Gov. Mike Dunleavy on Friday introduced a bill in the state Legislature that would eliminate property taxes for the Alaska LNG megaproject, but create an alternative tax that would generate a smaller amount of revenue.

Lawmakers said Friday that they were still reviewing the bill, but one said it appears to be a “massive tax cut” that could exceed $1 billion in lost potential revenue to the state.

A borough mayor also indicated that municipalities that would host project infrastructure would lose out on significant property taxes and don’t currently support the measure, though they are working with the governor’s office and project officials on options.

Dunleavy said in an interview Friday that the goal is removing a financial barrier for the project so that it can be built.

At that point, it will provide an array of long-running benefits that the state does not currently receive from the North Slope’s vast but long-stranded natural gas, he said.

That includes a large number of jobs and affordable gas for Alaskans and businesses, including to support potential new undertakings such as data farms or fertilizer manufacturing, he said.

Also, even if his bill is passed, the project still would bring in significant royalties and production taxes, he said.

Over 30 years, the project still will generate $26 billion for state and local taxes and royalty revenue, Dunleavy said, referring to figures from the Alaska Department of Revenue. An oil and gas analyst interviewed for this article questioned those numbers.

Jeff Turner, a spokesperson for the governor, said in an email that the Department of Revenue is updating its Alaska LNG analysis “to incorporate spring modeling” and will share information on those figures next week.

Dunleavy said that if nothing is built, the state gets nothing from the project.

Recent events involving the U.S. war on Iran, including Israel and Iran bombing major gas infrastructure, underscore the need for a project that can safely export gas to meet strong demand in Asia, he said.

“So it’s a catalyst to billions upon billions upon billions of dollars and decades of future (revenue), not to mention the thousands of jobs and the other economic benefits from that,” Dunleavy said of the project.

Awaiting a final investment decision

The state has unsuccessfully pursued a version of Alaska LNG for generations.

Government agencies, private developers and major oil companies have never been able to get it built. The huge price tag has been a key impediment.

Under the current plan, majority owner Glenfarne is working with the Alaska Gasline Development Corp., a state agency and 25% project owner.

Alaska LNG has preliminary but nonbinding deals in hand with gas producers and buyers. Many observers say this project is farther along than past ones that failed.

Dunleavy said he recently met with the Taiwanese ambassador, Alexander Tah-Ray Yui.

“The country is very excited about moving ahead on hard agreements, especially now,” he said, following events in the Middle East.

Glenfarne has not yet made a final investment decision to build the project, a step originally expected in December.

Phase one calls for building an 800-mile pipeline to deliver natural gas from the North Slope to Southcentral Alaska, starting in 2029.

Phase two includes construction of a plant and shipping terminal in Nikiski. At that point, vast quantities of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, can be shipped overseas to Asian companies. That would start in 2031.

Glenfarne has recently updated an old cost figure of $44 billion for the project. But the company, based in New York, has not disclosed the new estimate, as well as other financial details.

Dunleavy said it’s common for a privately led project seeking investors and customers to hold on to proprietary information.

“I think there’s going to be enough information that can be shared publicly that will give legislators enough comfort that Alaska is better off with a massive project such as this, as opposed to better off without it,” he said.

Some Alaska lawmakers, who must decide what fiscal terms they should provide the project, if any, have said Glenfarne has not given them the financial information to judge the project’s potential benefits and risks.

A big ‘buzz cut’

The governor’s new measure proposes taxing the volume of gas flowing through the pipe, rather than taxing the assessed value of the oil and gas infrastructure, the governor’s office said in a prepared statement.

The alternative tax would be 6 cents per every thousand cubic feet of gas. That tax rate would increase 1% annually.

The alternative tax would not kick in until the project reaches an average flow of 1 billion cubic feet daily or 10 years after gas starts flowing, whichever comes first.

The project, once in full production with exports to Asia, is expected to move 3.5 billion cubic feet daily.

