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This will definitely affect the people and.
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The efforts of our livelihood.
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Federal fisheries managers adopt new bycatch limits to protect western Alaska salmon stocks. From Alaska Public Media, this is statewide news on Alaska News nightly for Friday, February 13th. Good evening. I'm Casey Grove. Also tonight, a proposed budget for the state's largest school district would cut hundreds of positions. Even after a funding boost from the.
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State, we're still behind about $1,400 per student than where we were back in 2011.
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Those stories and more tonight on Alaska News Nightly. The Alaska House Finance Committee adopted a new budget draft this week. It makes a variety of smallish changes and one really big one. It removes the permanent fund dividend. The change has attracted a lot of attention. So what does it mean? Committee co chair Representative Andy Josephson, an Anchorage Democrat, says Alaskans shouldn't panic there will be a dividend this year. He says the House's version strips out everything new in the governor's budget and represents essentially the status quo minus the pfd. But he says putting any number into the budget right now could give Alaskans the wrong impression of what their legislators support and what a realistic PFD could be. Perhaps it's counterintuitive, but sometimes starting at zero because we are going to have a dividend is the more honest place to start from. Lawmakers on both sides have said they see Governor Mike Dunleavy's proposal to pay a roughly $3,600 dividend as unrealistic with low oil prices and a tight state budget. But minority Republicans say they see removing the PFD from the budget at this stage as a worrisome sign. House Minority Leader Delaina Johnson, a Palmer Republican, says dropping the PFD removes pressure on lawmakers to cut spending and hold down expenses.
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If we don't have some kind of pfd, then we're just going to spend it and we're going to continue to spend and then we are going to continue to spend into savings.
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Economists told lawmakers earlier this year that reducing the PFD to cover a deficit is akin to a regressive tax and hits low income Alaskans the hardest. How much the dividend will ultimately be is up in the air for now, but some key lawmakers have said they don't expect much change from last year's $1,000 PFD. The state operating budget officially sets the dividend, and it's typically one of the last bills to pass before the end of the regular session in May. The North Pacific Fishery Management Council voted Wednesday to Adopt new chum salmon bycatch limits for the Bering Sea pollock fishery aimed at protecting western Alaska stocks. Yukon Kuskokwim leaders have pushed for hard caps for years. But as KUCB's Theo Greenlee reports, many coastal villages are also financially tied to the pollock fishery through CDQ.
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On an August afternoon in Nikolski, nearly all 20 people who live in the small Aleutian village came out for the grand opening of a new building.
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We're in the community center.
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That's Autumn Lestenkopf. She says that a few days before, the kids got to have a party in the new gathering place.
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It was fun, play games, win prizes and eat food.
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Infrastructure projects like this are a big deal around here where there isn't a major employer or industry. Nikolski doesn't process pollock like its neighbor Unalaska, the hub of the Bering Sea trawl fishery. But the money for this project still traces back to the pollock fleet. That's because of the Community Development Quota program. The Federal program gives 65 eligible Western Alaska communities a stake in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands fisheries. In practice, it's one of the ways pollock money ends up paying for basic infrastructure in places that don't have many other options. Today, about a third of the pollock quota in the Bering Sea is controlled by CDQ groups like Apicta, the Aleutian Pripilof Island Community Development association, which built this center along with many other projects across the region.
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Atka Health Clinic power distribution upgrade projects St. George harbor project Salmonberry Inn. This is a housing project in Akutan.
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Luke Fanning is Apicta's CEO. He says projects like this one depend on revenue from the pollock fishery. He says roughly 70% of CDQ funding comes from the trawl fleet.
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Life in these communities looks very different if you didn't have that fishery taking place and you didn't have the kinds of benefits going to these communities that are funded by the pollock industry.
