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Shovel Creek fire forces evacuations near Fairbanks

Suzanne Downing
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24
Shovel Creek fire forces evacuations near Fairbanks

HOMES IN DANGER IN TWO SUBDIVISIONS

Residents of two subdivisions near the Shovel Creek Fire northwest of Fairbanks were advised to evacuate just after midnight on Sunday, June 30. Two shelters have been established: Randy Smith Middle School, and the Tanana Valley Fairgrounds, where animals are also welcome.

A Level 3 evacuation means it’s time for residents to go for residents of the Martin and Perfect Perch subdivisions, where there are about 52 structures in an area dominated by black spruce. A Level 3 evacuation means residents should not delay leaving.

The Fairbanks North Star Borough Emergency Operations posted this notice on Facebook:

MARTIN AND PERFECT PERCH SUBDIVISIONS have been moved to a Level 3 Evacuation notice which means “GO” Evacuate NOW LEAVE IMMEDIATELY! Danger to your area is current or imminent, and you should evacuate immediately. If you choose to ignore this advisement, you must understand that emergency services may not be available to assist you further. DO NOT delay leaving to gather any belongings or make efforts to protect your home. THIS WILL BE THE LAST NOTICE THAT YOU RECEIVE. Entry to evacuated areas may be denied until conditions are safe.

McCloud and Murphy subdivisions have been moved from a Level 1 to a Level 2 evacuation. A Level 2 evacuation alert means people should be set to evacuate, which includes assembling all the things you will need in the event of an evacuation. Be prepared for a moment’s notice because there is significant danger and likelihood of a Level 3.

The Lincoln Creek subdivision remains in Level 2 Evacuation status. The area of the Chatanika River corridor remains in Level 1 evacuation status.

The fire, which was started by lightning on June 21, is located three miles north of Murphy Dome, about 20 miles northwest of Fairbanks. It grew to 300 acres on the first evening as it burned through continuous stands of black spruce. It’s now over 5,500 acres and smoke from the fire is drifting across the region.

Some 550 firefighting personnel are assigned to this fire, which is not expected to be contained until mid-July. The Division of Forestry has deployed water-scooping aircraft, air retardant tankers and smoke jumpers. On June 24, Incident Commander Norm McDonald took command of the firefighting operation.

A community meeting is scheduled for 6 pm today at Ken Kunkel Community Center, 2645 Goldstream Road. For those unable to attend, the Fairbanks North Star Borough Emergency Operations team will be live streaming the meeting at @FNSBEmergencyOperations on Facebook.

The State firefighters are working in cooperation with the Chena-Goldstream Fire Department, Fairbanks North Star Borough Department of Emergency Services, Alaska State Troopers, State Parks, and Division of Forestry.

A temporary flight restriction (TFR) is in place in the area to allow for firefighting safety.

 

Attorney General Barr: $10.5 million to help lawless villages

Suzanne Downing
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5
Attorney General Barr: $10.5 million to help lawless villages

DOJ SENDING EMERGENCY FUNDS TO SUPPORT LAW ENFORCEMENT

Fresh off of his trip to rural Alaska, U.S. Attorney General William P. Barr on Friday declared a law enforcement emergency under the Emergency Federal Law Enforcement Assistance Program.

Barr made $6 million immediately available to the state of Alaska for law enforcement needs of some “lawless” Alaska Native villages, with more funds and programs on the way, although it’s not clear how all of the money will be funneled to law enforcement entities or what the reporting structure will be. The $6 million will go to the state Department of Public Safety, but is not intended to fund more actual village public safety officer positions.

[Read: Barr comes to learn about violence in the village]

The emergency funding will come from the Office of Justice Program’s Bureau of Justice Assistance and will be used to train village public safety officers, village police officers, and tribal police officers in rural Alaska. It will also pay for mobile detention cells.

Another $4.5 million in funding will be granted to tribal entities to support 20 officer positions.

The public safety emergency declaration from the Department of Justice comes at the same time the Dunleavy Administration trimmed the village public safety officer program by $3 million because the program has been unable to recruit qualified people and has not been able to spend its $14 million budget year after year.

