Wildfires on Alaska’s North Slope are more frequent and more severe now than they have been at any point over the past 3,000 years, research suggests.

The findings are based on satellite data, as well as on soil pulled from peatlands that contain ancient chunks of charcoal and other signs of wildfires. The research team says the increase in blazes, driven by permafrost thaw and tundra “shrubification,” constitutes a new wildfire regime that will likely intensify as global temperatures continue to rise.

Lawmakers succeeded last year in their effort to permanently boost the state’s per-student funding formula for K-12 public schools, twice overriding Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s vetoes to cement an increase that educators had long asked for.

But after years of flat funding from the state and declining enrollment, districts across Alaska this year say they are still in dire straits. The Anchorage School District, which last year spent down its budget reserve amid state funding uncertainty, is facing a $90 million deficit. The Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District has a $23 million deficit. The Kenai Peninsula Borough School District is estimating a deficit of $8.5 million. Juneau schools face a deficit of more than $5 million.

Senate Education Committee Chair Löki Tobin called the funding increase approved last year “woefully insufficient.”

The bipartisan majority coalition in the Alaska House is still prioritizing school funding, said House Education Committee Co-Chair Rep. Rebecca Himschoot, a Sitka independent, in an interview on Tuesday. But the mechanism by which that funding stability will be achieved remains unclear, she said.

“Education remains one of our No. 1 priorities, so we’re not backing away from it in the House Majority coalition, in any way at all,” said Himschoot. “Now the political reality of what’s possible is a different story. So whatever is possible — we’re committed to doing — and the limitation is what is actually possible.”

That political reality is shaped by limited revenue and “advocacy fatigue” that has left Alaskans tired of again asking for a funding boost after making it a flagship issue during the preceding two legislative sessions.

Last year’s boost to the state’s education formula was hailed by districts as a success, though it amounted to less than half the funding amount that public educators requested in 2024. Last year’s legislation yielded no effective revenue increase to most schools, because it came on the heels of an outside-the-formula spending boost of equal size in the preceding fiscal year.

In effect, the state’s K-12 education budget dropped between last year and the current year, by roughly $20 million, following a student enrollment drop of nearly 1,000 students.

Alaska has 125,317 public school students this year, according to data collected in the fall by the state. That’s down from 126,284 in 2024; 127,931 in 2023; and 128,088 in 2022.

Despite lawmakers’ hard-fought battles over education funding in recent years, the state’s effective spending on K-12 schools has remained virtually unchanged, going from $1.29 billion in the 2023 fiscal year to $1.33 billion in the current fiscal year, a roughly 3% increase, far below the inflation rate in the same period.

The governor’s budget draft introduced in December accounts for no new education funding this year, even as Dunleavy asked for spending increases for most other executive branch departments, to account for salary increases and other inflation-driven costs.

“Everything that our state government does requires increases every year, and yet we’re not providing those increases to education,” said Himschoot.

Funding woes have translated to different challenges across the state. In urban areas, including Anchorage, stagnant state funding has led districts to shutter enrichment programs and sports and grow class sizes. In rural areas, districts are struggling to keep buildings operational and qualified teachers in classrooms.

Ideas for shoring up education funding this year abound, said Himschoot and Tobin. They include pegging the state’s funding formula, known as the Base Student Allocation, to an inflation metric; providing dedicated funding streams for high-value budget items like reading coaches and vocational instructors; and upping state spending on the maintenance and repair of school buildings.

But three weeks into the legislative session, it is not immediately clear which of those ideas — if any — could garner enough support from the House and Senate to become law and fit into a tight budget process.

“We’ve got to get 11 votes in the Senate, 21 votes in the House, and hopefully get it past the governor. If that’s not the case, then I’m going to be working to get 40 (votes),” said Tobin, alluding to the threshold needed to override the governor.

Senate leaders said Tuesday that they are focused on addressing a backlog that has left school buildings with deferred maintenance and repair projects worth more than $2 billion.

The Legislature has in recent years funded only a fraction of maintenance projects identified as priorities by schools. The identified priorities are themselves an undercount of needed projects, lawmakers say, because some districts have stopped applying to the state for funding.

Dunleavy has during his tenure repeatedly slashed education funding to the tune of tens of millions of dollars annually for both school operations and maintenance. He has not commented publicly this year on whether he would allow an education funding increase to become law or again use his veto pen.

“The Senate majority is continuing to look for pathways to help support our struggling public school infrastructure, and also our public school services, and we are going to use every opportunity and everything available to us to invest in the best and most important resource our state has, which is our children,” said Tobin, an Anchorage Democrat.

Himschoot said she doesn’t think it’s realistic “at all” to again increase the Base Student Allocation by $700, which is what lawmakers did last year — bringing it from $5,960 to $6,660. But a smaller increase may be possible, she said.

“Will there be some kind of BSA inflationary adjustment? I think that’s on the table. Will there be funding to other programs that bring relief to districts? I think that’s on the table. In the absence of a solid fiscal plan, it’s really hard to talk about what’s possible,” Himschoot said.

Dunleavy last year vetoed a bill approved by lawmakers that would have raised between $25 million and $65 million by applying the state’s corporate income tax to Outside companies providing online services to Alaskans. That bill would have directed the new revenue to reading assistance and vocational programs in Alaska schools. After lawmakers failed to override Dunleavy’s veto last month, House majority members reintroduced the revenue bill. It is scheduled for a hearing later this week.

The House Education Committee is currently considering a bill from Rep. Andi Story, a Juneau Democrat who co-chairs the committee, which would change the way the state allocates money to districts. The bill would allow the districts to average out their attendance numbers over a three-year period, rather than using a single-year figure, among other changes. That would provide districts with more funding stability even as their enrollment numbers fluctuate.

The change is based on recommendations that appeared in a 2015 report commissioned by lawmakers.

According to Dunleavy administration education officials, the change could increase state spending on schools more than $70 million in the coming fiscal year. Of that, roughly $23 million would go to the Anchorage School District; nearly $10 million would go to the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District; and more than $8 million would go to the Kenai Peninsula borough School District.

But it’s not immediately clear whether that bill will get the support needed to advance.

“I don’t see $70 million low-hanging fruit anywhere in the state right now,” said Himschoot.

“To me, it’s reasonable,” she said on the prospect of spending that amount from state savings. “To some of my colleagues, it’s not reasonable at all.”

Daily News reporter Mari Kanagy contributed from Juneau.