The bill removes the front-end tax burden for the project, reducing risks for potential investors, the governor’s office said.

It creates a predictable revenue stream, unlike property tax assessments that can be challenged, his office said.

Those benefits can help result in cheaper natural gas prices for Alaskans, the statement said.

Larry Persily, an oil and gas analyst and former Alaska deputy commissioner of revenue, said the alternative tax would provide a little over $75 million in the tax’s first year, if the project moves 3.5 billion cubic feet of gas daily.

In comparison, the property tax currently on the books would bring in $1 billion annually, for a project assessed at $50 billion.

“The bill today is not even a hair cut,” Persily said.

“It’s like a buzz cut on property taxes. It’s pretty substantial,” he said.

About a decade ago, when Persily was chief of staff to former Kenai Peninsula Borough Mayor Mike Navarre, he worked with a group of municipalities that tried to determine a fair property tax for an earlier, failed version of the project.

The group realized property taxes needed to be reduced to help make the project economic against global competitors.

But they still believed some property taxes were needed to support services provided by the state and boroughs.

They looked at a reduction that would still bring in about $630 million annually in property taxes, he said.

“The question is, how much of a discount should you provide and how should you structure it, to cover costs to the municipalities for all the services they will need to provide in association with the project,” he said.

Persily also said he doesn’t think the project will generate $26 billion in state and local taxes and royalties over 30 years.

He said a key source of revenue, production taxes and royalties, are based on the sale of gas as it first comes out of the ground, when its value is expected to be low compared to what it finally sells for.

“It seems a little gold-plated,” he said of the long-term revenue estimate. “Many Alaskans feel like this will be next Prudhoe Bay. But it’s not the same as oil in terms of profitability and tax revenue.”

Sen. Bill Wielechowski, a Democrat and vice chair of Senate Resources, said early Friday that his office is still reviewing the bill.

It appears the proposal could remove more than $1 billion in annual taxes from the state, compared to current statutes, he said.

“The rough look so far is that is a massive tax cut,” he said.

Glenfarne calls for swift action

GaffneyCline, a consultant for the Alaska Legislature, has said that legislative action will likely be needed on issues such as property taxes and “fiscal stability” before the project developer can make a final decision on investment.

The consultant has said property tax relief can provide critical savings early in the life of the project when costs are high.

Adam Prestidge, president of Glenfarne Alaska LNG, said in a prepared statement Friday that the state is facing a growing energy crisis, as natural gas production from the aging Cook Inlet basin near Anchorage continues to wane.

Glenfarne has been discussing property taxes with state and local leaders with the idea of minimizing energy costs for Alaskans, Prestidge said.

“State and local policymakers including members of the legislature, independent analysts, and the legislature’s own oil and gas consultants have all recognized that reforming Alaska’s current system is a key step in advancing a North Slope natural gas project,” Prestidge said.

“Acting swiftly on this measure is the most important step the Legislature can take to ensure that Alaskans will finally benefit from bringing Alaska’s North Slope natural gas to market,” he said of the bill.

Grier Hopkins, mayor of the Fairbanks North Star Borough, said in an interview Friday that officials from his borough and others that would host some of the project’s infrastructure do not agree with the terms of the bill.

The borough officials have been meeting regularly with officials from the governor’s office, the Alaska Gasline Development Corp. and Glenfarne, he said.

“The conversations have gone well, but this is not what we agree on, and I don’t support this specifically for Fairbanks,” he said.

Only 2 miles of the pipeline will travel through the Fairbanks borough. But the proposed bill will remove about $350,000 in annual property tax revenue, based on his own rough estimate, he said.

Other boroughs would see larger reductions, such as the North Slope and Kenai Peninsula boroughs, whose boundaries would encompass some of the project’s major facilities.

The Fairbanks borough is focused on getting affordable gas from the project, he said.

“So we still need to keep working with the governor and the Legislature to come up with something that’s going to work for the municipalities, which all have really different needs,” he said.