Also included in the federal grant package:

  • Up to $14 million in Victim Assistance Funding. Barr was impressed with the Children’s Advocacy Center in Bethel and wants to see similar centers funded in other rural Alaska areas. This funding is also for child advocacy centers in the Lower 48; is not all likely to come to Alaska.
  • Barr is tasking federal law enforcement agencies with assisting the state in the prosecution of cases in rural Alaska. Four Special Assistant U.S. Attorneys will assist state District Attorneys in rural Alaska. This will increase the number of arrests and prosecutions and will clear some criminals out of villages.
  • The federal agency also reauthorized $160,000 in Violence Against Women Act funding to provide technical assistance to tribes so they can write grant applications for more funding.
  • $10 million in funding for VPSOs in Alaska (part of this through the state and part through Native Organizations – it is still not clear how the funds will be split)
  • Creation of a Rural Alaska Violent Crime Reduction Working Group, led by U.S. Attorney Bryan Schroder. The group will look for ways to build the capacity of federal, state, and tribal law enforcement in rural Alaska with an emphasis on domestic violence and crimes against children.
  • An additional $162,000 available to the U.S. Attorney’s Office to establish an additional Project Safe Neighborhoods target site encompassing rural Alaska.

“In May, when I visited Alaska, I witnessed firsthand the complex, unique, and dire law enforcement challenges the State of Alaska and its remote Alaska Native communities are facing,” said Attorney General Barr in a statement.  “With this emergency declaration, I am directing resources where they are needed most and needed immediately, to support the local law enforcement response in Alaska Native communities, whose people are dealing with extremely high rates of violence. Today, I am also directing each component and law enforcement agency of the Justice Department to submit plans within the next 30 days to further support federal, state, and tribal public safety efforts in rural Alaska.  Lives depend on it, and we are committed to seeing a change in this unacceptable, daily reality for Alaska Native people.”

Barr acknowledged that Alaska has some of the most remote communities in all of America. Geography contributes to law enforcement problems not seen anywhere else in the United States with one-third of Alaska’s villages having no local law enforcement personnel at all, according to the Anchorage Daily News.

The State of Alaska had over 100 VPSOs during the Parnell Administration but that dropped dramatically during the Walker Administration and is now hovering around 50. VPSOs are difficult to recruit for remote villages and encounter problems with cooperation from locals. The turnover is high and VPSOs often work without back up. They generally are not armed, although they can be, if their tribal entity managers approve it. VPSOs work for tribal entities that are given the funds for the VPSOs by the State of Alaska Department of Public Safety.

[Read: Village public safety officer program can’t use the cash it has]

Additional near-term measures by Department of Justice components include:

  • The Office of Violence Against Women will issue an award for sexual assault training and technical assistance in Alaska, including training community health aides in Alaska Native villages to perform sexual assault forensic exams and training for victim advocates.  The project will include community sexual assault training, which will address coordinated responses to sexual assault across the community.  This award will also train village-based victim advocates to accompany victims throughout the process, including prosecution, as appropriate. This is important because in villages, many rapes go unprosecuted because victims don’t want to come forward and go through the trial of the perpetrator, who may be a relative.
  • Extending the application deadline for the Crime Victim Fund tribal set-aside solicitation (part of the $167 million available to tribes for victim services in FY 2019) to Aug. 16, 2019. This money may be used to fund direct services and advocacy, domestic violence shelters, rape crisis services, children advocacy programs, and elder abuse programs.
  • Extending the application deadline to July 15, 2019, for programs that target mental health/drug addiction, reentry initiatives, and community crime reduction.
  • The COPS Office has two grant programs that it will reopen to afford Alaska the opportunity to apply:
    • The Anti-Methamphetamine Program is open to state law enforcement agencies with multijurisdictional reach and interdisciplinary task force structures, in states with high seizures of precursor chemicals, finished methamphetamine, laboratories, and laboratory dump seizures.
    • The COPS Anti-Heroin Task Force Program is open to state law enforcement agencies with multi-jurisdictional reach and interdisciplinary team (e.g., task force) structures, in states with high per capita rates of primary treatment admissions.

Alaska life hack: Washington state changes sales tax exemption rules for Alaskans

Suzanne Downing
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30
Alaska life hack: Washington state changes sales tax exemption rules for Alaskans

Starting Monday, Alaskans shopping in Washington state won’t enjoy the easy sales tax break they have gotten for 54 years. Instead, under a new law passed by Washington legislators, they’ll have to save their receipts and apply later for the sales tax exemption by requesting a refund from the Department of Revenue.

