the four candidates to be Alaska’s next governor voiced support for a long-debated plan to restructure the Alaska Permanent Fund in order to permanently cap the amount of money that can be spent from it without a statewide vote.
“You’ve got to protect the Permanent Fund. You simply have to,” said Republican candidate and former Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson, speaking at the Commonwealth North forum.
Bronson referred to the Permanent Fund as “one of the two big engines” driving the state’s future. The other, he said, is developing Alaska’s natural resources.
Created in 1976, the Alaska Permanent Fund has been the No. 1 source of revenue for state services and the annual Permanent Fund dividend since 2018, when legislators and then-Gov. Bill Walker enacted a law that automatically diverts a portion of the now-$88 billion fund to the state treasury annually.
Even in years like this one, when oil prices are high and the state’s oil revenue booms, the annual transfer is worth more than oil and all other taxes combined and accounts for more than half of the state’s general-purpose revenue.
Currently, the Permanent Fund is divided into two parts. There’s the constitutionally protected corpus, which can only be spent via a statewide vote, and the earnings reserve, which collects the investment earnings of the corpus.
Money in the reserve can be spent by a simple majority vote of the Legislature and the assent of the governor.
Currently, only the 2018 law restricts spending from the earnings reserve, and that law is a flimsy limit — it could be overridden at any time by the Legislature and governor.
The trustees of the Alaska Permanent Fund have advocated that the two funds be combined into one, both to prevent overspending and to eliminate the possibility of the earnings reserve being drained, which would cause an instant state fiscal crisis.
“I think this is arguably the single most important question laying in wait for the next governor and the forthcoming Legislature,” said Democratic candidate Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins. “I share Mayor Bronson’s belief that the Permanent Fund is a cornerstone of the state, and it is the single most important reform I want to pass as governor, working with the Legislature.”
Merging the two accounts would require a constitutional amendment. That needs the assent of two-thirds of the state House and two-thirds of the state Senate, plus a majority of voters in a statewide general election.
While serving as a member of the state House, Kreiss-Tomkins proposed such an amendment. His proposal passed through two legislative committees but was never voted upon by the full House or the full Senate.
Other, similar amendments have also failed to reach a vote of the House or Senate for two main reasons.
First, legislators would have to agree on the size of the Permanent Fund spending cap. Over the past eight years, the fund has struggled to earn enough money from its investments to make up for the annual transfer.
But reducing the size of the transfer means less money for services and dividends.
In 2025, state budgeters estimated that reducing the transfer by half a percentage point would open a $380 million gap in the budget. Reducing it by a full percentage point — to a level common in trust funds — would require finding $760 million per year in new revenue or cost cuts.
The second issue is the Permanent Fund dividend. Currently, legislators split the annual transfer from the Permanent Fund on an ad hoc basis, deciding each year how much to spend on dividends and services.
In practice, the Legislature has followed a “surplus dividend” strategy, setting the amount of the dividend based on what’s left over after services are paid for.
As operating costs have risen, the amount of money left for the dividend has shrunk. Some legislators now believe that without a policy change, the dividend is on course to disappear by the end of the decade.
State law mandates that dividends be paid using a specific formula in state law, but legislators have ignored that formula since 2016, and the Alaska Supreme Court upheld the legality of that approach.
“I’m going to fight like hell for that Permanent Fund dividend,” Wilson told Alaska Public Media in August.
She said she feels strongly about the issue because resources in Alaska are collectively owned by the state’s residents.
“It has nothing to do with the amount of a check. It has everything to do with the fact that Alaskans own the rights to those resources. And when you concede on that Permanent Fund dividend, you’re not just conceding on the amount of a check. You are conceding on the very idea that Alaskans no longer own those resources,” she said.
While permanently capping spending from the Permanent Fund does not directly alter the amount of the Permanent Fund dividend, it does eliminate a way to pay for larger dividends. Lawmakers who want larger dividends would have to either find new revenue or cut services in order to make money available for the dividend.
Some legislators have proposed that any revised structure for the Permanent Fund transfer reserve a portion of the transfer for dividends specifically, effectively guaranteeing a minimum payment.
Former Alaska attorney general Treg Taylor, speaking at an event in Kodiak, said he sees the Permanent Fund in the same way as the state’s fisheries — a resource that must be handled carefully in order to stay renewable.
Overfishing, or overspending, could endanger it.
“I think we have to lock up the Permanent Fund,” Taylor said, reiterating his position at this week’s Commonwealth North forum. “We have to protect that corpus. If we do not, there’s so much — I mean, JKT had it right. There’s just too much temptation to raid that. We’ve got to lock it up because that is our future.”
