Alaska Legislature

A delegation of lawmakers made an impromptu visit to the school on Feb. 6, calling the conditions and deteriorating facilities "deplorable."

Lawmakers with the bipartisan majority caucus have expressed support for more funding for schools, but point to Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s history of vetoes as a major roadblock.

On Feb. 9, the Alaska Senate voted 19-0 to extend a state of disaster until early March, retroactively extending a disaster declaration that expired Feb. 6.

Bethel Democratic Sen. Lyman Hoffman recently visited his hometown, where he says he plans to spend some quality time after doing what he can to help fund the state's ailing budget in his final legislative session.

Chronic absenteeism has remained high since the COVID-19 pandemic, but the reasons for why students are missing class are difficult to define and vary widely across the state.

Roughly half of Alaska’s school districts qualified for the five-year grant program, which is managed by the state’s education department.

The vote was the second successful veto override after lawmakers convened Saturday for a special session called by Dunleavy.

On Monday, July 28, the governor called for legislators to address what he called “Alaska’s chronic education outcome crisis,” and to reconsider his executive order they had previously voted down, creating a new Alaska Department of Agriculture that he said would strengthen food security in Alaska.

Despite unfinished business in the Alaska Legislature, school districts across the state have reached the deadline to submit the operating budgets that will carry them into 2026. Most of the sprawling districts that serve the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta say they have already planned for the worst.

Hoffman has served in the state Capitol, representing Southwest Alaska, since 1987. As he prepares to leave office, he said he thinks the state’s biggest unresolved issue is the affordability of living in Alaska, particularly with regard to the cost of energy.