Alaska

State legislators, governor prepare for session’s start this week

Published

2 years ago

January 16, 2024

State legislators, governor prepare for session’s start this week

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – While dozens of bills were shared with the public last week as part of the Alaska State Legislature’s prefiled bills releases, lawmakers are gearing up for a session that will see a range of topics considered by the House and Senate, as Gov. Mike Dunleavy does the same.

“I look forward to the next 121 days of working with lawmakers on what matters most to Alaskans,” Dunleavy said in a prepared statement from his office. “While we may have different opinions on policy issues, we are all striving to reach the same goal of making Alaska a better place to live and raise a family.”

Dunleavy’s office wrote that improving public safety and public education outcomes, making sure people know Alaska is “open for business,” and honing in on energy opportunities across the state are also among his priorities.

At the same time, a couple of the lawmakers who chose to file legislation ahead of the start of the session also spoke Monday about their decisions to introduce bills early, as well as some of the other priorities they see going into this session.

One of them is Sen. Shelley Hughes, R-Palmer, who introduced a bill that would require that school districts assign certain highly-trained individuals to carry a concealed firearm on school grounds.

“We’re being very thoughtful about that,” she said, “because we want parents and community members and leaders to feel comfortable with this, that this role is being assigned to someone, not on a willy-nilly basis, but under a very careful process.”

Hughes said a retired teacher who lives in Palmer – a constituent, who was a teacher at the time of a shooting at Bethel Regional High School in 1997 and is left of center, according to Hughes – came to her with the idea for the bill.

“I believe this, also, is bipartisan,” Hughes said, adding that response times in certain schools could be much longer than in others, even when simply based on access to communities. “Our students should not go to school with any fear like this. They should know that they can relax, and be there to do what they’re supposed to do: learn, and be prepared and equipped to be productive citizens.”

The state senator is also leading the charge when it comes to multiple other prefiled bills, such as SB 172, which would extend senior benefits while lengthening the time before the Legislature must review that program, pushing that to 2034.

Another bill she sponsored, SB 177, targets artificial intelligence, deepfakes, cybersecurity and data transfers. If passed, it would demand that election campaigns using any sort of deepfakes disclose that use and bars the transfer of data between state agencies, unless the individual whose data is being shared consents first.

“It took a little longer than usual for the drafting of this bill, because it’s so brand new,” Hughes said. “I believe it’s the very first bill on AI in our state. So when it came back, there wasn’t really time to go back and forth, back and forth, tweaking every word and getting everything exactly right.

“So I expect there to be changes, and I want there to be improvements,” she said, adding that this bill – like others of hers – is about protecting Alaskans. “Once the bill is filed, it goes into the hands of committees, where those improvements are going to be made. So I don’t want anybody to think that right now, this bill is in perfect condition.”

Hughes said she also expects to spend a great deal of time on agricultural industry policies, plans to help push through trafficking laws, and hopes to see increased educational funding attached to improving academic performances in areas across the state.

Among other pieces of legislation, Rep. Andy Josephson, D-Anchorage, filed HB 261, which would, in part, establish a vehicular homicide offense in state statute.

“Forty-seven of 50 states do have a separate vehicular homicide statute,” he explained. “The benefit is that it’s more intuitive, I think, for a jury to understand how the offense happened, the nature of the offense, why it is a crime — because under current law, we use homicide and assault statutes to proscribe or to criminalize what is really vehicular homicide.”

Like Hughes, Josephson has multiple prefiled bills he submitted. His HB 239 would add post-traumatic stress disorder as an allowable claim for workers’ compensation under certain circumstances and for specific groups, such as fire fighters, police, emergency dispatchers, emergency medical technicians and others.

“The idea of affording fire and police the opportunity to have some period under workers’ comp benefits while they are dealing with post-traumatic stress is something, again, that other states have,” he explained. “We know that police and fire in Alaska have sought this sort of reform for a long time. No doubt, municipalities will be concerned about the cost to workers’ comp premiums and what that kind of impact that would have on their treasuries, but that’s a reform that our first responders have wanted.”

Several of his other bills are healthcare-related, to include HB 248, which would require separate consent for any sort of pelvic examination, whether by a full health care provider or students receiving instruction or individuals participating in clinical training.

