Sen. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka, puts away his notes after debate on the state operating budget, Wednesday, May 1, 2024, as the Senate’s tally board displays the vote on the budget’s effective date. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
The Alaska Senate on Wednesday approved a draft $12.25 billion state operating budget and in the process, finalized legislative plans to offer public schools a one-time, $175 million funding bonus.
The Senate’s proposed Permanent Fund dividend is about $1,580 per recipient, including an estimated $222 energy relief payment. That’s below the $2,270 figure included in a competing draft passed by the House, and the final figure will be subject to further debate.
The smaller amount reduces the risk of the state spending down savings.
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“We’re living within our means. This is what it looks like,” said Sen. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka and co-chair of the Senate Finance Committee.
Sen. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka, speaks on the floor of the Alaska Senate, Wednesday, May 1, 2024. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
Stedman said the budget balances if the state’s oil production hits estimates and if North Slope oil prices average $78 per barrel between July 1, 2024, and June 30, 2025.
Oil and other sources of revenue would be enough to pay for state operations, as well as new legislation and the state’s capital budget, which pays for construction and renovation projects statewide.
Wednesday’s 17-3 vote, which follows the state House’s passage of its own draft operating budget, triggers the final phase of the Alaska Legislature’s annual budget process, where legislators negotiate a compromise between the two drafts.
In places where the drafts match, the relevant item is final, except that Gov. Mike Dunleavy has the ability to reduce or eliminate final items with his line-item veto power. He cannot increase them or add new ones.
On education, the Senate included a $680 one-time boost to the state’s Base Student Allocation, the core of Alaska’s per-student funding formula.
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That’s worth about $175 million statewide, and the same language is in the House’s draft budget, making the item final, except for the governor.
Last year, Dunleavy vetoed half of an identical one-time boost, but in a news conference with reporters on Wednesday, the governor signaled that he may not repeat his veto.
“I’ve told people I’m open to the increase,” Dunleavy said, “an increase in one-time funding, especially to help with the inflationary issues.”
The Senate budget also includes a House-adopted plan to spend $5.2 million more on reading programs for students in kindergarten through third grade.
Senators included additional money for student transportation, something that will have to be negotiated with the House, which did not include it.
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Also subject to further negotiation is $11.9 million in education money added after the federal Department of Education warned that the state underfunded some school districts during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Senate President Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak (center), listens to Sen. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka (left) and Senate Majority Leader Cathy Giessel, R-Anchorage (right) during a break from debates Wednesday, May 1, 2024. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
The Senate is led by a supermajority of nine Democrats and eight Republicans, and Wednesday’s draft budget was crafted by that supermajority.
Before the final vote, the three Republicans outside the majority offered 21 amendments containing a variety of priorities, but all failed.
The most contentious amendments dealt with the amount of this year’s Permanent Fund dividend, which Stedman labeled “the focal point of most budgets.”
Sen. Mike Shower, R-Wasilla, proposed taking extra money from the Alaska Permanent Fund to increase the Senate’s proposed dividend to a figure above the House’s amount, once the energy relief payment is included.
While much of the fund is constitutionally protected, lawmakers need only a simple majority to break a law that limits spending from the fund’s earnings reserve, which contains money accumulated from the fund’s investments.
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Sen. Robert Myers, R-North Pole, speaks Wednesday, May 1, 2024, during debates on the state operating budget. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
Shower said his proposed dividend is what was recommended by a bipartisan, bicameral working group and implied that passage could encourage work on a plan to bring the state’s long-term finances into balance.
He had support from Sen. Shelley Hughes, R-Palmer, who said, “If we were to pass this, we would start on the road toward a fiscal plan.”
But a majority of other senators opposed the idea. Stedman said he believed the amendment would instantly create a billion-dollar deficit.
“I don’t think this is a prudent amendment,” he said.
Sen. Forrest Dunbar, D-Anchorage, said he’d like to see larger dividends, but thus far, the Legislature hasn’t advanced other needed components of the financial plan, including new state revenue.
Shower’s amendment failed, 6-14.
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The House and Senate are expected to appoint lawmakers to a budgetary conference committee on Monday, starting work on a final budget draft.
The budget is typically the final item passed before the Legislature adjourns for the summer.
From left to right, Sens. Loki Tobin, D-Anchorage; Bert Stedman, R-Sitka; and David Wilson, R-Wasilla, discuss a proposed budget amendment on Wednesday, May 1, 2024. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
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The first Jesuit missionaries in Alaska sailed up the Yukon River in 1887. By the turn of the 20th century, the religious order of the Catholic Church had as many as 50 Jesuits in the state.
Now, only two remain. And by the end of June, there will be none.
The Jesuits’ nearly 140 years in the state was honored at an event at Bethel’s Immaculate Conception Church on June 16. A procession of priests wearing long white gowns with red hems walked down the aisle to open the event. The Bishop of the Diocese of Fairbanks, Stephen Maekawa, thumped the ground with a shimmering silver staff known as a clozier as he approached the altar.
Bishop of the Diocese of Fairbanks, Steven Maekawa, walks toward the altar at the Immaculate Conception Church in Bethel.