Washington state sales tax is 6.5 percent.

The change in the tax law likely means that most out-of-state shoppers will not take the time to make that application, and that Washington will get tens of millions more in sales tax dollars. The new system also applies to those from other states that don’t have sales tax,  including Oregon, Delaware, Montana and New Hampshire, and some Canadian provinces.

Under the prior system, Alaskans filled out a form at the point of sale, and showed their Alaska ID to obtain the sales tax deduction at the cash register.

According to the Washington Department of Revenue, the refund applies to purchases of tangible personal property, digital products, or digital codes for items to be used only outside Washington State by purchasers who can prove residency in a qualifying jurisdiction.

Refunds have never been available for services such as lodging at hotels, repair services, laundry or dry cleaning, meals, personal services like tattooing or dating services, or title and escrow services.

Also exempt from tax refunds are marijuana products.

To get a refund, you’ll need to save copies of your receipts, have your proof your residency, and apply for the refund after Jan. 1, 2020 for purchases made between Monday, July 1, 2019 and Dec. 31, 2019. You’ll have to have paid at least $25 in Washington state sales tax to qualify. Local sales taxes are not factored into the reimbursement.

The state is banking on getting an additional $175 million into the state treasury through the middle of 2025.

[Read the State of Washington Department of Revenue’s new tax exemption rules]

Trump finishes trade truce, flying back through Anchorage

Suzanne Downing
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2
Trump finishes trade truce, flying back through Anchorage

President Donald Trump, fresh off of a negotiation of a trade war truce with China, will head back through Alaska on his way to the nation’s capital on Sunday.

A temporary flight restriction has been announced for 7:15 am through 9:45 am Sunday in the airspace around Anchorage and Southcentral Alaska.

As a part of the trade agreement, the United States will lift some of its sanctions against Huawei, China’s multinational information and communications technology infrastructure and smart device maker. Huawei is the No. 1 telecom supplier in the world and is No. 2 for phone manufacturing. But it has run into legal problems after the U.S. Justice Department alleged theft of intellectual property and fraud. Many U.S. companies, such as Google, have extensive trade relationships with Huawei.

The details of the much-anticipated discussions between Trump and China’s President  Xi Jingping at the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan, have not been fully released.

[Read the timeline on the Huawei trade dispute]

Marilyn Stewart is new leader of Human Right Commission

Suzanne Downing
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17
Marilyn Stewart is new leader of Human Right Commission

Marilyn Stewart is the newly appointed executive director of the Alaska Commission on Human Rights. The decision was made by the all-volunteer board of directors of the commission on Friday.

Stewart most recently ran for the House seat occupied by Rep. Matt Claman, representing District 21, Anchorage.  For the past several months she has worked for Gov. Michael Dunleavy as director of outreach. She starts on Monday as the first African-American woman to hold the position in the 55 years of the commission’s history.

Stewart is originally from Alabama. She came to Alaska with the U.S. Army and was stationed at Fort Richardson. In 2012, she was awarded the Freedom’s Sister Award by Ford Motor Company for her community outreach. Previous recipients included Myrlie Evers-Williams, Barbara Jordan, and Rosa Parks.

She is the former director of the Office of Equal Opportunity under Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan, small business development program manager at the Alaska Department of Commerce, deputy director of community relations for Gov. Frank Murkowski, and constituent relations aide to Gov. Tony Knowles.

Stewart was the co-founder and first executive director of Bridge Builders of Anchorage, and president/CEO of the Alaska Black Chamber of Commerce.

She was a volunteer on the re-election campaign of Gov. Sean Parnell, and ran for State House in 2016 and 2018 against Rep. Matt Claman, losing both times to the incumbent Democrat.

The position of the executive director of the agency opened up after the former head of the agency posted a note on a man’s truck telling him to remove it from the agency’s parking lot because of its “Black Rifles Matter” decal.

[Read: Human Rights director was regulating what she thought was “hate speech.”]

Marti Buscaglia was disciplined and suspended from her job, and then resigned in April. At the same time, several board members resigned and the staff’s enforcement officer also resigned. The governor has been able to appoint several new board members in the brief time since the scandal took place.

