Alaska

How many Alaska feds were fired? Lacking data, lawmakers crowd-source for anecdotes.

Published

12 months ago

March 3, 2025

How many Alaska feds were fired? Lacking data, lawmakers crowd-source for anecdotes.

The U.S. Capitol, as seen from the East Plaza. (Liz Ruskin/Alaska Public Media)

WASHINGTON — As the Trump administration freezes spending and hollows out federal offices, just identifying the extent of the impact is difficult, so lawmakers in Juneau and Washington D.C. are resorting to unusual means.

The U.S. Senate Indian Affairs Committee, chaired by Sen. Lisa Murkowski, turned to Facebook this week to gather information.

The committee said in a post that it wants to hear how federal workforce changes and executive orders are affecting Native communities.

“If your community is affected,” the post says, “please share your experiences and concerns by contacting us at oversight@indian.senate.gov.”

Senators usually have better methods of finding out what the government is up to. Murkowski said gathering information is just one of the goals. They’re also performing administrative triage.

“Some of it, quite honestly, is we’re listening to it and trying to see, ‘All right: Is this one that we can resolve right now with just a phone call?’” she said.

Murkowski said President Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, recently told Republican senators she doesn’t know about problem unless someone alerts her. Wiles invited Republican senators to call her when they can’t get specific funding unlocked, which, Murkowski said, is helpful.

“You hate to have to say that it’s project-by-project, case-by-case, but sometimes that happens,’ she said.

As for the Trump administration’s termination of federal workers in Alaska, Murkowski said her staffers are trying to compile a list but some agencies, like the National Park Service, are hard to track. She’s heard more about the Alaska terminations in the U.S. Forest Service. Somewhat more.

“I don’t even want to hazard a guess, but it’s over 50,” she said.

Murkowski said her staffers are hearing from Alaskans and trying to piece together information to “get some more fidelity to the numbers.” But it’s a moving target. Waves of terminations come almost daily, and then some are rescinded. A federal judge in San Francisco said Thursday the Trump administration’s firing of thousands of probationary employees is illegal, but the case is far from over.

That any U.S. senator — and Murkowski in particular — can’t get the data on federal job elimination in public land agencies shows how haphazard the government actions have been. In addition to chairing Indian Affairs, Murkowski chairs the Appropriations subcommittee that drafts the annual spending bills for the Park Service, the Forest Service and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, among other agencies.

Meanwhile, in Juneau, state Rep. Alyse Galvin of Anchorage has launched her own effort to learn the extent of Alaska’s federal job losses. She’s asking Alaskans who were fired from their federal jobs to fill out a Google form.

“‘Currently my family is in upheaval. We do not know if my income will continue from day to day,” one respondent wrote.

“My job was the culmination of decades of hard work, first to get a PhD … and then to do years of post-doctoral training,” reads another. “My wife is also a fed and may get sacked after 20 years of service. My children are incredibly anxious.”

“I found a place to rent in Palmer for this position,” another person wrote. “Spent two months working and moving in, thousands of dollars to relocate, and was terminated on week 8.”

Galvin said she plans to pass all the stories on to Murkowski, U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, and Congressman Nick Begich.

“We hope that it will better inform them and give them what they need, the fire under them, to stand up on the floor and talk about the person from Wasilla …and what they’ve done, what they used to do, how concerned they are for the losses to Alaska,” Galvin said.

So it goes in the early weeks of the second Trump administration. In the absence of hard data and a systematic approach, the hope is that a powerful anecdote can ward off federal havoc.

Reporter Eric Stone contributed to this report from Juneau.

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Related Topics:department of government efficiency doge donald trump elon musk Featured Federal employees Federal Layoffs Lisa-Murkowski

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Alaska

Over $150K worth of drugs seized from man in Juneau, police say

Published

10 hours ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

Over 0K worth of drugs seized from man in Juneau, police say

JUNEAU, Alaska (KTUU) – An Alaska drug task force seized roughly $162,000 worth of controlled substances during an operation in Juneau Thursday, according to the Juneau Police Department.

Around 3 p.m. Thursday, investigators with the Southeast Alaska Cities Against Drugs (SEACAD) approached 50-year-old Juneau resident Jermiah Pond in the Nugget Mall parking lot while he was sitting in his car, according to JPD.

A probation search of the car revealed a container holding about 7.3 gross grams of a substance that tested presumptively positive for methamphetamine, as well as about 1.21 gross grams of a substance that tested presumptively positive for fentanyl.

As part of the investigation, investigators executed a search warrant at Pond’s residence, during which they found about 46.63 gross grams of ketamine, 293.56 gross grams of fentanyl, 25.84 gross grams of methamphetamine and 25.5 gross grams of MDMA.