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But not everyone supports the program. Declining salmon runs have led to a moratorium on salmon fishing in parts of western Alaska, devastating subsistence communities in the Yukon Kuskokwim Delta. Scientists say warming oceans and shifting ecosystems are the major drivers. But many Yukon Kuskokwim leaders have also called for stricter limits on the pollock trawl fleet, which incidentally catches chum salmon as bycatch. The North Pacific Fishery Management Council that helps oversee federal fisheries off Alaska's coasts voted Wednesday to set a western Alaska chum bycatch limit with sector caps and closure requirements during the summer window. Many Western Alaska residents testified during February's meeting, urging the council to impose strict limits on the trawl fleet. But some who testified warned that a cap could cut into CDQ revenue that supports those same villages. The tension came through in public testimony. Louise Paul is a community service representative for the Coastal Villages Region Fund, a CDQ group in the Yukon Kuskokwim Delta. She told the council CDQ funding is essential for the group's 20 villages, especially as they rebuild after typhoon halong.
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I am an evacuee from Kipnuk and.
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Now residing in Bethel. So for myself and my family we plan on returning to rebuild our lives and our home. If the quota from the trawling industry will with coastal villages is lowered, this.
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Will definitely affect the people and the.
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Efforts of our livelihood now.
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Not everyone is so black and white about it. Over in Akitan, where Apicta is completing a tsunami shelter and community center, Unanga scholar and activist Halihana Stepeten says the CDQ program is central to the community and to Indigenous stewardship of marine resources. But she also thinks it relies too much on extraction.
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Sustainability to me as an Indigenous person.
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Who lives here means that the lifeways.
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That we have here now and that.
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Were here when my grandparents lived here remain so that future generations of Unanga people can continue to live off of it.
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And our living off of it is.
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Not tied to capitalism.
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Steppeton says CDQ doesn't have to be an all or nothing proposition. It it can be both true that CDQ money pays for things communities need and that communities should be willing to ask what the pollock fishery is costing their salmon runs. With reporting from Nikolski, I'm Theo Greenlee.
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Still the common Alaska News Nightly How a Petersburg couple stayed married for 75 years.
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Mom and dad figured that George and I would last about a year. That's the truth.
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It's Valentine's Day Eve. Stay with us. The Anchorage School District faces a roughly $90 million funding gap, prompting district leaders to propose a budget that cuts more than 500 positions and many programs in order to balance the district's books. Potential items on the chopping block include the district's gifted and talented program, all middle school and many high school sports programs, and a number of educators that work with blind, deaf and other students with disabilities. Alaska Public Media's Wesley early has been following the budget and joins us now. Hi, Wesley.
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Hi, Casey.
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So last year, state lawmakers approved increasing school funding by roughly $700 per student. Why is Anchorage's budget gap still so large?
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Well, school district officials say they appreciate the Legislature's funding increase, but it still doesn't make up for the funding they've lost due to a decade of flat funding. ASD Superintendent Jarrett Bryant says districts across the state have struggled with impacts from rising health care costs and infl. I spoke to him shortly after the district unveiled its proposed budget and he said the increase to the education funding in what's called the base student allocation or bsa, doesn't go far enough in fully restoring what the district has lost.
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When the BSA is flat for 10 years, the impact for ASD was that we had lost purchasing power by about $1,800 per student prior to the BSA increase. Post the BSA increase, we're still behind about $1,400 per student than where we were back in 2011.
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So in recent years, the district was able to blunt the impacts of lost funding due to a variety of other sources of outside funding, including COVID 19 pandemic relief money from the federal government and one time education funding from the Legislature. The district even drew about $50 million from its savings last year to address that year's deficit, bringing it down to the lowest amount allowed by state statute. But now there aren't any places where they can pull extra money out of.
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So the district's proposed budget would cut more than 500 positions. Where are those cuts focused?
