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Narrator/Announcer
Support for Alaska Public Media On Demand comes from Siri, an Alaska Native corporation with operations and investments spanning five continents, 45 states and two US territories.
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Reporter/Interviewee
It's going to be a really tough winter unless something can give the federal.
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Casey Grove
Government shutdown is delaying funds meant to help pay for home heating From Alaska Public Media. This is statewide news on Alaska News nightly for Thursday, October 30th. Good evening. I'm Casey Grove. Also tonight, after five years with Anchorage's alcohol tax, how is the revenue being used?
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Reporter/Interviewee
One of the purposes of it was to try to create new services to try to get upstream.
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Casey Grove
Those stories and more tonight on Alaska News Nightly. The government shutdown is delaying funding for a federal heating assistance program, according to the Alaska Department of Health. Thousands of low income Alaska families use the program to offset their heating costs and to weatherize their homes for winter, the Alaska Desk's Alyona Nydin reports.
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Reporter/Interviewee
The Alaska Department of Health said in a statement Thursday that the government shutdown has delayed the release of money for the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program program for the year of 2026. The program subsidizes energy bills for about 50,000 Alaskans, many of whom live in rural and tribal communities. Jennifer Hyde is a federal infrastructure coordinator at the statewide nonprofit the Alaska center, which advocates for the continuation of the program. It definitely benefits a lot of rural and tribal communities disproportionately. Those communities are often, you know, low income or have different economic struggles. The Shutdown began on October 1st. Funding for the heating assistance program usually comes in on November 1st. For now, the state health officials say they are operating the program using the remaining money from the previous year, and they say they expect that money to run out by mid November. The department said it usually takes four to six weeks for the heating assistance funds to be released to states after the shutdown is over. So if Congress acts in late November, Alaska would receive funding after mid December, according to the state health department. Alaska tribal organizations are raising the alarm. The Tanana Chiefs Conference administers heating assistance for over 1200 households. Amber Vaska is the executive director of tribal government and client services at the organization. She said by email that the federal program is a lifeline across the interior, end quote. Vaska said that the program, which also helps people weatherize their homes to cut on heating costs, is a way to ensure pipes don't freeze when temperatures drop to minus 50 in the interior. The government shutdown is also affecting other programs crucial for Alaska Native communities like food assistance and tribal Head Start. Hyde, with the Alaska center, says families who rely on heating assistance are the same vulnerable residents who will be affected by the loss of food benefits. It's going to be a really tough winner unless something can give. In the meantime, the state Department of Health said its staff is prioritizing applications by focusing on households in the heating emergency or at immediate risk of losing heat. It's also processing regular applications in the order they were received. If the federal money runs out. The department plans to continue processing new applications, though payments will be delayed until the new funds arrive. In Anchorage, I am Alena Knighton.
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Casey Grove
Alaska Senate Minority Leader Mike Schauer is resigning to focus on his campaign for lieutenant governor alongside gubernatorial candidate Bernadette Wilson. Schauer says he's concerned his duties as a legislator would create roadblocks in the campaign. For instance, state law prohibits sitting lawmakers from fundraising during legislative sessions.
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Mike Schauer
Going to the legislature and being sequestered for four months in Juneau and then.
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Casey Grove
Maybe a special session or two next.
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Mike Schauer
Year would limit my ability to fundraise and campaign. And in fact there can be ethical, you know, like you can violate the law if you're not careful. Right.
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Casey Grove
You can really make a mistake there. The Wasilla Republican represents a large chunk of the Matanuska, Susitna Borough and some other communities, including Talkeetna, Willow, Sutton and Valdez. He leads the all Republican minority that makes up about a third of the state Senate. He's been in the Senate since 2018. Once showers resignation takes effect on November 3rd, Governor Mike Dunleavy will have 30 days to appoint a new Republican to serve until the 2026 election. Schauer declined to say who Dunleavy should appoint to replace him, and the governor's office did not immediately respond to questions on the subject. But Schauer says he'd like it to be someone who shares his conservative views.
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Mike Schauer
What I think is important is that that person represents the values of my.
