House minority Republicans are decrying a procedural decision to temporarily zero out the Permanent Fund dividend size in next year’s draft budget while conversations are underway on its ultimate amount.

Majority members on the House Finance Committee have repeatedly underscored their intention to include a dividend in this year’s final budget.

In a 6-5 vote on Wednesday, majority members set the annual payout to Alaskans at zero, with the promise that the dividend size will ultimately be determined later in the session.

The move was opposed by all committee Republicans, who said that despite the fact the move was temporary, it masked the state’s fiscal challenges.

Lawmakers have not followed the existing state statute for determining the annual Permanent Fund dividend for a decade, as lower oil revenue forced them to turn to the fund’s earnings to pay for an increasing share of government services.

But Gov. Mike Dunleavy again included the statutory dividend in this year’s budget draft, asking lawmakers to draw roughly $1.5 billion from the state’s savings to cover its cost.

Republicans in the House have conceded that Dunleavy’s request for a payment of roughly $3,800 is unreasonable, but they have yet to land on a dividend size that would appease their minority caucus.

Leaders of the bipartisan majorities in the House and Senate, meanwhile, have said they will seek to adopt a balanced budget and avoid significant draws from state savings. Last year, that strategy led to a dividend of $1,000 per eligible recipient.

“Do I think that there’s going to be a full statutory PFD? Do I think there’s even a possibility of that? No, I don’t think so,” House Minority Leader DeLena Johnson, a Palmer Republican, said on Thursday. “Do I think that it could be higher and better? Absolutely. And do I think it’s the closest thing that we have to a spending cap in this universe that we live in right now? Absolutely.”

With the dividend set at zero, the budget draft that lawmakers will use as their template as they build next year’s spending plan is starting with a revenue surplus of more than $800 million, compared with Dunleavy’s starting point of a $1.5 billion deficit.

Republicans said that artificially large surplus, which also doesn’t take into account other significant funding items like disaster response expenses, could lead to misperceptions about the state’s fiscal constraints.

Rep. Will Stapp, a Fairbanks Republican who serves on the Finance Committee, said he is concerned that House majority members will use that budget surplus as the basis for adding more spending on state services to the budget.

“When I hear the co-chair of Finance talking about all the things that he’s going to spend money on, and he deposits the entirety of the PFD into the general fund, that makes me think that we’re not taking this deficit very seriously at the moment,” said Stapp. “I’m not super optimistic at the moment that they’re going to have downward pressure on the budget.”

House Finance Committee Co-Chair Andy Josephson, an Anchorage Democrat, said that the advantage of beginning the budget-making process with a dividend set at zero is that “now we can hear from all 11 members of the Finance Committee at the end of March, by amendment, and have a debate about what that number should be.”

“What constrains us is public perception and desire for a dividend,” Josephson said. “But the prospect of paying a statutory dividend is so obliterated in our fiscal position that it doesn’t constrain us anymore.”

Ultimately, Josephson said that the dividend this year is likely to be between $800 and $1,400 per eligible Alaskan, depending in part on whether lawmakers approve a draw from savings as part of the budget-making process or stick to available revenue.

Concrete discussions on the size of the dividend likely won’t begin in earnest until mid-March, when the Department of Revenue will issue an updated revenue forecast. The size of the dividend will be shaped by ongoing policy questions, Josephson said, like whether to increase education funding and whether to adopt a new public pension system.

“Once those policy calls are made, then we can better see what remains,” said Josephson.

Rep. Calvin Schrage, an Anchorage independent, and Rep. Neal Foster, a Nome Democrat, co-chair the House Finance Committee alongside Josephson. They voiced support for the budget draft on Wednesday.

“Everybody knows that the PFD is not in this. That’s the biggest elephant in the room, and I think we all need to talk about that, and it’s going to be an ongoing conversation,” said Foster.

As lawmakers continue discussions on next year’s spending plan, next week they are also set to debate a request from Dunleavy to draw more than $400 million from savings to cover a deficit in the current year’s budget.

They met as kids in the late 1980s — Lisa was 5 and Michelle 10 — and grew up as neighbors, family friends and schoolmates. In 2004, by chance, they graduated from subsequent Alaska flight attendant training classes and months later were assigned to the same flight. For years, whenever their schedules overlapped, they worked side by side, catching up in the galley and strengthening a bond that already felt lifelong.

In 2014, over dinner on a New York City layover, one simple question changed everything: “Why don’t we buddy bid?” That moment sparked a 12‑year tradition of bidding for and working on the same trips. Now, if you see Lisa on your Alaska flight, chances are Michelle is nearby.