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Well, the lion's share of the school district's budget is in paying for staff at schools, and that's where most of the cuts are coming from too. More than 300 teachers would be cut, as well as 25 nurses, nine principals and eight counselors. With those teacher cuts, the district would be saving about $57 million but would be increasing the average class size by about four students. The rest of the staffing cuts are at the district wide administrative level, with more than 50 cuts and just under 70 special support staff that include staff who services for deaf, blind and special education students, and the district's Ignite Gifted program. Now several other programs would be eliminated, including summer school for elementary students, all middle school sports, and a number of high school sports like hockey, swimming and diving, wrestling, nordic skiing and volleyball. Now some of these programs have been on the chopping block before, but the district was able to keep them funded. This time around, though with less outside revenue for the district to pull from, their fates are less secure. However, Bryant did point to potential private community partners as a possible way to keep some of the sports programs alive.
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Is this just an Anchorage problem. I mean, are other Alaska school districts in similar positions?
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Oh, definitely. You know, school districts across the state are planning for next year's school budgets and bracing for multimillion dollar deficits. You know, the Matsu Borough school district has a roughly $23 million deficit. The Juneau district has about $5.3 million deficit. Leaders from both school districts are actually asking the public to weigh in on what to cut. And like Anchorage, the Kenai Peninsula School District is also we school closures to help reduce its roughly $8.5 million deficit.
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So in the context of this, Anchorage voters will decide on a roughly $12 million one time tax levy to support education in the city. Would that make a dent in the district's deficit?
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Well, $12 million is not nothing. If approved, Superintendent Bryant says all of the money would go to hiring teachers, making it so that the class sizes would only go up by an average of two students instead of four. But for long term financial stability, Bryant says it's really up to the state to, but he doesn't really see that happening this year. Legislators have expressed concern and floated some proposals, but they would likely require spending from savings. And Senate budget leaders say they oppose spending savings to pay for any ongoing costs.
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Okay, so what's next for the budget?
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Well, the school board will ultimately vote on whether or not to approve the budget as another potential cost saving measure. The board actually recently asked the district to provide them with school closure or consolidation opportunities. That even includes the potential closures of Fire Lake and Lake Otis elementary schools, which the district floated as possible closures last year. But the board ultimately voted against closing. Now, whether school closures would impact the budget is kind of up for debate. The district's chief financial officer says a school closure really only would save the district about $900,000. Now, the district was asked to present information to the board regarding any new or prior potential school closure proposals at their next meeting on Tuesday. That date. Members of the public can also provide testimony to the board over the proposed budget. And ultimately, the board is set to vote on the budget during a special meeting on February 24. If they approve it, it would then go on to the Anchorage assembly, which would vote on it in March.
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Okay, well, we will stay tuned. That was Alaska Public Media's Wesley Early. Wesley, thanks for being here.
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Thank. You.
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Repair efforts in the western Alaska village of Quigillingoc have been ongoing since zec's typhoon Ha long hit in October. But relocation remains a long term goal for the community. KYUK's Samantha Watson reports how Both paths forward are unfolding in the months since the storm.
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William Ivan was evacuated from Kwigalingok after the storm. But in the week soon after, he returned to help, working as a lead contractor repairing the vil.
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It was mentally and physically tiring. I think for three nights I didn't sleep.
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Like Yvonne's job, much of life in the village has adapted to recovery after the storm. Like the school, which has become the command center for repair efforts, Yvonne's office is a classroom. And inside, nearly every inch of a whiteboard is covered in names.
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This is the first week of after the storm. We took a note of the homes.
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And names of lists, people to evacuate.
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And the homes that got damaged.
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One column designates homes that are damaged but maintain the bones to be renovated ones which can be made livable. Again, that word livable. The workers mention it a lot. It's the goal right now to get Quigilling GOK to a place where people can move back into, even temporarily, even if it's a bare bones version of.
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What it was when we first got here. This road that we're driving on was.
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An existing gravel road.
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Vance Cahill is a crew member of Cruise Construction, one of the contracting teams working on the rebuild.
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But we had to put a lot of material because we weren't even able to get to this side of the village.