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Casey Grove
District and my district is very conservative. It's one of the most conservative politically in the state. Since Schauer is a Republican, state law requires Dunleavy to appoint a Republican to replace him. The appointment is subject to confirmation by other Senate Republicans. Sutton Republican Representative George Rauscher has registered as a candidate for Showers seat. Big Lake Republican Representative Kevin McCabe, who also lives in Showers district, has also filed campaign paperwork that would allow him to run for Shower's seat, as has former Alaska Wildlife Troopers head Doug Massey. The western Alaska disaster relief effort has moved to its next phase. Earlier this month, hurricane force winds and floods forced more than a thousand people from their homes. Many families were sent to mass shelters in Anchorage this week. The city has begun to transition them into temporary housing. KNBA's Rhonda McBride visited the Eagan Convention center downtown and talked with one of the counselors helping families prepare for their next step.
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Reporter/Interviewee
Little boys and girls are sad. They're homesick.
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Casey Grove
Tessie Chanarac is one of the counselors from South Central foundation watching out for families at the Eagan Center. She says counselors have been keeping kids occupied with games, and it's helped that Halloween is around the corner.
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Reporter/Interviewee
You know, Halloween is one of the fun seasons of the year because lots of candy, we got some costumes and we've got some hats and trick or treating bags. So anything for the little kids, too, so they seem to be more at home than their parents.
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Casey Grove
Chanarak says at first, when families moved into the shelter, the reality of what they had escaped had not yet sunk in. She saw families look at videos and photos captured on their cell phones over and over as if to try to understand what they had experienced.
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Reporter/Interviewee
I can't believe the typhoon kicked in. I can't believe our homes floated away. It's like that really happened. And yesterday when I was checking with folks, they were they're crying, they're tired. Despite that, Chanarek says families have held.
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Casey Grove
Up remarkably well, but she's glad they'll soon be transferred to temporary housing so they can begin their recovery. She says she's grateful for the elders because they've been a calming influence on everyone.
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Reporter/Interviewee
I really do admire that, that that gives me a tool that I can use, taking it one day at a time.
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Casey Grove
Chanarak wears a pair of angel wings that came from a Halloween costume known to the kids as Terrific Tessie.
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Reporter/Interviewee
She's originally from Tuksuk Bay, one of.
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Casey Grove
The communities also in the storm's path. She says she feels honored to be of help as both a counselor and a speaker of the Yupik language in anchorage. I'm Rhonda McBride, still to come on Alaska News Nightly, a maintenance worker at the University of Alaska Southeast, is also an amateur movement movie star. Occasionally a student will come up to me and say, I just watched it. It was so funny. Or it was good. That's ahead. Stay with us. The lower Kuskokwim river community of Akiak has been without power for nearly six weeks, unrelated to the typhoon remnant that swept through the region earlier this month. As KYUK's Evan Erickson reports, costs for residents continue to add up as winter sets in.
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Mike Schauer
Akiak Tribal Citizen Mike Williams Sr. Says his community of roughly 450 people is stretched thin from the ongoing lack municipal power.
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Reporter/Interviewee
It has been like almost 40 days and it has been a crazy month, but we're running out of resources.
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Mike Schauer
William Sr. Says fuel costs run roughly $70 a day for dozens of homes that have relied on personal generators since the power went out in late September. He says cold weather is compounding the problems for families.
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Reporter/Interviewee
Last night it got like 19 degrees and some of those generators froze and.
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Casey Grove
They had to work on their carburetors.
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Mike Schauer
Williams Sr. Says he's already burned through his $1,000 Permanent Fund dividend check from expenses related to the outage. The community's school and health clinic remain operational on backup generators, but for as many as 20 homes still without personal generators, Williams Sr. Says there has likely been a significant loss of subsistence foods. He welcomes the recent move by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game to open an emergency moose hunt aimed at helping communities affected by ex typhoon Ha Long, which is open to all Akiak residents. When personal generators can go back into storage and homes can be plugged back into the grid is unclear. In an emailed statement last week, the Alaska Energy Authority, the state run corporation assisting Akiak, wrote that it expected power to be restored on Wednesday, but now the hopes for restoration have been pushed until next weekend, according to Akiak Mayor Olinka Jones. In its statement, AEA cited an extensive record of mechanical failures due to poor maintenance and upkeep in Akiak when ack's main generator went down in the early morning hours of September 22nd. AEA wrote that three separate generators that could have served as backup options were inoperable due to little to no preventative scheduled maintenance. In a meeting held in early October, AEA Rural programs manager Chris McConnell explained that at least one additional generator will need to be operational to handle the increased load demands through the win. Performing oil changes and other scheduled maintenance will also require that multiple generators are operational. Now Akiak is nearing a repeat of the summer outage in 2024 that lasted nearly two months. William Sr. Refers to the power outages as a man made disaster.
