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Legislative budgeters say Dunleavy’s proposed 2024 Permanent Fund dividend is a no-go • Alaska Beacon

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Legislative budgeters say Dunleavy’s proposed 2024 Permanent Fund dividend is a no-go • Alaska Beacon


Leading Alaska legislators said on Tuesday that there’s little appetite for spending from savings to pay a super-sized Permanent Fund dividend this year, likely killing a proposal from Gov. Mike Dunleavy.

In December, the governor proposed spending almost $2.3 billion on a dividend of roughly $3,500 per recipient under a formula in state law. That would result in a $1 billion deficit and require spending from the state’s Constitutional Budget Reserve, but as a draft budget takes shape in the House, top members of both the House and Senate said they’re unlikely to spend from the reserve this year.

“I don’t think it’s a wise thing to draw from savings,” said Rep. Will Stapp, R-Fairbanks and a member of the House Finance Committee. “I personally would not be in favor of tapping the state’s savings.”

Rep. DeLena Johnson, R-Palmer and co-chair of the House Finance Committee, said that at this time, she has not been having conversations with the House’s 16-member minority caucus about spending from the reserve. 

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Minority support would be needed because 30 votes are needed in the House to spend from the reserve, and the majority caucus has 23 members. (Rep. David Eastman, R-Wasilla, is not a member of either caucus.)

When the budget leaves the House, Johnson said, she expects the dividend to be whatever can be afforded under a balanced budget.

“We are not awash in cash. Let me put it that way. So it’s based on revenue,” she said.

Sen. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka and co-chair of the Senate Finance Committee, said that a “25% dividend” — so named because it would be paid for with ¼ of the annual transfer from the Permanent Fund to the state treasury — could fit within a balanced budget alongside the Legislature’s just-passed education funding increase, though there wouldn’t be a lot of excess room, he said.

The 25% dividend would be worth about $1,360 per recipient and cost about $914 million, according to estimates published by the Legislative Finance Division last week.

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Last year’s budget law allows a bonus on top of that amount, depending on the price of oil in the current fiscal year.

Officials from the Alaska Department of Revenue are expected to present an updated state revenue forecast to legislators on or about March 15, which will begin the process of finalizing the Legislature’s preferred budget.

The House will write the first draft of the state operating budget, and the Senate will have the first draft of the state’s annual construction and renovation budget, called the capital budget.

Disputes over the handling of last year’s budget bills created distrust between the House and Senate majorities, and to avoid a similar problem, the House and Senate intend to pass their budget bills on the same day, then hand-deliver copies to the other half of the Legislature, literally crossing in the hallways as they do so, Johnson said.

That is expected to take place in mid-April, leaving about a month for legislators to finalize the budget before the end of the regular legislative session in mid-May. 

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Alaska

Alaska Jewish community prepares to celebrate start of Hanukkah

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Alaska Jewish community prepares to celebrate start of Hanukkah


ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Rabbi Josef Greenberg and Esty Greenberg of Alaska Jewish Campus, joined Alaska’s News Source to explain more about Hanukkah and how Anchorage can celebrate.

They will be hosting Chanukah, The Festival of Lights for “Cirque De Hanukkah,” on Sunday, Dec. 29, at 5 p.m., at the Egan Center.

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

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A Christmas & Hannukah mix of winter weather

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A Christmas & Hannukah mix of winter weather


ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – A variety of winter weather will move through Alaska as we go through Christmas Day and the first night of Hannukah.

A high wind warning started Christmas Eve for Ketchikan, Sitka, and surrounding locations for southeast winds 30-40, gusting to 60 miles per hour. Warnings for the combination of strong winds and snow go to the west coast, western Brooks Range, and Bering Strait.

Anchorage is seeing a low-snow Christmas. December usually sees 18 inches of snow throughout the month. December 2024 has only garnered a paltry 1.5 inches. Snow depth in the city is 7 inches, even though we have seen over 28 inches for the season. A rain-snow mix is likely to hit Prince William Sound, mostly in the form of rain.