Lawmakers looking for more project details

Senate Majority Leader Cathy Giessel, a Republican and chair of the Senate Resources Committee, told reporters this week that lawmakers have not received enough information from Glenfarne about the costs of the project.

That makes it hard to know what steps should be taken to support it, she said.

The Senate Resources Committee has introduced a bill that proposes new guidelines on the project, including allowing the Legislative Budget and Audit Committee to conduct annual audits of the Alaska Gasline Development Corp.

Among many other steps, it would allow legislators to sign non-disclosure agreements in order to receive critical financial information.

Giessel said in an interview Friday that the members of the committee support Alaska LNG. They want to make sure it’s properly structured to benefit Alaskans, she said.

She plans to soon call on the borough mayors to appear before the committee to provide input on the bill.

She’ll also be looking to hear from GaffneyCline and other experts about their views on the bill, she said.

“It’s great that the public can now see what the governor is proposing,” she said. “These are local taxes that are being curtailed.”

“This affects their revenue to manage a large increase in their population and a huge increase in their property use” that will come with the project, she said.

Wielechowski, the Senate Resources vice chair, said the Dunleavy administration also needs to provide details to lawmakers about the project and the bill.

“The burden is on him to come forward and explain to the people of Alaska why he needs to give away a billion dollars a year,” he said.

There isn’t much in the realm of high school, collegiate and professional basketball that Juneau’s Carlos Boozer hasn’t accomplished. He was a two-time state champion at Juneau-Douglas, a national champion at Duke University and an Olympic gold medalist during his standout professional career.

The latter of those accolades is what led to him being immortalized in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. He and his fellow members of the legendary “Redeem Team” that won gold at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing were announced as part of the 2025 class in September.

“Honestly, it’s amazing when you think about the people that are in there and our group with our 2008 Olympic team. We had some studs,” Boozer said. “I’m honored to be a part of that team, and obviously, I love this game so much, so to be in a Hall of Fame is a big deal.”

Being on that 2008 Olympic roster was one of the greatest joys of his career. His peers included iconic players such as Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Carmelo Anthony as well as fellow stars Dwight Howard, Chris Paul, Jason Kidd and Chris Bosh.

“It was the best,” said Boozer, 44. “We just had a different aura about us. Our practices were difficult, tough and challenging. We challenged each other and it was awesome to see us come together as a team. We had our individual skills and we played against each other in the NBA, but on that team, we all became one.”

The experience was especially meaningful because the legendary Mike Krzyzewski was the team’s head coach. A decade earlier, Krzyzewski recruited Boozer from Alaska to Duke University.

“Knowing him so well, it was great to see him coach some of the best players to ever do it and watch them grow under his tutelage,” Boozer said.

Krzyzewski used the same coaching method that guided Boozer and the Blue Devils to a national title in 2001 to lead Team USA to a perfect 8-0 run and Olympic gold.

“He was able to kind of strip us down of our individual egos so that we have one collective ego,” Boozer said. “He does that better than anyone I’ve ever been around.”

Next generation adds to Boozer legacy

Boozer is a staple on the sideline of every Duke game this year, not only because he’s a proud alumnus of the perennial powerhouse program but because his twin sons, Cameron and Cayden, are star players for the top-ranked Blue Devils.

“I’m living the dream,” Boozer said. “I couldn’t be any happier for them. I know what they’re going through ,and I was super proud when they made the decision (to go to Duke) and to just watch them this year.”

Cameron is the team’s leading scorer, and Cayden is the fifth-leading scorer. They rank first and second on the team in assists.

With the Boozer twins leading the way, Duke basketball is back on top once again and primed to make a run at the national title. The Blue Devils have been the top-ranked team in the nation for several months and were the top overall seed in the NCAA tournament. They sport an overall record of 33-2 after Thursday’s opening-round scare against No. 16 Siena in which the Blue Devils had to rally from being down double figures to win 71-65.