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Casey Grove
I hope once the generators are repaired.
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Reporter/Interviewee
And going that we have personnel working on maintaining them to do it in.
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Casey Grove
Professional way instead of having to go through this once again.
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Mike Schauer
AEA says that it plans to meet with ACIAC's Utility Management Personnel to discuss training and best practices once power is restored. Mayor Olinka Jones says the city is already planning to take advantage of training opportunities this summer. But first, Akiak has a long winter ahead. In Bethel, I'm Evan Erickson.
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Casey Grove
In 2020, Anchorage voters approved a 5% alcohol tax to boost the city's ability to tackle pressing issues, including homelessness, domestic violence and substance misuse. But as Alaska Public Media's Wesley early reports, five years in, instead of going to new services, much of the tax is going to fill big budget holes from reduced federal and state funding.
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Wesley Early
The alcohol tax passed by Anchorage voters came with clear rules on how the money can be spent. The various funding buckets include public safety, domestic violence and child abuse prevention, substance misuse treatment and homelessness. Tiffany hall is CEO of Recover Alaska, a nonprofit aimed at reducing harmful effects of alcohol use statewide. She says her organization was one of the tax's main supporters.
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Reporter/Interviewee
One of the purposes of it was to try to create new services to try to get upstream and stop the need for all of these crises. All of the crisis intervention services, whether that's in domestic violence or homelessness or.
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Wesley Early
Treatment, the alcohol tax has brought in tens of millions of dollars. But officials say the challenge is that the tax passed around the same time that a lot of local service providers lost federal and state funding. And so, according to Ona Brauss, director of Anchorage's Office of Management and budget, about 80% of alcohol tax revenue has actually gone to replace that lost and keep the providers afloat.
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Reporter/Interviewee
The community demand was so great for those services that if that funding had resulted in disappearing entirely, we would have had an even bigger problem on our homelessness front and our other provision of social service network opportunities.
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Wesley Early
Now, five years into the alcohol tax, there's another challenge. The city's facing a budgetary crisis. Long reliant on property taxes and with declining state revenue over the past decade, Brous says the city is having to have hard conversations about all of spending, including the alcohol tax.
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Reporter/Interviewee
We have this new line of revenue that was established with specific intent, but I think that the outside world made some choices for us that we have to ask whether or not those choices are the same choices we should be making going forward.
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Wesley Early
Providers that receive a portion of the alcohol tax revenue say the funding has been vital in the face of federal cuts. Keely Olson is the executive director of Standing Together against rape or star. She says the nonprofit receives about $550,000 from the alcohol tax, and that funding goes toward prevention efforts, including education for students around consent and bodily autonomy.
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Reporter/Interviewee
We would not have been able to provide all of the prevention that we do throughout the municipality. Another way that we use the alcohol tax funding is providing counseling.
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Wesley Early
Another organization that receives alcohol tax funding is Abused Women's Aid in Cris Awake, a domestic violence shelter provider. Awake CEO Randy Breger says her nonprofit receives about $225,000 from the tax and without that she would have to cut shelter staff.
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Reporter/Interviewee
Instead of 67 survivors being served at one time, we might have to reduce that into a number that we can safely manage with less staff. And we're turning away people every day already. And so we already know the current size of the program we have does not effectively meet the needs of the city.
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Wesley Early
But other providers are not getting the fund they had hoped for. Hall, with Recover Alaska, says most of the tax revenue has gone to homelessness services, sometimes at the expense of other areas. The alcohol tax was supposed to address.
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Reporter/Interviewee
That three of the six years have $0 allocated to prevention and treatment of substance use disorders and mental health support is a travesty and it just makes no sense to me. The money is literally coming from alcohol. Some of it should be going to prevent and treat alcohol use disorders.
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Wesley Early
Hall says she recognizes that addressing homelessness is a major political and social issue for Anchorage, but she wishes there was a larger focus on preventing how people end up homeless.
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Reporter/Interviewee
If we continue to only focus on who needs help today, without addressing how to make sure a lot of folks won't need help 10 years from now, then we're never going to solve the problem and it's a tricky issue. I don't know. I don't know how to answer it, brause says.