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He says the teams were able to get most of the stuff they needed to repair roads and houses delivered by barge before the Kuskokwim river froze up. Now it's go time. While the frozen wetland can support machinery like bulldozers and forklifts in the summer, he says it won't be so easy.
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This is all tundra. We're sinking in this, trying to clean up the debris and we.
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We need.
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To do as much as we can. While winter's still here, in some parts.
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Of town, the October storm damage remains very visible. Tipped houses and chunks of displaced boardwalks are covered in snow. But in other areas, the contracting teams have been able to lift some floated homes that didn't travel far. They've placed them on new foundations, rearranging neighborhoods. Some water and electrical lines have been restored, but the fixed up homes remain without running water and sewer.
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This is my dad's house. It got shifted.
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William Ivan walks through his father's house, which is in the process of renovation. One side is intact, but jostled from the flood. Furniture has shifted around and spices lay scattered, shaken off a rack. The other side is bare and painted a bright white.
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We renovated this room, changed the wall insulations.
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This part of the house was damaged by the flood waters. Yvonne points to where old appliances used to be.
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But I'm hopeful to get all the things just like the way it was.
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But for the community that's long been dealing with flooding from storms, putting things back the way it was doesn't get to the root of the problem. Brutal storms have been an ongoing struggle for Kwigglengok. Tribal leaders say they've been talking about relocation for decades. Halong brought the issue to a head. Right now, tribal administrators say they are entering conversations with their local corporation to begin the process of relocating and are looking at land options. Leadership says the current repairs are part of a band Aid solution. The federal funding that's in play right now can only support rebuilding things mostly as they were. Jeremy Zedek is a spokesperson for the Alaska Department of Emergency Management.
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Our disaster program typically say that we're going to return damaged infrastructure and damaged structures to a pre disaster condition, but there are exceptions because it doesn't always.
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Make sense, he says. There has been some room to make sessions to make repairs more flood resistant, though it's on a case by case basis. Though there's no set timeline, the state estimates repairs will take over a year to finish.
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Things are going to happen in a phased approach.
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Part of the hope of the state's phased approach is that as homes are made livable, residents will have the option to return to the village. William Yvonne says the community anticipates some residents returning during the spring and summer subsistence seasons, but only temporarily. He says some don't plan on ever coming back. He says the trauma of the storm has united the community in wanting to find higher ground for their home.
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We don't want to see that anymore.
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We want to relocate.
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Yvonne says the community estimates a full relocation could be at least a decade away. In Kwikielingock, I'm Samantha Watson.
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The 2026 Iron Dog is set to kick off this weekend. The annual snowmachine race is billed as the world's longest toughest snowmachine race. And as KN's Ben Townsend tells us, this year's field will be one of its biggest in recent years.
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A whopping 30 teams will set off from Big Lake on Saturday. While the vast majority of racers hail from Alaska, there's some from Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, Wisconsin and Utah, too. The field is tied for the biggest since 2017. Iron Dog's new executive director Rick Paquette says Iron Dog HQ is buzzing from this year's deep roster.
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We have, you know, five past champions. We have really fast young guys, you know, in the field we have two.
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Father son teams, we have a father daughter team.
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So no, it's going to be a really exciting race. We're super excited.
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Last year's race was marked by snowless trail and overheating engines. Teams rode 60 miles across bear tundra in an area known as the Farewell Burn, stopping periodically to heave what little snow they could find onto their engines. By the end of the 2,500mile course, Robbie Shackel and Brad George were crowned champions. Both are missing from this year's field, but the roster is still full of familiar names. The Barber family, who has appeared in every Iron Dog since the first in 1984, will be represented by two teams. 13 time Iron Dog veteran Shane Barber is teaming up with his rookie daughter Shanna Lapham. Shane Barber's son Evan Barber will be riding alongside Stephen Booth from Nome. The 21 and 20 year olds made Iron Dog history one year after the other with Evan Barber claiming the title of youngest to compete in the race in 2021, only to be bested by Booth a year later. This will be Evan Barber's fourth Iron Dog and first teaming up with Booth, who still considers himself an experienced rookie.