“Cameron has been the best overall player in the country all year long and Cayden has had to step up with Caleb Foster having a broken foot,” Boozer said. “He’s been a star in his role as a sixth man off the bench, and now he’s a starting point guard and leading the No. 1 team in the country — and is doing a hell of a job at that as he helped us win the ACC tournament.”

Watching them don the same colors and uniforms he did a quarter-century ago makes him nostalgic, and even gives him chills.

“I’m just so excited for my boys because I know the weight they have to carry when they wear that jersey,” Boozer said. “Wearing a Duke uniform is like playing for the Yankees or the Lakers. It’s championships or bust.

“They’re not ducking no smoke. They want all the smoke and will play anybody anywhere,” Boozer said.

The twins considered other school options before landing on Duke. Current head coach Jon Scheyer took over the program in 2022 after Krzyzewski’s retirement.

“They were good last year too with Cooper Flagg and Kon Knueppel and that group,” Boozer said. “This just speaks to how good a coach Scheyer is: They lose their entire starting five to the NBA, and then they come back this year, my boys come, and they’re the No. 1 overall seed and No. 1 team in the country.”

Had it not been for a couple of last-minute lapses against Texas Tech in December and rival North Carolina at Chapel Hill in February, Duke would have been undefeated heading into March Madness.

“I’m super proud of what my boys have been able to accomplish and they got some super studs around them,” Boozer said. “We won the ACC tournament with seven players. That just shows you how tough this team is and how much they believe in each other.”

A man of many talents and interests

When he’s not watching his sons play basketball in person, Boozer stays close to the pro game by helping the front office of the Utah Jazz in the scouting department.

“One of the most awesome jobs that I have is trying to figure out how to resurrect our Utah Jazz program so it can compete for titles,” he said.

Boozer spent the bulk of his 13-year career in the NBA with the Jazz, from 2004 to 2010. During that time, he made both of his All-Star appearances and received All NBA honors for the 2007-08 season. He was honored when the team decided to bring him back into the fold in a new capacity just over a year ago.

“Basketball has always been my life since I was 4 years old, so I’ve always had a passion for that,” he said.

Boozer joins fellow Alaska hoops legend Trajan Langdon, who is currently the president of basketball operations for the Detroit Pistons, in making the transition from NBA players to executives.

“I just think if you have the passion, the patience (and) the determination for it, it’s best when the players are involved because we’ve walked that path and have done that before,” Boozer said. “We know what it looks like to have a good teammate and someone that’s about winning, someone that can help build a culture in your locker room.”

Before joining Utah’s front office, he had a brief stint as a reality TV star two summers ago on the Bravo dating show “Kings Court.” Boozer, supermodel Tyson Beckford and WWE legend Thaddeus Bullard — aka Titus O’Neil — were courted by 21 female contestants in an effort to find love. Boozer was one of the lucky few who did, as he and girlfriend Janaye Robinson are still together.

From the first day they met, Boozer and Robinson “hit it off right away” and will be coming up on two years together in September.

“I met an awesome woman,” Boozer said.

In addition to his work with the Jazz, Boozer owns a company called Impeccable Development that builds shopping plazas in North and South Carolina.

But being a dad to his three adult sons and a daughter, who will be 7 years old in a few weeks, is the job he’s most proud of.

“I couldn’t be any prouder to be their father,” Boozer said.

JUNEAU — Lawmakers in the Alaska Senate have introduced an omnibus education bill that would overhaul the administration of publicly funded homeschooling programs.

Senate Bill 277, introduced last week, would increase Alaska’s annual $1.3 billion public school budget by roughly $100 million by adjusting the annual budget for inflation, adding new reading proficiency grants and boosting spending on student transportation.

It would also make changes to the state’s subsidized homeschooling system, for which the bill drew swift criticism.