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Wesley Early
Ultimately, the city is focused on maintaining an existing level of support services while finding ways to improve.
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Reporter/Interviewee
We're in this sort of balance point of absorbing the impacts from the state while trying to progress the conversation and change our current environment, Browse says.
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Wesley Early
Anchorage has lost about a billion dollars in state support over the last decade, and a big part of addressing the city's needs moving forward will have to do with potentially bringing new revenues to the city.
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Reporter/Interviewee
Are we going to maintain our allegiance to property tax funding? And that being the bulk of our funding, are we going to diversify our revenue streams to include other taxes?
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Wesley Early
Several new taxes have been floated by Anchorage assembly members, including a 1% sales tax, an increase to the city's room tax and a new tax on short term rentals. Additionally, Mayor Suzanne LaFrance's administration is currently drafting a proposal for a 3% sales tax. All of the revenue proposals are set to be taken up by the assembly in mid November. All of the proposed taxes would require voter approval reporting in Anchorage I'm Wesley Early.
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Casey Grove
Thousands of incarcerated Alaskans have been tested for syphilis through a program aimed at addressing the high number of cases in the state. The state's epidemiology department released new data on the effort this month. Alexandria Steele is the chief nursing officer for the Department of Corrections. She says incarcerated Alaskans may have had trouble accessing regular health care.
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Reporter/Interviewee
We can get them tested for syphilis and other STIs very quickly upon entry into our facilities, which allows us to do quick, targeted treatment.
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Casey Grove
The program is a collaboration between the state Department of Corrections and the Division of Public Health. Over the last two years, about 5,000 Alaskans in the state's prisons and jails have been tested. They could opt out of testing if they wished. More than a hundred of those people were diagnosed with syphilis and most completed treatment. Syphilis cases have been increasing over the past decade in Alaska and nationwide. Syphilis is easily treated but can be dangerous if left untreated, especially during pregnancy, when a woman can pass it to her unborn child. That can cause serious problems for the baby like blindness, deafness or stillbirth. Sarah Clark is a program manager for Alaska's Section of Epidemiology. She says the state has high rates of congenital syphilis partly because some women hit barriers to accessing prenatal care, instability.
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Reporter/Interviewee
In their housing arrangements, disruption in housing, disruptions in employment. Women are occasionally getting seen in emergency rooms and other settings. But really it's that lack of access to prenatal care and those are missed opportunities.
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Casey Grove
One woman in the program was pregnant and was diagnosed with syphilis, according to the data. Steele says the Department of Corrections also tests for other sexually transmitted infections and hepatitis C. She says she hopes the department can continue collaborating as people leave incarceration, including when people need long term treatment. The board of directors for Interior Alaska's electric co op, approved proposed rate hikes at their meeting on Tuesday. The changes stem from a rate case study Golden Valley Electric association has been working on throughout this year, KUAC's Patrick Gilchrist reports.
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Narrator/Announcer
Golden Valley says it last had a rate case in 2016 and that they're typically completed once every five to eight years, making this one overdue. The study is meant to align what the co op charges with its financial needs. The study is also meant to ensure each type of member, be they residential or industrial, is paying their fair share. The co op has a few service types its members fit into, and the proposed changes would apply to them differently. Rates for almost every type would go up under the plan, though, including an 8.4% increase to the utility charge for residential members. Rates for small businesses are the exception. That class would see a roughly 7.7% decrease to its utility charge. Utility charges are just one component of a member's overall bill, so those figures don't represent the percent change to members total bills. The proposed changes would also adjust the underlying structure that determines how rates are calculated for some other classes, like larger commercial or industrial members. The utility estimates it needs to bring in almost $11 million more in revenue, and board director Rick Sully says he's convinced the changes are well thought out and that they're necessary to keep the utility's services stable and reliable. Overall, I'm pleased it's not an insignificant amount of money we're going to raise.
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Casey Grove
Off our people, but mind you, this is some years in the making.