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We're not trying to put any expectations for this year. It's kind of like a learning year. It's been a while since I've done it and I was 16 at the time. I don't remember really anything. I think everything will start coming back to me once I start getting out there and as I'm racing with Evan.
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This year's 2,318mile course takes teams from the big lakes start northwest to Kotzebue before dipping down the Nome for a one day layover. Teams will get a chance to work on their sleds before making the journey across the interior to this year's finish in Fairbanks. Paquette says the Fairbanks finish wasn't inspired by last year's poor weather. Instead, he views it as an opportunity to bring the race to another part of the state which hasn't hosted the finish since 2019.
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This was more of going back to where we've gone before and spreading the love throughout the state.
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This year's Iron Dog will kick off from big Lake at 10 o' clock Saturday morning with the team setting off in two minute increments. The field is expected to finish in Fairbanks the following Saturday. In Nome. I'm Ben Townsend.
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Finding someone you love and getting married can be a challenge, but what about staying married for 75 years ahead of Valentine's Day, KFSK's Taylor Heckert spoke with one Petersburg couple about what it takes to build a marriage that lasts more than three quarters of a century.
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George Ann Florabell Rice's apartment at Petersburg's assisted living home is filled with memories.
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When we moved into this place, I brought with me my lifelong treasures.
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Florabelle is 96. Her husband, George, is 98. Mementos from nearly a century of life fill cabinets around the room. Photos of the couple decorate the walls alongside embroidered wall hangings depicting different marriage milestones. One for their 66th wedding anniversary reads, how Lucky did we get? Lovingly made for George by Florabelle. By now, their marriage has well surpassed that anniversary. The Rices will be celebrating their 76th this March. It's an anniversary very few people live to see, and I wanted to know what keeps a couple married for a lifetime.
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We've never questioned each other about how we feel about each other.
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George is hard of hearing, so Florabell shared most of their stories. The two met in college at Western Washington University. Florabelle was waiting tables, and George was a veteran going to college on the GI Bill. When George and Florabelle decided to get married, she says her parents weren't fans, at least at first.
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Mom and dad figured that George and I would last about a year. That's the truth, she says.
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They eventually came around to George, and it never crossed the couple's mind to get divorced. The pair spoke to the local paper last year and shared that they worked as teachers for a few years in Washington before visiting Alaska and eventually making Petersburg home in 1960. The couple had four children and made a home on Saspi island in the Wrangell Narrows across from Petersburg. They also like to travel as teachers. They were able to spend their summers in places like Mexico and Australia. Florabell says traveling with George was one of her favorite memories.
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Oh, we have a blast together.
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Is it important to be with someone you have fun with?
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I think you can probably answer that yourself.
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If you ask George how a marriage like theirs lasted so long, he has a simple answer.
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Listen to what your wife tells you to do.
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Meanwhile, Florabelle has a different takeaway.
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We've never had a fight. Never. We've never had a discussion about I wish I'd never married you, or any of that. None of that.
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Never. Fighting may be easier said than done for some couples trying to follow in their footsteps. Luckily, Florabelle has more advice to share. If you want to be married for a long time, you also have to live for a long time. She recommends that couples stay away from alcohol.
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Don't drink.
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Really?
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Yes, because it'll knock X number of years off your life. And George and I don't drink.
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Florabelle and George have had a lot of years to make memories together. She says they weren't perfect, but one thing they've always been certain about is their love for each other. In Petersburg, I'm Taylor Heckert.
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And that's all for this edition of Alaska News Nightly. We had reports tonight from Eric Stone and Juno Theo Greenlee in Nikolski, Samantha Watson in Quigillingock, Wesley early in Anchorage, Ben Townsend in Nome, and Taylor Heckert in Petersburg. Our audio engineer is Crystal Hyde. I'm Casey Grove. Happy Valentine's Day. Have a great weekend. This is statewide news on Alaska Public Media.