A cool-down will start in the interior tomorrow, and that colder air will slip southward. By Friday, the southcentral region will see the chances of snow increase as the temperatures decrease.

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The hot spot for Alaska on Christmas Eve was Sitka with 48 degrees. The coldest spot was Atqasuk with 23 degrees below zero.

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Santa catches a ride with troops to bring Christmas to Alaska village

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Santa catches a ride with troops to bring Christmas to Alaska village


YAKUTAT, Alaska — Forget the open-air sleigh overloaded with gifts and powered by flying reindeer.

Santa and Mrs. Claus this week took supersized rides to southeast Alaska in a C-17 military cargo plane and a camouflaged Humvee, as they delivered toys to the Tlingit village of Yakutat, northwest of Juneau.

The visit was part of this year’s Operation Santa Claus, an outreach program of the Alaska National Guard to largely Indigenous communities in the nation’s largest state. Each year, the Guard picks a village that has suffered recent hardship — in Yakutat’s case, a massive snowfall that threatened to buckle buildings in 2022.

Santa and Mrs. Claus talk to a child in Yakutat as part of the Alaska National Guard’s Operation Santa program Wednesday. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)

“This is one of the funnest things we get to do, and this is a proud moment for the National Guard,” Maj. Gen. Torrence Saxe, adjutant general of the Alaska National Guard, said Wednesday.

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Saxe wore a Guard uniform and a Santa hat that stretched his unit’s dress regulations.

The Humvee caused a stir when it entered the school parking lot, and a buzz of “It’s Santa! It’s Santa!” pierced the cold air as dozens of elementary school children gathered outside.

In the school, Mrs. Claus read a Christmas story about the reindeer Dasher. The couple in red then sat for photos with nearly all of the 75 or so students and handed out new backpacks filled with gifts, books, snacks and school supplies donated by the Salvation Army. The school provided lunch, and a local restaurant provided the ice cream and toppings for a sundae bar.

Student Thomas Henry, 10, said while the contents of the backpack were “pretty good,” his favorite item was a plastic dinosaur.

Another, 9-year-old Mackenzie Ross, held her new plush seal toy as she walked around the school gym.

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“I think it’s special that I have this opportunity to be here today because I’ve never experienced this before,” she said.

Yakutat, a Tlingit village of about 600 residents, is in the lowlands of the Gulf of Alaska, at the top of Alaska’s panhandle. Nearby is the Hubbard Glacier, a frequent stop for cruise ships.

Some of the National Guard members who visited Yakutat on Wednesday were also there in January 2022, when storms dumped about 6 feet of snow in a matter of days, damaging buildings.

Alaska National Guard soldiers and airmen shovel the roof of a building in Yakutat. (Dana Rosso/U.S. Army National Guard via AP)

Operation Santa started in 1956 when flooding severely curtailed subsistence hunting for residents of St. Mary’s, in western Alaska. Having to spend their money on food, they had little left for Christmas presents, so the military stepped in.

This year, visits were planned to two other communities hit by flooding. Santa’s visit to Circle, in northeastern Alaska, went off without a hitch. Severe weather prevented a visit to Crooked Creek, in the southwestern part of the state, but Christmas was saved when the gifts were delivered there Nov. 16.

“We tend to visit rural communities where it is very isolated,” said Jenni Ragland, service extension director with the Salvation Army Alaska Division. “A lot of kids haven’t traveled to big cities where we typically have Santa and big stores with Christmas gifts and Christmas trees, so we kind of bring the Christmas program on the road.”

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After the C-17 Globemaster III landed in Yakutat, it quickly returned to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, an hour away, because there was nowhere to park it at the village’s tiny airport. Later, it returned to pick up the Christmas crew.

Santa and Mrs. Claus, along with their tuckered elves, were seen nodding off on the flight back.



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