Updated: 2 hours ago Published: 2 hours ago

The two largest credit rating firms issued positive reports for Alaska’s state government this spring, noting growing state budget reserves and progress on future North Slope oil projects.

S&P upgraded Alaska’s rating, while Moody’s revised the state’s rating outlook from stable to positive on April 30.

Credit ratings affect how much it costs the state government to borrow money and act as a thermometer for the health of state finances.

“It signals to the market that there’s economic activity and interest in the state,” said Adam Crum, commissioner of the state Department of Revenue.

Crum said after a previous credit rating improvement, an oil company told state officials their investors felt Alaska was a safer investment.

“We’ve heard for like 10 or 12 years, Alaska’s on the decline — we are a little bit, on the population side. But we’re starting to see a growth in the long-term picture of economic activity that we want the market to see,” Crum said. “And we want to get this like a snowball, and it gets bigger and bigger with more investment.”

The state’s credit ratings deteriorated between 2016 and 2020, then stabilized and are now improving.

In a credit opinion May 6, Moody’s Investor Services staff noted that Alaska’s Constitutional Budget Reserve grew over the past two years and the state expects it to grow modestly in the future, though it remains much smaller than it was a decade ago. The CBR is the state’s largest savings account, other than the Permanent Fund.

While the Moody’s report was largely positive, it pointed out some reasons for concern: While Alaska has kept draws from the Permanent Fund within the limit in state law, how those draws are divided between state operating expenses and Permanent Fund dividends remains unsettled.

And Alaska remains vulnerable to changes in the global oil market.

“While we may not want to implement new taxes or revenue streams, defining some of our large expenditures a little bit more clearly and a little bit more predictably are some of the things that can help us in the long term,” Crum said.

S&P upgraded Alaska to AA, its third-highest rating level, from AA-. Moody’s maintained Alaska at its fourth-highest rating level, Aa3, while changing the outlook from stable to positive.

Originally published by the Alaska Beacon, an independent, nonpartisan news organization that covers Alaska state government.

Alaska lawmakers passed a bill last week that adds several Indigenous languages to Alaska’s official list of languages.

A version of the bill, sponsored by Juneau Rep. Andi Story, was approved by the Senate and then OK’d by the House last week. It was originally passed in the House last year. Now it heads to the governor.

Earlier this year, Story, a Democrat, called the changes included in the bill an important step in recognizing all of the 23 distinct Alaska Native languages in the state. 

“This reflects the goal of sustaining and reinvigorating Alaska Native languages, a concept that goes beyond preservation,” she said. 

The languages that the bill adds to the official list are Cup’ig, Middle Tanana, Lower Tanana and Wetał. Middle and Lower Tanana were previously classified as just one language. 

According to a recent report from the council, there are currently no high-proficiency speakers of the Wetał language. It comes from the Portland Canal region of Southeast Alaska and British Columbia.

The bill also expands and renames the Alaska Native Language Preservation and Advisory Council. The council advocates to promote the survival and revitalization of Indigenous languages in the state. It will now be called the Council for Alaska Native Language. 

The bill adds two seats to the council and moves it from the Department of Commerce to the Department of Education and Early Development to better emphasize the council’s focus on education. 

In testimony earlier this year, the chairman of the council, X̱ʼunei Lance Twitchell, said he supports the bill and argued Indigenous languages need to be a bigger priority for the state. Twichell teaches Alaska Native languages at the University of Alaska Southeast. 

“Alaska Native languages are the oldest living resource in Alaska,” he said. “These languages are older than the trees, they’re older than some of the rocks, and none of us are qualified to make the decision that they should not exist anymore.”

He said it’s crucial that these languages are recognized as the valuable and historic resources that they are.  

“Every single Alaska Native language is sacred and irreplaceable,” he said. “It contains concepts that cannot be translated, it contains things that cannot be replaced, and that give a sense of fulfillment and wholeness and health to Alaska Natives and to non-natives in Alaska.”

The bill passed unanimously in the Senate. In the House, only Rep. David Eastman, a Wasilla Republican, voted against it. He argued some of the languages proposed, like Wetał, are not spoken regularly and should not be added to the official list.

A spokesperson for Gov. Mike Dunleavy did not directly respond to questions asking whether the governor plans to sign the bill.