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Narrator/Announcer
Golden Valley's case filing will head to Alaska utility regulators later this year for their review. The analysis by the Regulatory Commission of Alaska, or RCA, can last up to 15 months. In the meantime, Golden Valley is requesting that regulators approve an interim increase of about 7.5% across all rate classes, which would take effect in mid January. That increase would apply to utility and demand charges, meaning it also doesn't translate to a 7.5% increase for total bills. The exact percent increase would vary for each rate class. Golden Valley regulatory manager Daniel Heckman says they'd abandon that interim increase if regulators approve the proposals in the rate case filing after the initial review period.
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Reporter/Interviewee
There is a world in a scenario where the RCA receives our filing and.
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Wesley Early
Approves it within the 45 day period and if that happens, then the permanent rates take effect.
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Narrator/Announcer
That's considered the less likely scenario, however, as most rate case filings are suspended so the regulatory commission can conduct the more in depth review. For KUAC News, I'm Patrick Gilchrist.
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Casey Grove
A beloved maintenance employee at the University of Alaska Southeast starred in a low budget sci fi comedy a decade ago. This week, some UAS students screened the film to honor their friendly campus handyman and to satisfy their own curiosity. KTO's Yvonne Crumry has this story. Hello aliens. This is Bruce from Earth. I'm still hauling my hog fat.
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Narrator/Announcer
All 20,000 tons of it.
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Casey Grove
It's been six months since I left Earth. I miss puppies.
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Reporter/Interviewee
That's a clip from the 2014 film Space Trucker Bruce. It's about a space trucker hauling hog fat. You heard that right through the galaxy. Who picks up a hitchhiker whose ship is broken down. Hijinks ensue.
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Casey Grove
Let's try and contact them. Do you actually want to contact the people that sent that scary message? We have to. If a ship receives a distress call, we're required to help by law.
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Reporter/Interviewee
It's a low budget sci fi comedy that just so happens to star UAS handyman Carl Sears. The film was made by a local filmmaker, Anton Dorian. He and Sears are old high school friends who reconnected in adulthood. They wanted to make a short film for the Jump Society festival in Juneau. On a drive one day, they came up with the idea of making a comedy about a space trucker. But the ideas kept coming and it spiraled into something bigger, says Dorian.
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Casey Grove
So it grew from making a short to making like a full length movie.
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Reporter/Interviewee
Six years later, Space Trucker Bruce, starring the two of them, debuted at Juno's Goldtown Theater. Sears says it's neat that the kids wanted to show it and invited them.
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Casey Grove
But it's cool, it's a little strange and like, what are you guys doing with your lives?
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Reporter/Interviewee
The film has been out for 11 years now and it's available for free on YouTube. So sometimes people stumble upon it.
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Casey Grove
People talk about it. Occasionally a student will come up to me and say, I just watched it, it was so funny. Or it was good, you know, or I watched it and they don't elaborate.
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Reporter/Interviewee
Sears says the film has been shown before, but this is the first screening he's come to. Ella Kelly is a residential advisor at uas. She organized the screening and like many students, she considers Sears a friend.
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Casey Grove
He's the only maintenance guy for housing.
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Reporter/Interviewee
So everybody's had like an encounter with Carl and they're all like good interactions because he's so nice and friendly. Kelly says she didn't know about the film until she saw a poster for it outside of his office. It's a great poster. It's always made me very curious because.
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Casey Grove
I'm a big fan of low budget film.
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Reporter/Interviewee
About a dozen students came to the screening and they filled the room with laughter. And Dorian says he has a new project coming soon that Kelly may like. It's called Girl Yeti in a Spaceship. And there are some thematic similarities.
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Casey Grove
There's a bored state worker, he's in management and he's bored.
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Narrator/Announcer
And he takes his dog out hiking.
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Casey Grove
One day and he sees Bigfoot and he starts following Bigfoot anding he finds this cave with a big spaceship in it and the spaceship is broken.
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Reporter/Interviewee
Hijinks ensue. Dorian says it comes out next year in Juneau. I'm Yvonne Crummery.
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Casey Grove
And that's all for this edition of Alaska News Nightly. If you missed any of tonight's stories, we're online@alaskapublic.org and wherever you get your podcasts. We had reports tonight from aliona Knyden, Rhonda McBride, Wesley early and Rachel Cassandra in Anchorage, Eric Stone and Yvonne Crumry and Juno Yvonne with all those hijinks there, Evan Erickson and Bethel, Patrick Gilchrist and Fairbanks. Our audio engineer is Chris Hyde. Madelyn Rose is our producer. And I'm Casey Grove. Good night.