“Working together feels effortless. We can read each other, anticipate what the other needs and assist each other in difficult situations,” Michelle said. Their chemistry shows in the cabin — fun, intuitive and always in sync. They carpool to the airport, plan their work meals and spend layovers exploring, shopping or catching up with fellow crew friends. They share a love of sports too, with memories of cheering on the Knicks in Manhattan and the Saints during a New Orleans layover.

Alaska officials continue seizing record-setting volumes of illegal drugs, much of it through ramped-up efforts at the state’s main airport complex in Anchorage, though in lower quantities than 2024.

On Thursday, the Alaska Department of Public Safety released its annual drug report for 2025, a compilation of data and trends from law enforcement agencies. While the total amount of hard drugs seized was down about 10% from what law enforcement officials intercepted in 2024, the confiscations still dwarf similar figures from recent years.

A decade ago, for example, police reported seizing 4,249 grams of methamphetamine in Alaska during 2016. By 2020, the volume of meth seized was up more than sevenfold to 30,187 grams. In 2025, they turned up 125,300 grams of meth, roughly 15% less than the amount seized in 2024, according to the new report.

Seizures were slightly down last year for other street drugs, including fentanyl and heroin. Only confiscations of cocaine were greater last year than in 2024, rising 67% from 30,819 to 51,328 grams, according to the state’s data.

Most of the illegal drugs seized — 82%, according to the new report — were discovered at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport, either carried by passengers or sent in through the mail and cargo freight streams. In the case of fentanyl, which is largely blamed for Alaska’s persistently high rate of fatal overdoses, 90% of what was seized last year was at the airport complex.

According to Department of Public Safety Commissioner James Cockrell, the modest decline in drug busts is a sign that ongoing coordination between law enforcement agencies on interdiction is working.

“We’re seeing a reduction in drugs coming into Alaska,” Cockrell said at a media briefing held in the airport’s North Terminal the same day the drug report was released.

Hard drugs tend to come into Alaska by air or maritime routes from larger metro areas like Phoenix, Los Angeles and Seattle, Cockrell said. From Anchorage, the shipments are either broken down for sale within the municipality and along the road system, or moved farther along to hub communities and villages in rural Alaska via air carriers, where the prices paid per dose can climb drastically.

“There is a strong correlation between distance from a regional hub and price — the farther a drug or alcohol is trafficked from a regional hub, the greater the retail price,” the DPS report states. A pressed blue fentanyl pill that sells for $4 to $10 on the streets of Anchorage, for example, can be sold for around $100 in Nome, Bethel or Dillingham, according to data from the department.

Cockrell said it was a “game changer” when Alaska law enforcement began a closer working relationship with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in 2024, which helped enable and expedite more investigations into suspected drug parcels. Seizure volumes shot up, almost entirely at the airport.

State Attorney General Stephen Cox said at Thursday’s briefing that more conversations are beginning about policy changes to further curb drug traffic into Alaska.

He pointed to the Dunleavy administration’s recent collaboration with Anchorage Mayor Suzanne LaFrance’s administration to prosecute more shoplifting crimes, and a forthcoming expansion of enforcement over “quality of life” problems like “open air drug offenses.”

“Lower-level crimes, they matter, because they shape whether people feel safe in their own communities,” Cox said.

The event was short on detailed policy changes or new resources being added to enforcement efforts.

“Not every new initiative needs money,” Gov. Mike Dunleavy said. “It’s about approaching things differently … I think you’re going to see some great things, even without money.”

The governor emphasized the need to break down jurisdictional silos between state, federal, local and tribal entities to improve drug interdiction and prosecution. He also repeatedly cited all the ways the Trump administration has supported the cause over the last year since returning to office.

“If you don’t think the Trump administration is serious about crime, just watch those videos off the coast of Venezuela, or off the coast of the eastern Pacific,” Dunleavy said, referring to controversial military strikes on small boats alleged to be transporting drugs. “The president is pretty clear that he wants this country to improve greatly and quickly.”

Dunleavy was joined at the event by national “drug czar” Sara Carter, confirmed last month as head of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Carter spoke in general terms about federal efforts to combat cartels and other organized criminal networks trafficking drugs.

“We will hunt them in the mail. We will hunt them at the border. And we will hunt them in the labs abroad where this poison is made,” she said.

Dunleavy, whose second term as governor will end in December and is barred from running again, said Thursday’s discussion of ongoing drug interdiction efforts was “just the beginning of the process.”

“It’s not a photo op, it’s not a press conference just for press conference sake,” Dunleavy said, flanked by law enforcement officials from state, federal and local agencies. “We’re gonna have to engage the courts sooner or later, we’re gonna have to engage the Legislature as we run into things.”