Former Attorney General Treg Taylor, at right, speaks at a Sept. 9. 2026, forum held by the Last Frontier Republican Club at the Petroleum Club of Anchorage. Next to him, from left, are two of the other three gubernatorial candidates: former Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson, and former state Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
As Americans grow frustrated with artificial intelligence software and concerned about the side effects of data centers, they have become a major issue in this year’s midterm elections. Alaska’s gubernatorial race is no exception, particularly since the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority announced plans for a development that could include data centers in Southcentral Alaska.
All four candidates — Republicans Dave Bronson, Treg Taylor and Bernadette Wilson and the Democratic Kreiss-Tomkins — have staked out different policy positions before Alaskans vote this fall.
Data centers need reliable connections to the internet, cheap electricity and a cooling method. Currently, the North Slope is the most promising location for all three.
Current Gov. Mike Dunleavy has backed data centers, saying they could be an economic driver — they would create construction jobs and demand for infrastructure that would enable further development.
Dunleavy is term-limited and cannot run again this year. Four candidates remain in the race to replace him.
“I’m a big believer in data centers. I know that might be unpopular with some folks here,” said Bronson at a candidate forum hosted by Commonwealth North in Anchorage on Thursday.
A former Anchorage Mayor, retired Air Force pilot and former director of the state’s largest airport, Bronson said he sees economic opportunity if data centers are built in Alaska, and he would like to encourage them.
“The logistics (are) minimal, and there’s a lot of money in data centers, but you’ve got to deal with the noise. You’ve got to deal with the cooling, and you’ve got to deal — certainly — with the electricity. And the groups that I’m talking to, they said we’re not going to take your electricity because it’s not reliable. … We will produce our own, and we will move, and we will build our own data centers. That’s good for us. That’s a very strong revenue source,” Bronson said.
“I think we need to embrace it,” he said of data centers.
“We have all the makings of a great place for a data center to thrive and produce good-paying jobs for Alaskans,” Taylor said.
He added that electricity costs are his biggest concern. Any data center must “bring their own energy,” he said, and if a data center then sells excess power it generates, it could be a benefit to Alaskans if it is cheaper than other power available nearby.
“It doesn’t have to drive up costs if you do it correctly. It can produce a net savings to the ratepayers in Alaska,” he said.
Bronson and Taylor each said they see data centers as the future and fear that Alaska will miss out if it doesn’t embrace them.
“It’s a service everybody’s using and everybody has to adapt to and use, or you’re going to get left behind,” Taylor said.
Kreiss-Tomkins is advocating a temporary pause on data center development in the state.
“I support a moratorium on data center development in Alaska until the Legislature can pass a comprehensive regulatory framework for that development in Alaska,” he said during a Sept. 8 forum in Anchorage.
Any limits on development would be decided by negotiations between himself and the Legislature, he said.
The sponsor of the bill, Sen. Löki Tobin, D-Anchorage, will return to the Legislature next year, and the coalition majority that passed the bill is also likely to return, meaning that the next governor will likely be confronted with similar legislation.
Kreiss-Tomkins has also endorsed legislation that would ban AI-generated fake images intended to mislead the public and a bill that would require political advertisers to disclose AI-generated content.
Wilson, asked about her position by text message, criticized Kreiss-Tomkins’ campaign for accepting large contributions from AI company employees.
“Unlike Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins — better known as Chat JKT — our campaign is not funded with hundreds of thousands of dollars from California AI companies hoping to own our governor and exploit our state,” she said before explaining her position. “Our administration will make independent decisions that are in the best interest of Alaska, not big donors from the Lower 48. I will never allow Alaska to be littered with hyperscale data centers that take our resources and spoil our lands. Our natural beauty, environment and quality of life matter to every person who calls Alaska home and my job is to represent them, not big tech liberals.”
Former state Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, third from left, speaks at a gubernatorial candidate forum on Wednesday, while former Attorney General Treg Taylor, Anchorage business owner and talk-show host Bernadette Wilson and former Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson listen. The forum was held by the Alaska Hospital and Healthcare Association and the organization’s annual conference in Girdwood. Taylor, Wilson and Bronson are Republicans. Kreiss-Tomkins is a Democrat. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
The three Republicans and one Democrat seeking to become Alaska’s next governor pitched their visions for state healthcare policy on Wednesday to an audience of experts: members of the Alaska Hospital and Healthcare Association.
The organization capped its two-day annual conference in Girdwood with a forum among the gubernatorial candidates who are running under Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system.
Along with addressing healthcare issues, all four candidates repeated talking points they have used at past events.
Former State Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Thomkins, the only Democrat on the general election ballot, spoke about consensus-building across party lines, and he criticized outgoing Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy for failing to do so.