[Read: Human Rights Commission vs. First and Second Amendment]

[Read: Human Rights director resigns]

A ‘devastated’ University of Alaska?

Suzanne Downing
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34
A ‘devastated’ University of Alaska?

UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT SHOULD RISE TO THE OCCASION

By TOM WILLIAMS
SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR

I read with interest the response to the Governor Dunleavy’s substantial veto of the University of Alaska’s state-funded budget. In particular, UA President Jim Johnsen called the reductions “devastating” and portrayed a situation that would lead to a spiraling down of the University. Mr. Johnsen was not alone.

The comments to several Anchorage Daily News articles were equally disparaging of those vetoes.

Several of the ADN commenters asserted that Mr. Johnsen had in the past referred to the University of Alaska as a “world class” university. Although Mr. Johnsen actually only used the term “world-class” with respect to research at UA, he did state that UA was keeping a “clear eye on academic excellence.”

If this is the case and not some self-serving fluff, then we should have educators at the UA with significant expertise, including those in public policy, government, finance and business.  I would also think that the UA has administrators with significant amount of practical expertise.

Furthering that line of thinking, if we have such educators and administrators, then dealing with a significant change in public policy and funding should not be nearly as daunting a task as Mr. Johnsen and Board of Regents Chairman John Davies assert.

That is not to say the university does not face significant and real challenges as a result of the governor’s vetoes. However, such qualified administrators and professors should surely be up to the challenge they face.  Perhaps rather than crying about the cuts and expending an all-out effort to have the vetoes overridden, the Board of Regents, administrators and professors should grab hold of the challenge and show just how capable the University of Alaska administration, faculty, and staff are.  Or are they only capable when there is plenty of money for every program and then some?

If Mr. Johnsen and the University of Alaska administration cannot make sound decisions that will ensure the university’s future with a reduced budget, then we can only conclude that they are not the capable administrators they alleged to be. Because a good administrator, let alone an excellent administrator, would simply move forward with identifying the core highest-demand education programs of the university and making sure those programs will remain the best they can be within the available budget. They would quickly announce the programs that would remain a priority within the university to alleviate concerns of those students entering or continuing on in those programs.

Similarly, they would make quick decisions, however painful, about which programs will be dropped so that students and the related faculty can make other plans. As part of the process they would take immediate steps to eliminate as many management levels and low-return functions as possible.

Successfully responding to significant budget cuts is not that daunting if a person is resolved to live within their given budget while remaining committed to offering quality, although reduced, education and research opportunities. The keys are attitude, determination, and willingness. Hard decisions, even politically incorrect decisions, will have to be made.

Unfortunately, not everyone is capable of making those difficult but necessary decisions. I have found that those people who scream the loudest when faced with difficult decisions are the least capable of making good decisions. The person who can best deal with such a challenge will simply start focusing on how to accomplish the goal, rather than bemoaning a dire situation.

Assuming Mr. Johnsen is an effective leader of a university with at least some “world-class” functions, he should get to work instead of bemoaning what lies ahead. If he isn’t up to the task or doesn’t have the stomach for it, then he should resign and let someone else step into that role. It is not that difficult to make good, albeit difficult, decisions.  You just have to be capable and willing.  Let’s see if Mr. Johnsen is both capable and willing to do so.

Tom Williams of Juneau is a 42-year resident of Alaska. He’s worked for aviation-related companies for the past 19 years, was director of two Department of Revenue divisions, including the Permanent Fund Dividend Division, and served on the staff of the Senate Finance and Legislative Budget and Audit committees.  As director of the Department of Revenue Enforcement Division during the significant decline in state oil revenues in the 1980s, he had to make significant reductions to his division’s budget.  He made the best informed and thought-out decisions he could, only to realize that his division provided as good or better service than before he was required to reduce the division’s budget.

American exceptionalism, patriotic assimilation, and the Fourth of July

SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR
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3
American exceptionalism, patriotic assimilation, and the Fourth of July

By WIN GRUENING
SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR

On July 4, 1776, a year after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, steeple bells rang throughout Philadelphia.  John Hancock, President of the Continental Congress, had just signed the document later known as the United States Declaration of Independence.