“My brothers and sisters, we gather together to celebrate this wonderful and blessed occasion to acknowledge the love of God and the work of God through the 139 year mission of the Society of Jesus of the Jesuit fathers,” Maekawa said to open the event.
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A traditional Catholic mass followed, with readings in both English and Yup’ik. During the sermon, Maekawa acknowledged the vastness of the Fairbanks diocese, and the tremendous amount of work done by the Jesuits to establish it.
“All of the 46 churches of the Diocese of Fairbanks that we currently have were established by either the Jesuit fathers or by direction of a Jesuit bishop,” Maekawa said. “We have a long history of the Society of Jesus’ presence and ministry here in all of Alaska.”
The Jesuits are an order within the Catholic Church, akin to the Dominicans or Franciscans. They have a reputation for taking on some of the Catholic Church’s most remote assignments.
That missionary spirit brought the Jesuits to the Yukon River in 1887, where they built churches, schools, and ministries. Without their work, Catholicism may not have taken root in huge swaths of Alaska, particularly among Alaska Native communities.
The Immaculate Conception Church in Bethel.
But the Jesuits leave a complicated legacy. Their methods of converting Native people to the religion, particularly in the first half of the 20th century, created generational traumas still felt to this day.
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Fr. Sean Carroll is the provincial of the Jesuits West Province, which oversees Alaska and nine other states.
Fr. Sean Carroll, provincial of the Jesuits West Province, speaks at an event recognizing nearly 140 years of Jesuit service in Alaska.
“Thank you for all that you have taught us about who Jesus is and how to love and serve Him wholeheartedly,” Carroll said. “I also thank you for your patience with us. For there have been times when we have sinned and when we have hurt you.”
Missionaries, including the Jesuits, forcefully converted and assimilated Alaska Native people into Western culture and religion. Students at Jesuit-run boarding schools were forced to abandon their Native languages and physically punished when caught speaking languages other than English. Native dancing and drumming were also banned.
The Jesuits West Province maintains a list of 150 Jesuits with credible claims of sexual abuse against minors or vulnerable adults. A quarter of the accused Jesuits served in Alaska at some point in time.
“I ask for your forgiveness for all that we have done that was not rooted in Christ and love for Him, and for when we did not value your culture nor recognize the presence of God in you,” Carroll said.
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Carroll gave the order to withdraw from the state last spring. A big issue was the recruitment of Jesuits willing to travel and serve in remote villages. He told the congregation that the Jesuits’ work would continue, just without a permanent presence.
Fr. Rich Magner, one of the two remaining Jesuit priests in Alaska, attends a ceremony in Bethel.
Fr. Rich Magner is one of the two remaining Jesuit priests in Alaska. His last day serving Chevak, Hooper Bay, and Scammon Bay is June 30.
“We all always knew coming in, or should have known, that we’re not going to be here forever. It’s going to be mission accomplished at some point,” Magner said. “And then we hand it off to the diocese that we’ve helped create, and so that’s a good feeling.”
Magner’s next stop is a Clinical Pastoral Education residency in Tacoma, Washington.
The other remaining priest, Fr. Tom Provinsal, first came to Alaska in 1968 to teach. A fond memory, he said, was meeting Elders that practiced traditional subsistence lifestyles.
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“Some of the grandmothers, their fingers were just all bent with arthritis and stuff like that, you know, their whole lives they’ve been working out in the cold and the wet, doing food, sewing, all that kind of stuff,” Provinsal said. “I’d say I just feel very privileged to have come when I did come and to see that.”
Provinsal returned in 1975 as a priest and has served in the region ever since. After moving away, he plans to take a five month sabbatical. What happens next, he said, is in God’s hands.
Two lines formed in the aisle for communion at the end of the mass. After taking communion, Bethel’s Parish Administrator Susan Murphy gave a final thank you.
“It’s difficult to say goodbye to people who have been a part of our lives for so long,” Murphy said. “We know that you have done what was yours to do, and have taught us to do what is ours to do. We are grateful.”
Jesuit priests form a row along the altar of Bethel’s Immaculate Conception Church as members of the congregation lift their arms and pray.
Dominic Hunt, a Yup’ik deacon that flew in from Emmonak for the event, led the congregation through a final prayer.
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“Bless them with your wisdom, that they may be a word of hope, a world in need. We ask this through Christ, our Lord. Amen,” Hunt said.
About 70 people posed for a photo on the altar – priests, deacons, parishioners, Elders and children — many of them smiling, some standing quietly.
The photo doesn’t tell the whole story. But it’s a moment when gratitude, grief, and memory all shared the same room.
Bishop of the Diocese of Fairbanks, Steven Maekawa, stands in the middle of a crowd waiting to take a photo at Bethel’s Immaculate Conception Church.
JUNEAU, Alaska (KTUU) – The Supreme Court of Alaska will be taking up the case of the State of Alaska, Division of Elections v. Daniel J. Sullivan, Jr.
The oral arguments will be held Monday at 10 a.m. via Zoom, according to an order and opening notice.
The document also specifies that a decision is expected to be made before noon on Tuesday.
According to documents from the Division of Elections, the state must start printing ballots at noon on the same day.
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This comes after an Anchorage Superior Court Judge ordered Dan J. Sullivan on to the ballot Friday.
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