Under the bill, correspondence programs — which provide cash allotments to the families of homeschoolers each year — would receive tens of millions of dollars in additional annual funding, a change that homeschooling proponents have long sought. But the state would require that funding to be funneled through students’ home districts.

Alaska last year had over 24,000 students enrolled in more than 30 correspondence programs. Of those, nearly 16,000 students were enrolled in correspondence programs administered by districts other than the ones in which they resided.

Tens of millions of dollars in state funding are diverted annually to districts that administer statewide homeschooling programs.

Some educators have raised alarm over the diversion of public funds from students’ home districts, especially after correspondence programs grew in popularity during the coronavirus pandemic.

Under the Senate bill, the correspondence students’ funding would first flow to the districts in which they reside, which would then be required to enter into cooperative agreements with the districts that administer the correspondence programs.

Under these agreements, the home district would retain a percentage of the students’ funding to pay for administrative costs, as well as additional costs for students to access other in-person classes or services, such as sports teams.

The bill could potentially increase funding substantially in districts where thousands of correspondence students live, including in Anchorage, Fairbanks, the Matanuska-Susitna Borough and the Kenai Peninsula.

The bill would increase overall state spending on education by $100 million annually, including a $25 million increase in per-student formula funding for correspondence students; $4.8 million for student transportation costs; and $22 million for grants to incentivize reading proficiency. The bill would include a modest increase to per-student formula funding, raising the Base Student Allocation by about $125, from $6,660 to roughly $6,785.

The proposed funding boost is meant to keep up with inflation, said Sen. Löki Tobin, an Anchorage Democrat and chair of the Senate Education Committee. Inflation-adjusted spending on education has dropped in the past decade.

Even after the Legislature pushed through last year’s $175 million education funding increase, school districts across the state face multimillion-dollar budget deficits going into next school year. The Anchorage School District, in response to a $90 million deficit, passed a budget last month including school closures, increased class sizes and cuts to staff.

Correspondence funding a central debate

Some of the most substantial and controversial changes in the bill are around how correspondence programs are funded.

Correspondence programs originated in the state’s territorial days, when students in remote areas would correspond with educators in a central program by mail. The system today allows students from across the state to enroll in district-run homeschool programs, and receive an annual allotment of public funds to cover educational materials, classes and activities.

Homeschooling programs have faced increased scrutiny in recent years after a lawsuit challenged the use of correspondence allotments to cover the cost of tuition in Christian private schools. That litigation is ongoing.

The bill’s changes would apply, for instance, to Galena City School District’s IDEA, the state’s largest correspondence program. IDEA enrolls more than 7,000 students across the state, ranking Galena among some of the largest districts across the state, measured by attendance. As of last school year, only one of those students lived in Galena, a village of roughly 500 residents.

At a Senate Education Committee meeting Wednesday, Tobin said that requiring correspondence students to enroll in the district where they live addresses concerns from school districts that offer services for those students but are struggling to keep their facilities and services open — making choices between whether they close pools or cut middle school sports, for example.

“The hope for this is to continue to support our brick-and-mortar schools and then also recognize that they are also providing services, sometimes, to students who aren’t enrolled in their district, and to ensure that there is no loss of that ability to continue to offer those services or any costs that shifted onto the family,” Tobin said.

Tobin said increasing the BSA for correspondence students, alongside funneling more money into students’ home districts, would allow for those students to continue their state-funded correspondence education while utilizing services and programs offered by their local school district.

In its first week, however, the bill has garnered significant pushback from correspondence families and programs, many of whom asserted the bill is a threat to their programs.

Galena City School District superintendent Jason Johnson said he believes the bill poses an existential threat to correspondence programs. While there is an 8% cap on administrative fees in the bill, he said the lack of a cap on fees levied for education services leaves local districts able to charge unchecked amounts from correspondence students’ BSAs.

In an email to IDEA families supplied by Tobin’s office, Johnson called for parents to write to lawmakers in opposition to the bill, stating that if SB 277 remains, “most Alaskan statewide correspondence programs will sink and Alaskan families will suffer the loss of Alaska’s current robust school choice options.”