More than a decade later, after the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Benjamin Franklin was asked (as the story goes) what kind of government the Founding Fathers had created behind closed doors in the sweltering heat of a Philadelphia summer. The venerable Franklin, then in his eighties, replied, “a republic, Madam, if you can keep it.”

“Keeping it” or preserving, perfecting, and perpetuating the American democratic republic has always been the overarching concern of America’s greatest leaders.

As Mike Gonzalez, senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation, explains, our Founding Fathers believed adherence to the universal principles of equality, liberty, and limited government contained in these founding documents, as well as the virtues that made our constitutional republic distinctive—thrift, self-reliance, a strong work ethic— would bind Americans together regardless of origin.

George Washington, in a letter to John Adams, stated that immigrants should be absorbed into American life so that “by an intermixture with our people, they, or their descendants, get assimilated to our customs, measures, laws: in a word soon become one people.”

E Pluribus Unum, the official motto in the Great Seal of the United States, exemplifies this desire for unity. In Latin it means “Out of Many, One.”

By 1790, Americans of English stock were already a minority (49.2 percent of the population) throughout the country.

America benefited early on from advantages stemming from the diversity and blending of cultures.

Assimilation became the unifying principle of a country of immigrants.  But today it’s considered an ugly word by the politically correct. Instead, the PC crowd argues for multiculturalism.  While portrayed as an appreciation for other cultures—something all reasonable people support—multiculturalism has divided America by making ethnic differences more important than being American.

Most immigrants faced prejudice and segregation at times.

Our Founders, however, wouldn’t have thought of remedying such injustice by giving groups special privileges or benefits. Instead, the government strove to provide equal opportunity – leaving responsibility for success or failure to the individual.

Indeed, the history of American immigrant ethnic groups is one of overcoming disadvantage, competing and succeeding, and earning a place in their new home.

John Quincy Adams, in an 1819 letter opined, “There is one principle which pervades all the institutions of this country, and which must always operate as an obstacle to the granting of favors to newcomers. This is a land, not of privileges, but of equal rights….”

This is what makes America exceptional.

35 million immigrants entered the U.S. between 1840 and 1920.  Changes in immigration law in the mid-1960s led to another surge in immigration, mostly from Latin America and Asia. The Department of Homeland Security estimates 33.7 million legal immigrants entered the United States between 1970 and 2012.

It’s impossible to argue America is not a welcoming country.

Yet, Hoover Institution Senior Fellow Victor Davis Hanson argues, some are determined to make it less so.

“Our universities and popular culture are at the forefront of salad-bowl and identity-politics policies that obstruct assimilation, integration, and intermarriage — the historical remedies for the natural tensions that arise within multiracial and multiethnic societies. In this perfect storm, at the very moment the world’s poorest citizens from Oaxaca and Central America flooded into America, de facto rejecting the protocols of their home, their hosts’ messaging to them was that they should lodge complaints about the social injustice of their new home and romanticize the culture that they had just forsaken….”

Learning America’s language, history, and laws is not an unnecessary burden. Nevertheless, some Democrat presidential candidates believe this is a structural barrier to immigration. But, being an American citizen cannot simply be a matter of location and desire.

For American immigration to remain the great success story it has been throughout our history, newcomers must adopt American civic values and heritage as their own.

Thus, earning American citizenship, like the Fourth of July, will remain a cause for real celebration.

Win Gruening retired as the senior vice president in charge of business banking for Key Bank in 2012. He was born and raised in Juneau and graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1970. He is active in community affairs as a 30-plus year member of Juneau Downtown Rotary Club and has been involved in various local and statewide organizations.

Federal agency: Alaska LNG environmental impacts ‘significant’

Suzanne Downing
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6
Federal agency: Alaska LNG environmental impacts ‘significant’

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission released the long-awaited draft environmental impact statement for the proposed Alaska LNG project, and the summary to the 3,764-page document is surprisingly pessimistic in its language.

The massive draft study assesses the impacts to the environment of the construction and operation of the line that would draw natural gas out of North Slope fields and convert it to liquefied natural gas for export and to provide energy for use by homes and businesses in the state.

It’s a project that the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation is tasked with getting the permits and other authorizations needed to construct, own, and operate. It includes a gas treatment plant on the North Slope, a pipeline to Nikiski, and a liquefaction plant and marine terminal.