In all, it amounted to just less than a pound of drugs worth $162,500.

Investigators also seized $102,640 in cash and multiple recreational vehicles believed to be associated with the investigation.

Pond was lodged on charges of second-degree misconduct involving a controlled substance, two counts of third-degree misconduct involving a controlled substance, five counts of fourth-degree misconduct involving a substance and an outstanding felony probation warrant.

See a spelling or grammar error? Report it to web@ktuu.com

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Alaska

Sand Point teen found 3 days after going missing in lake

Published

22 hours ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

Sand Point teen found 3 days after going missing in lake

SAND POINT, Alaska (KTUU) – A teenage boy who was last seen Monday when the canoe he was in tipped over has been found by a dive team in a lake near Sand Point, according to a person familiar with the situation.

Alaska’s News Source confirmed with the person, who is close to the search efforts, that the dive team found 15-year-old Kaipo Kaminanga deceased Thursday in Red Cove Lake, located a short drive from the town of Sand Point on the Aleutian Island chain.

Kaminanga was last seen canoeing with three other friends on Monday when the boat tipped over.

A search and rescue operation ensued shortly after.

Alaska Dive Search Rescue and Recovery Team posted on Facebook Thursday night that they were able to “locate and recover” Kaminanga at around 5 p.m. Thursday.

“We are glad we could bring closure to his family, friends and community,” the post said.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated when more details become available.

See a spelling or grammar error? Report it to web@ktuu.com

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Alaska

Opinion: Homework for Alaska: Sales tax or income tax?

Published

1 day ago

February 26, 2026

Press Room

Opinion: Homework for Alaska: Sales tax or income tax?

iStock / Getty Images

This is a tax tutorial for gubernatorial candidates, for legislators who will report to work next year and for the Alaska public.

Think of it as homework, with more than eight months to complete the assignment that is not due until the November election. The homework is intended to inform, not settle the debate over a state sales tax or state income tax — or neither, which is the preferred option for many Alaskans.

But for those Alaskans willing to consider a tax as a personal responsibility to help fund schools, roads, public safety, child care, state troopers, prisons, foster care and everything else necessary for healthy and productive lives, someday they will need to decide on a state income tax or a state sales tax after they accept the checkbook reality that oil and Permanent Fund earnings are not enough.

This homework assignment is intended to get people thinking with facts, not emotions. Electing the right candidates will be the first test.

Alaskans have until the next election because nothing will change this year. It will take a new political alignment led by a reality-based governor to organize support in the Legislature and among the public.

But next year, maybe, with the right elected leadership, Alaskans can debate a state sales tax or personal income tax. Plus, of course, corporate taxes and oil production taxes, but those are for another school day.

One of the biggest arguments in favor of a state sales tax is that visitors would pay it. Yes, they would, but not as much as many Alaskans think.

Air travel is exempt from sales taxes. So are cruise ship tickets. That’s federal law, which means much of what tourists spend on their Alaska vacation is beyond the reach of a state sales tax.

Cutting further into potential revenues, state and federal law exempts flightseeing tours from sales tax, which is a particularly costly exemption when you think about how much visitors spend on airplane and helicopter tours.

That leaves sales tax supporters collecting from tourists on T-shirts, gifts for grandchildren, artwork, postcards, hotels, Airbnb, car rentals and restaurant meals. Still a substantial take for taxes, but far short of total tourism spending.

An argument against a state sales tax is that more than 100 cities and boroughs already depend on local sales taxes to pay for schools and other public services. Try to imagine what a state tax piled on top of a local tax would do to kill shopping in Homer, already at 7.85%, or Kodiak, Wrangell and Cordova, all at 7%, and all the other municipalities.

Supporters of an income tax say it would share the responsibility burden with nonresidents who earn income in Alaska and then return home to spend their money.

Almost one in four workers in Alaska in 2024 were nonresidents, as reported by the state Department of Labor in January. That doesn’t include federal employees, active-duty military or self-employed people.

Nonresidents earned roughly $3.8 billion, or about 17% of every dollar covered in the report.

However, many of those nonresident workers are lower-wage and seasonal, employed in the seafood processing and tourism industries, unlikely to pay much in income taxes. But a tax could be structured so that they pay something, which is fair.

Meanwhile, higher-wage workers in oil and gas, mining, construction and airlines (freight and passenger service) would pay taxes on their income earned in Alaska, which also is fair.

It comes down to what would direct more of the tax burden to nonresidents: a tax on income or on visitor spending. Wages or wasabi-crusted salmon dinners.

Larry Persily is a longtime Alaska journalist, with breaks for federal, state and municipal public policy work in Alaska and Washington, D.C. He lives in Anchorage and is publisher of the Wrangell Sentinel weekly newspaper.

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