Kreiss-Tomkins recounted his experience in a bipartisan coalition focusing on problems rather than party. “That’s a real North Star for me,” he said. “That philosophy of government, that principle has been painfully absent in the governor’s office for the last eight years, and it has really distressed me to see the direction Alaska is going as a consequence of that leadership in our governor’s office the last eight years. And I’m running to change that.”
Former Attorney General Treg Taylor spoke about his desire to cut bureaucratic red tape, including his experience with a real estate license that took a year and a half to transfer, an account he has described at numerous other gubernatorial events.
“We need to have government run at the speed of business,” he said, repeating a slogan he has used elsewhere.
Talk show host and business owner Bernadette Wilson, who has never held public office, pitched herself as an outsider and “the only one up on this stage that has never taken a check from government.” She said she breaks with past practices, including bipartisanship, that she said do not work. The current debates are about many of the same issues that faced gubernatorial candidates in past years, she said.
“And the question that each of us will have to answer is, ‘What are we going to do differently this time?’” she said.
In contrast, former Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson touted the experience he gained in his three years as chief executive of the state’s largest municipal government.
Former Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson, a Republican, speaks at a gubernatorial candidate forum held in Girdwood on Sept. 16, 2026, by the Alaska Hospital and Healthcare Association. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
“I ask you to just look at the resumes. I’ve already held the closest job in this state to the governor’s job. I governed 40% of the population of the state as the mayor,” he said. He “paid in blood” for the hard lessons that he learned, he said, experience that will serve him well as governor, a job for which “there’s no time for on-the-job training.”
Lost Medicaid coverage
On specific health topics, the candidates had many areas of agreement, but the discussion also revealed some key differences.
One divide emerged during a discussion about the loss of Medicaid coverage over the past two years for low-income Alaskans. At least a quarter of those being dropped from enrollment are not losing coverage because of lack of eligibility, Alaska Hospital and Healthcare Association President Jared Kosin said as he posed the question. Rather, they are being dropped because of long wait times and the bureaucratic hurdles they face in getting their applications considered.
Kreiss-Tomkins, who said he is proud of his record as a lawmaker working with the administration of Gov. Bill Walker to expand Medicaid coverage, said staff shortages are causing some of the problems. And he said some are caused by new rules imposed by the Trump administration, such as the work requirement that was embedded in the sweeping budget bill called the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,”, have exacerbated problems for qualified Medicaid recipients, who are among society’s most vulnerable members.
And he made a veiled jab at U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan and U.S. Rep. Nick Begich, both Alaska Republicans who voted for the bill and are running for reelection.
It is important to be “very clear about who voted for that legislation that is about to make it harder for Alaskans to get the care they need,” he said. “We need to be very clear-eyed about that.”
Taylor, in contrast, said he supports the bill’s requirement that Medicaid recipients work at least 80 hours a month, either at a paid job or in volunteer service or training.
“It is not unreasonable for an able-bodied adult, without dependents,” he said. Medicaid funds are not infinite,” so stewardship is needed to make sure they are spent properly, he said. Additionally, he said, fewer people on Medicaid could be a good sign. He said unemployment rates in Alaska have dropped.
“So that’s good. That’s the program working,” he said.
Alaska’s unemployment rate, though following a volatile pattern, has been on a long-term decline, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. In recent years, the rate bottomed out at 3.9% in August of 2022, rose to 4.8% in December 2025 and then declined again, falling to 4.3% as of July, according to the Federal Reserve bank’s statistics. Alaska’s rates have been above the national rate for most of the years in the past decade, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Former State Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, a Democrat, speaks at a gubernatorial candidate forum held in Girdwood on Sept. 16, 2026, by the Alaska Hospital and Healthcare Association. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
Wilson said a business-like approach is needed to fix the Medicaid problems.
“We need to treat Medicaid like a business that is failing Alaskans,” she said. “We need to come in and we need to look at how can we hire people from the private sector that know processes and can hold these processes to a more accountable timeline.”
Bronson said Kosin’s statistics show that a large percentage of qualified Alaskans are being dropped from services.
“We are failing at a state level, especially in the Department of Health,” he said. Upon taking office as governor, “I would direct the Department of Health to conduct a review of all operations, and that includes the processing of paperwork for Medicaid,” he said.
Bronson also said that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is causing extra problems for Alaska, and that he would seek an extension of the national Jan. 1 deadline for states to comply with all of its provisions.
Rural health ideas
On the subject of rual health care in general and, more specifically, what to do with “rural health transformation” funds granted from the federal government to the state, two of the candidates referred to their own family experiences.
Kreiss-Tomkins, who is from Sitka, spoke about his mother, an Indian Health Service doctor who spent her entire career at the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium. He said he got his own health care from that tribal organization.