“We conclude that Project construction and operation would result in temporary, long-term, and permanent impacts on the environment. Most impacts would not be significant or would be reduced to less than significant levels with the implementation of proposed or recommended avoidance, minimization, and mitigation measures, but some impacts would be adverse and significant,” the agency wrote in its summary of the massive document, which includes numerous scientific, environmental and cultural studies.

Environmental groups pounced on that language. The draft EIS will go through a public comment period, and the agency has given them plenty to work with.

“We conclude that constructing the Project would have significant impacts on permafrost due to granular fill placement, particularly for the Mainline Pipeline facilities,” the agency wrote.

“The Project would have significant adverse impacts on wetlands from granular fill placement resulting in substantial conversions of wetlands to uplands. Significant adverse impacts on forest would result from permanent losses or conversions from installation of aboveground facilities, granular fill placement, and vegetation maintenance in the Mainline Pipeline right-of-way.

“For caribou, the impacts on the Central Arctic Herds would likely be significant due to the timing of impacts during sensitive periods, permanent impacts on sensitive habitats, and the Project location at the center of the herds’ range. During the years of simultaneous construction, startup, and operational activities at the Liquefaction Facilities, as well as during flaring events, impacts on air quality could be significant.

“Operational noise associated with the Liquefaction Facilities at the two nearest noise sensitive areas would likely double due to facility operation, which would be considered a significant increase.”

The project would have positive impacts on the state and local economy, but that would be balanced by the adverse impacts on housing, population, and public services, FERC said.

And then the summary includes the phrase “environmental justice communities.” There is no clear definition in any field as to what an “environmental justice community” is, but the federal agency is concerned that Alaska has more than one of them.

“The Project could disproportionately affect environmental justice communities due to impacts on subsistence practices and public health effects based on a Health Impact Assessment prepared by AGDC. However, these impacts are not expected to be high and adverse,” FERC wrote.

“In addition, the construction and operation is likely to adversely affect six federally listed species (spectacled eider, polar bear, bearded seal, Cook Inlet beluga whale, humpback whale, and ringed seal) and designated critical habitat for two species (polar bear and Cook Inlet beluga whale).

“Because the Project would result in substantial impacts on permafrost, wetlands, forest, and caribou (Central Arctic Herds), and since other current or reasonably foreseeable projects in the study area would similarly affect these resources, we found that cumulative impacts on these resources would or could be significant. Visual effects from the Project near the DNPP would be high, so any additional effects in this area from other projects would contribute to cumulative visual impacts, which could also be significant.”

On the upside, FERC said the project would be constructed in compliance with all applicable federal laws, regulations, permits, and authorizations, and that Cook Inlet was considered by the U.S. Coast Guard to be an appropriate site for the terminus.

The massive document has not yet been reviewed by the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation, as it was just released today, but AGDC Interim President Joe Dubler issued the following comment:

“Alaska LNG holds the potential for significant environmental, energy, economic, and employment benefits for Alaskans. Publication of the draft Environmental Impact Statement represents substantial progress toward obtaining the authorization required to build and operate this project.

“We will now begin to thoroughly examine this comprehensive document to understand the commission’s recommendations. The ongoing permitting process incorporates 150,000 pages of data and should give Alaskans confidence that the project’s merits and impacts are being rigorously scrutinized.”

[Read more about the FERC draft environmental impact statement and see all the documents here.]

Dunleavy delivers his budget decisions

Suzanne Downing
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70
Dunleavy delivers his budget decisions

HAS COURTS NOW PAYING FOR ABORTIONS THEY DEMAND

Gov. Michael Dunleavy, without getting some of his key legislation passed by the Legislature, is balancing the State budget with savings.

Even then, he said today, the budget is only halfway to being in line with revenues, with $444 million in additional cuts made for a total of about $700 million, which includes the cuts made by the Legislature. The budget excludes a Permanent Fund dividend appropriation.

The deficit remaining is about $850 million, and that money will come out of the Earnings Reserve Account of the Alaska Permanent Fund.

The budget for 2020 is $4.9 billion in general fund spending, a 12.8 percent reduction from the Gov. Bill Walker budget, and the lowest spending level since 2005.

The original budget proposed by Dunleavy would have trimmed 21 percent from the Walker budget, which had grown from the previous year.