Josephson also explained part of his thinking in filing a large number of bills ahead of the session, noting that prefiling is a privilege afforded to legislators, and that, come February of the second session of each legislature, personal legislation can no longer be filed.

“You don’t know what’s going to catch on,” he said. “The advantage of a prefile bill is that you’re utilizing the entire 121 days, theoretically. But the other advantage is, it sort of lights a fire under the legislative office to get the work done so that you’re not busy in February writing bills.”

The lawmaker out of Alaska’s largest city said he expects contention over a number of bills, to include a bill that focuses on the sharing of information regarding reproductive health of female patients across state lines.

“We’re concerned that this is pretextual, that this is merely a means of punishing someone,” Josephson said. “There shouldn’t be a sort of fishing expedition that goes on because she chose to do that.”

While many bills this session are modeled off legislation from other states, it will be up to the Legislature as a whole to decide what moves through each body and gets to the governor for consideration.

As for Dunleavy, he expanded on some of his priorities on Monday as well, saying in the prepared release from his office that a “major” focus of his for this session is affordability.

“Alaska can be an expensive place to live,” he said, “but we can also do something about it. Food and energy security, childcare, access to land, and healthcare are the key areas we need to work on to make Alaska an even better place to live.

“But as we work to solve these issues,” he continued, “we must ensure that we are not focused only on the short term, but that our work sets up Alaska to be prosperous over the next 50 years.”

The second session of the 33rd Legislature begins on Jan. 16, 2024.

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Alaska

Sand Point teen found 3 days after going missing in lake

Published

5 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

17 hours 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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Alaska

Nome brothers summit Mt. Kilimanjaro, carry Alaska flag to third major peak

Published

1 day ago

February 26, 2026

Press Room

Nome brothers summit Mt. Kilimanjaro, carry Alaska flag to third major peak

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Two brothers from Nome recently stood at the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa, planting an Alaska flag at 19,000 feet above the African plains.

The Hoogendorns completed the seven-day climb — five and a half days up and a day and a half down — trekking through rainforest, desert, and alpine terrain before reaching snow near the summit. The climb marks their third of the world’s seven summits.

Night hike to the top

The brothers began their final summit push at midnight, hiking through the night to reach the top by dawn.

“It was almost like a dream,” Oliver said. “Because we hiked through the night. We started the summit hike at midnight when you’re supposed to be sleeping. So, it was kind of like, not mind boggling, but disorienting. Because you’re hiking all night, but then you get to the top and you can finally see. It’s totally different from what you’d expect.”

At the summit, temperatures hovered around 10 degrees — a familiar range for the Nome brothers. Their guides repeatedly urged them to put on jackets, but the brothers declined.

“We got to the crater, and it was dark out and then it started getting brighter out,” Wilson said. “And then you could slowly see the crater like illuminating and it’s huge. It’s like 3 miles across or something. Like you could fly a plane down on the crater and be circles if you want to. Really dramatic view.”

A team of 17 for two climbers

Unlike their previous expeditions, the brothers were supported by a crew of 17 — including porters, a cook, guides, a summit assistant, and a tent setup crew.

The experience deviated from their earlier climbs, where they carried their own food, melted snow for water, and navigated routes independently.

“I felt spoiled,” Wilson said. “I was like, man, the next mountain’s gonna be kind of hard after being spoiled.”

Alaska flag on every summit

Oliver carried the same full-size Alaska flag on all three of his major summits, including in South America and Denali in North America, despite the added weight in his pack.

“I take it everywhere these days,” Oliver said. “It’s always cool to bring it out. And then people ask, you know, ‘where’s that flag from?’ Say Alaska.”

When asked about his motivation for the expeditions, Wilson said “I guess to like inspire other people. Because it seems like a lot of people think they can’t do something, but if you just try it, you probably won’t do good the first time, but second time you’ll do better. Because you just got to try it out. Believe in yourself.”

Background and next goals

The Hoogendorns won the reality competition series “Race to Survive: Alaska” in 2023. In 2019, they were the first to climb Mount McKinley and ski down that season. Oliver also started a biking trip from the tip of South America to Prudhoe Bay with hopes of still completing it.

Kilimanjaro is their third summit. The brothers said they hope to eventually complete all seven summits, with Mount Vinson in Antarctica among the peaks they are considering next… all while taking Alaska with them every step of the way.

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