By MICHAEL TAVOLIERO
Alaska stands at a crossroads. Decades of bureaucratic expansion, fiscal mismanagement, and policy drift have left the state with underperforming institutions, rising costs, and a growing disconnect between the people and their government. While Alaska is blessed with immense natural wealth and a resilient population, it suffers from structural inefficiencies that hinder its progress and undermine public trust.
In response, a new conservative leadership—anchored in constitutional values, community self-determination, and fiscal responsibility—proposes a comprehensive realignment of four critical systems: Education, Health and Welfare, Energy, and the Permanent Fund Dividend.
Each of these reforms is justified not by ideology, but by necessity.
1. Education: Restoring Local Control and Breaking Bureaucratic Dependency
For decades, Alaska’s education system has been dominated by a centralized bureaucracy that is unresponsive to local needs and fiscally unsustainable. The Department of Education and Early Development (DEED), along with layers of school boards and administrative mandates, has created a system where spending has increased while student performance remains stagnant, particularly in rural and Indigenous communities.
Justification for Reform:
- Alaska ranks among the highest in per-pupil spending but among the lowest in academic performance and graduation outcomes.
- Local communities lack meaningful control over curriculum, personnel, or funding priorities.
- Statewide mandates stifle innovation, burden educators, and alienate parents.
Solution: Dismantle the Department of Education and Early Development, abolish all local school boards, and empower parents and communities through direct education savings accounts, community learning co-ops, and curriculum freedom. Restore education as a right rooted in community, not a privilege dispensed by bureaucracy.
2. Health and Welfare: Ending Federal Dependency and Streamlining State Systems
Alaska’s health and welfare system has become a fiscal albatross. Medicaid expansion in 2015 shifted immense financial risk to the state without improving access or outcomes. Meanwhile, state agencies such as the Department of Health and the Office of Children’s Services have grown bloated, slow, and opaque, often harming the very populations they are meant to serve.
Justification for Reform:
- Medicaid now consumes the largest share of Alaska’s operating budget and continues to grow without measurable improvements in care.
- The assumption of federal trust responsibilities (e.g., under Public Law 280) has left the state vulnerable to liability and inefficiency.
- Critical services are buried beneath regulatory overreach, workforce licensing delays, and fraud-prone contracting.
Solution: Reverse Medicaid expansion, return federal responsibilities to the federal government, and dismantle or restructure failing bureaucracies. Prioritize community-based service delivery, fraud reduction, and private-sector health partnerships that deliver results over rhetoric.
3. Energy: Unleashing Resource Development and Achieving Hydroelectric Dominance
Despite possessing vast energy resources, Alaskans face some of the highest energy costs in the nation. The Alaska Energy Authority and the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority have failed to deliver on their mandates, instead favoring insider deals and politically engineered projects over real development.
Justification for Reform:
- Southcentral Alaska faces a natural gas shortfall due to regulatory inaction and infrastructure neglect.
- Federal-style permitting and anti-development rules have paralyzed progress in oil, gas, and mineral extraction.
- Energy monopolies and state-funded intermediaries distort markets and limit rural access to affordable power.
Solution: Dismantle AEA and AIDEA, repeal all laws that impede energy development, and fast-track hydroelectric infrastructure. Encourage open-market energy access and return control of Alaska’s energy future to its people—not its middlemen.
4. The PFD: Restoring the People’s Share and Rebuilding Trust
The Permanent Fund dividend was created to ensure that all Alaskans benefit from their state’s natural resource wealth. Since 2016, legislative appropriations have diverted billions away from dividend payments, breaking public trust and disproportionately harming low-income Alaskans.
Justification for Reform:
- The statutory PFD formula has been violated multiple times through legislative appropriation.
- More than $13 billion in PFD earnings have been diverted to government spending without voter consent.
- The erosion of the PFD undermines economic justice and fuels public distrust in state institutions.
Solution: Restore the statutory PFD formula, repay withheld dividends to all eligible Alaskans, and enshrine PFD protections in the state constitution. The PFD is not a government program. It is the people’s rightful share, and it must be safeguarded accordingly.
Conclusion: A Conservative Restoration of Alaska’s Future
These four pillars of reform, education, health and welfare, energy, and the PFD, are not isolated initiatives. Together, they represent a blueprint for restoring sovereignty, self-governance, and sustainability in Alaska’s public institutions. By dismantling failing systems and rebuilding from the ground up with a focus on efficiency, equity, and accountability, Alaska can secure a stronger, freer future for all its residents.
This is not merely reform. It is restoration.
Michael Tavoliero writes for Must Read Alaska.