Wilson, noting that her grandmother was born in the Bristol Bay community of Naknek and that she is of part Aleut ancestry, said she has experience as a patient at the Alaska Native Medical Center.
As for the $272 million in rural health transformation funds that the state got from the federal government and that the Department is disbursing in a series of grants, the candidates offered a variety of suggestions.
Wilson said the state should invest in technology, especially technological advances that might help rural Alaskans avoid the need to travel to Anchorage or elsewhere for care.
Former Attorney General Treg Taylor, a Republican, speaks at a gubernatorial candidate forum held in Girdwood on Sept. 16, 2026, by the Alaska Hospital and Healthcare Association. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
She sees the travel-related challenges when she is at the Alaska Native Medical Center, she said. “You have people who are pulled out of their community, pulled out of their village, they’re coming into Anchorage. Sometimes it’s for an unknown length of time,” she said. The state needs to try to find ways to ensure that rural patients can be treated at home, she said.
Bronson made similar observations about the need to minimize travel for rural patients, citing “robust telehealth” as one tool.
Kreiss-Tomkins said the state should be seeking to make the rural transformation grants “leverage structural and systems change that will have lasting and enduring benefit to the system” rather than use them for construction or for one-time projects. The state should not count on getting similar money in the future, he said.
Taylor called the funding a “gift” that he hopes will be used “to help reinvent healthcare in Alaska.”
There was a split among the candidates over mandatory staffing ratios for nurses, as proposed in a bill that emerged late in this year’s session, Senate Bill 283. The Alaska Hospital and Healthcare Association opposed the bill, which did not advance out of the Senate Labor Committee.
Three of the gubernatorial candidates said they also opposed the idea of codifying such ratios into law, but Taylor spoke out in support. He cited a 2016 study in Australia that found that for each patient taken off a a nurse’s workload, there was a 7% drop in the likelihood of death and a 3% shorter hospital stay.
However, establishing firm ratio requirements would also necessitate related action to ensure sufficient numbers of nurses in the state, he said.
“You cannot mandate nurses into existence,” he said.
The other three candidates said mandatory staffing ratios would not be workable in Alaska’s diverse healthcare settings.
However, Kreiss-Tomkins said, the idea behind the proposal is laudable. “I appreciate where the impulse comes from,” he said. “I mean, everybody wants safe standards of care for patients, and you don’t want nurses or other practitioners spread thin.”
Complex subjects
Concerning mental and behavioral health, Bronson repeatedly defended his controversial attempt as Anchorage’s mayor to build a huge shelter and “navigation center” in the city’s university-medical district to serve the unhoused.
Anchorage business owner and talk-show host Bernadette Wilson, a Republican, speaks at a gubernatorial candidate forum held in Girdwood on Sept. 16, 2026, by the Alaska Hospital and Healthcare Association. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
“That facility, I think, was the right answer to dealing with a lot of the healthcare issues we face in the city of Anchorage and across the state because we’re kind of the homeless center for the state,” he said. “We almost had it done. We actually started pouring concrete.”
Bronson’s plan was for a tented facility to house and serve hundreds of people at a site across the street from the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium campus. The Anchorage Assembly rejected the plan after it was revealed that the Bronson administration awarded a contract and started construction illegally. The plan had drawn backlash from residents in the area, which currently is the site of ballfields and recreational trails.
Taylor said Alaska’s mental health challenges are daunting, with suicide and alcohol death rates that are twice the national average.
But there has also been positive movement under the Dunleavy administration, he said. He cited a bill that the governor signed in 2022, House Bill 172, that supports the use of crisis centers and teams to treat patients in emergencies.
There are now mobile crisis centers in four communities, Taylor said. “The added effect of that is keeping people out of your emergency rooms,” he said. “Youth suicides are down sharply now.”
It was unclear whether Taylor was referring only to the communities where the mobile crisis teams are operating or to the state as a whole.
Statewide, the rate of youth suicide fatalities reached a 10-year high in 2025, according to the Department of Health’s epidemiology section.
Other subjects discussed at the forum included the rising cost of health insurance in Alaska and qualities that the candidates are seeking in officials they would hire to manage healthcare services.
At the event’s conclusion, Kosin thanked the candidates for delving into healthcare topics that are complex.
“This is not always the most comfortable environment, and you guys were here. And that says a lot about your character,” Kosin said to the candidates.
Former Attorney General Treg Talor speaks at a gubernatorial candidate forum on Sept. 16, 2026, while Anchorage business owner and talk-show host Bernadette Wilson, former state Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins and former Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson listen. At the lecturn is Jared Kosin, president of the Alaska Hospital and Healthcare Association. The organization held the forum in Girdwood, and the event was focused on healthcare issues. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