Here are some of the highlights of the cuts to state spending:

ITEMS OF INTEREST

MEDICAID ELECTIVE ABORTIONS

The governor vetoed $335,000 from the administrative costs of the court system. It was his way of saying that if the state’s judges insist on standing by their ruling that the State of Alaska must pay for elective abortions with State funds, they’ll have to pony up the money out of their own budget. It’s a small cut to the Judiciary of less than one percent.

$334,000 is the amount the State spend last year on elective abortions. Both the House and Senate passed a budget with intent language that said no state funds may be used to pay for abortions, but an existing State Supreme Court ruling says otherwise.

The federal government prohibits paying for elective abortions with federal funds, due to what is called the Hyde Amendment. And the governor is also opposed to the public treasury being used for elective abortions.

MEDICAID (IN THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & SOCIAL SERVICES)

The legislature reduced the State Medicaid program by $75 million, and the governor added another $50 million in cuts, for a total of $125 million. This leaves $2 billion for Medicaid spending in Alaska.

UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA

As expected, the entire cut to the University of Alaska system is $130.2 million, which includes the $5 million that was cut by the Legislature. This is a huge haircut that will require structural changes in how the university operates, and is something the Board of Regents has begun to tackle, as their funds become scarce July 1. The university system currently has 17 campuses.

SENIOR BENEFITS / WWAMI / PUBLIC BROADCASTING

The entire senior longevity bonus is vetoed. The Senior Benefits Program was established in 2007 and pays cash benefits to Alaskan seniors who are age 65 or older and have low to moderate income.  Cash payments are $76, $175, or $250 each month depending on income. Already the State had suspended some of the April and May payments for the higher-income recipients because of a shortfall in funds.

WWAMI survived the veto pen. The University of Washington School of Medicine’s multi-state medical education program for Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho (WWAMI) gives medical students access to training, and is used to recruit doctors to Alaska.

PUBLIC BROADCASTING: The only portion of public broadcasting money not vetoed is for the emergency broadcasting provided primarily to rural areas. Vetoed: $2,036,600 for Radio, $633,300 for TV, and $46,700 for the Alaska Public Broadcasting Commission.

SCHOOL BOND DEBT REIMBURSEMENT

Half of the debt service the State has been paying on local school bonds was vetoed. That means school districts will have to rely upon local taxpayers to pay the full debt service for the schools they built or renovated. The veto totals $48,910,250. Future debt incurred by districts won’t be paid off by the State.

EDUCATION

The Legislature’s attempt to forward fund education for 2021 was vetoed. The governor doesn’t believe it is constitutional to encumber future legislatures or future governors with spending promises unless the money is actually set aside for the purpose, which it is not under forward funding schemes. This is an issue that will likely go to court next month.

ALASKA MARINE HIGHWAYS

The State Ferry System was spared. The governor accepted the plan by Sen. Bert Stedman, co-chair of Senate Finance, to only fund the ferries at $46 million. Stedman has been working to reform the system. This allows the ferry system to continue through the fall, winter, and spring.

POWER COST EQUALIZATION

All funds like the Power Cost Equalization Fund will be swept into the General Fund. From there, the Legislature can reissue those funds to rural communities to help with their power costs when it works on the capital budget in a special session.

EARNINGS RESERVE ACCOUNT 

The governor is putting $1 billion into the corpus of the Permanent Fund to help with inflation proofing and an additional $4 billion, for a total of $5 billion. The Legislature had put $9 billion into the corpus. The veto amount is $5,579,800.

PERMANENT FUND DIVIDEND

The budget presumes a full statutory Permanent Fund dividend, but it’s not in this operating budget. It will need to be a stand alone budget bill or a component of the yet-to-be-enacted capital budget.

POSITIONS REDUCED

Through vetoes, 62 full time, 2 part time, and 4 non-permanent positions have been eliminated, for nearly $12 million in reduced payroll costs.

VILLAGE PUBLIC SAFETY OFFICERS

$3 million in vetoes to the program, which is already in excess of what they can spend. There are 25 vacancies in the VPSO program and they have struggled to fill those for a long time.

OCEAN RANGERS PROGRAM

The Ocean Rangers program is vetoed, for $3,409,100 in savings.

 

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