Tobin in an interview Thursday contested the presumption that local districts can charge correspondence programs 100% of state funding, calling it “ill-placed.”

She pointed to the requirement for a collaborative agreement, a process overseen by the state education department, that she said would stop local districts from taking more than would be needed to cover costs of what correspondence students utilize at the local district.

North Pole resident Kendra Piper, parent of a correspondence student, testified in opposition to the bill Wednesday. She said that more than just the dollar amount, the bill ties correspondence students closer to the school districts they’ve stepped away from.

“SB 277 shifts funding and control back towards the very districts that many families like mine have chosen to leave. Even if it’s described as a small change, the reality is that it weakens the idea that funding should follow the student fully,” Piper said.

Sen. Rob Yundt, a Wasilla Republican and Education Committee member who took part in drafting the bill, said part of his support for the bill is rooted in the increasing per-student state funding for correspondence students.

“For a long time, folks have wanted to see this increase,” Yundt said. “I don’t think anybody wants to hear that their child’s not a whole child, that they’re only 90% of a child.”

Senate Education Committee member Jesse Kiehl, a Juneau Democrat, took issue with that characterization.

“What we do here in this section we’re talking about is pump additional cash into providing correspondence study. That’s a policy decision the Legislature may make, but it’s got nothing to do with the value of a child,” Kiehl said.

Kiehl questioned whether it costs the same amount to fund education for a homeschooled student as a brick-and-mortar school student.

“Are we paying the amount we need to educate the child in that way?” he said.

Yundt said at the Wednesday meeting that the committee is already weighing feedback to draft another version of the legislation.

Tobin told reporters earlier this week that the bill represents perspectives from both caucuses.

Tobin implied that, in working with the Senate minority and the House, she hopes the bill will garner enough support to withstand a potential governor’s veto.

Yundt told reporters earlier this month that correspondence funding and reading grants were two top priorities for the minority.

House Minority Whip Justin Ruffridge, a Soldotna Republican, said Thursday that he has not yet reviewed the bill.

Jeff Turner, a spokesperson for Gov. Mike Dunleavy, said the governor had no comment on the bill at this time.

House bills call for broader funding

Other bills in the Legislature this session seek to increase funding streams for Alaska public schools, including raising per-student funding and changing how and when attendance is calculated.

The House Education Committee introduced a bill earlier this month to increase the state’s per-student funding for schools.

House Bill 374 seeks to increase the Base Student Allocation by $630, an increase from $6,660 to $7,290 per student per year. That amounts to an estimated $158 million increase in yearly funding.

House Education Co-Chair Rebecca Himschoot, a Sitka independent, said lawmakers arrived at the $630 BSA increase by calculating what the five largest school districts by student count would need to have a balanced budget for fiscal year 2027.

Ruffridge was one of 10 minority members to vote to override the governor’s veto of the education formula boost last year. A member of the joint task force on education funding, he said he’s skeptical that the Legislature will have the same drive to get another similarly sized increase on the books this year.

“From my perspective, having been a part of the group that supported the largest BSA increase in Alaska history, I know that the efforts that we made to get there were extensive, and, you know, my sense of where we’re at right now is that it will be very difficult to repeat anything like that again,” Ruffridge said in an interview earlier this month.

Another House bill seeks a different change to the education formula calculation.

Schools receive state funding based on the average daily membership of their school. That number is typically not finalized until the fall, leaving districts unsure how much money they will be getting from the state until just before the school year begins.

HB 261 aims to make education funding more predictable, says its sponsor, Juneau Democratic Rep. Andi Story, co-chair of the House Education Committee.

It would allow school districts to calculate their average daily membership based on the average from the last three years, or the most recent known student count period.

That bill would cost the state an estimated $147 million per year.

Daily News reporter Iris Samuels contributed from Anchorage.