Alaska Beacon

The commissioner of Alaska’s Department of Family and Community Services has departed that position to take a job with the Trump administration.

Kim Kovol has accepted a job with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Gov. Mike Dunleavy announced last week. Her last day working for the state was on Friday, and Tracy Dompeling, the department’s deputy commissioner, assumed the role of acting commissioner, the statement said.

The department’s primary divisions are the Division of Juvenile Justice, the Alaska Psychiatric Institute, the Alaska Pioneer Homes and the Office of Children’s Services.

Kovol was the first commissioner of the Department of Family and Community Services, which was created in 2022. Up to then, its functions were part of the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services. Through an executive order, Dunleavy split that department into two: the Department of Health and the Department of Family and Community Services.

In his statement, Dunleavy said Kovol was a “strong and dedicated leader” for the redesigned department. “As the first Commissioner of DFCS, she built a foundation focused on service, accountability, and support for Alaska’s most vulnerable populations. I thank her for her service and wish her every success in this next role,” he said.

Kovol said she was honored to have served in that role. “I am incredibly grateful to the staff, partners, and communities who have supported our work. Together, we have made meaningful progress for Alaska families, youth, and elders, and I will always be proud of what we have accomplished,” she said in the statement.

Kovol is the second Alaska department head to leave state service to join the Trump administration. Almost a year ago, Emma Pokon left her position as commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation to become the Pacific Northwest regional administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Dunleavy in May chose Randy Bates to be the department’s new commissioner. Bates was formerly director of DEC’s Division of Water.

With Kovol’s departure, there are now five state departments with leaders who currently lack legislative approval.

In addition to Bates, Dunleavy has named commissioner-designees for the Department of Law and the Department of Natural Resources. Dunleavy in August named Stephen Cox, a former U.S. attorney in Texas, as Alaska’s attorney general, replacing Treg Taylor, a Republican who is running for governor.

Dunleavy also named John Crowther, a DNR veteran, as his choice to be permanent commissioner. Crowther became acting commissioner after John Boyle resigned from the position in October.

Bates, Cox and Crowther are subject to legislative confirmation after lawmakers convene later this month for their 2026 session.

The state Department of Revenue is currently being led by an acting commissioner, Janelle Earls, who assumed the job in August after Adam Crum left the commissioner post. Crum is another Republican candidate for governor.

Dunleavy has not yet named his choices for the commissioner posts at the Department of Revenue or the Department of Family and Community Services, said Jeff Turner, the governor’s spokesperson. Earls and Dompeling are currently acting commissioners and it is not clear whether the governor will name commissioner-designees for those positions, he said.

Dunleavy is in the last year of his second term. He is term limited and may not run for reelection.

Alaska was awarded more federal money than any state besides Texas for a federal rural health initiative, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced on Monday.

The money will come from the Rural Health Transformation Fund, a $50 billion program set up as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and intended to counteract the effects of its sweeping Medicaid cuts in rural areas.

Alaska’s congressional delegation and state officials lauded the federal investment, which will be upwards of $272 million in Alaska in 2026.

At a Wednesday news conference in Anchorage, Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, said the $1.36 billion the state is slated to receive over the next five years is the biggest investment from the federal government to Alaska’s health care system in state history.

“This is a generational opportunity for our state,” he said.

Heidi Hedberg, commissioner of the state’s health department said a major goal is to rework the state’s “fragmented” health system.

She said the agency will release more information about its plan for the money in the coming days, but pointed to the state’s application to the program, which outlines six priorities: maternal and child health, access to services, preventative care, a strengthened workforce, financial sustainability and updated technology and data systems.

Emily Ricci, the agency’s deputy commissioner, said that core to the state’s application was the question of how to support services that already exist in the state.

“Part of our focus was making sure that the tribal communities could see some of the ways that they want to sustain their programs and evolve or build their programs out further into something that provides more access and sustainable costs,” she said. “So I would say that those opportunities are written in each one of the initiatives.”

She did not immediately supply specific examples.

The state’s application also commits to adherence to several policies favored by the Trump administration, including a pledge to join licensure compacts and prohibit the use of federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funds to buy soda pop by 2027.

Several of those commitments require the approval of the state’s legislature or medical board.

Hedberg said her agency will work with those decision makers to follow through on the commitments the state made in its application.

In a virtual meeting with reporters after the state’s news conference, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, challenged the state administration and legislators to take on the question of rebuilding the state’s health care system as a major issue.

In response to a reporter’s question, she said she was worried about the reliability of the funding because the state could fail to make the most of the opportunity or because the federal government could pause or cancel the funding.

“I know that we’re going into an election year next year. I know that the Permanent Fund always takes up space. I know we’re going to be talking about the gas line,” she said. “But we must, we must absolutely be talking about this health care opportunity that we have in front of us now.”

Framed by the fireplace in Alaska’s governor’s mansion earlier this month, Gov. Mike Dunleavy shook hands and posed for pictures in the final holiday open house of his two terms as Alaska’s top elected official.

Dunleavy is prohibited from running for another term, and 14 candidates have already signed up to run for his office in the 2026 elections. One of those candidates, Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom stood next to Dunleavy at the open house, smiling alongside her husband.

Speaking to reporters before the open house, Dunleavy said the highlight of the year at a statewide level was the signing of a gas pipeline contract with developer Glenfarne.

“It started what I think is going to be a real pipeline,” Dunleavy said. “It’s something that the state has dreamed about for decades, ever since the trans-Alaska oil pipeline came into being.”

Since January, when Glenfarne announced it was buying into the long-pursued Alaska LNG pipeline project, it’s announced a series of preliminary agreements from international companies interested in buying gas.

To date, it doesn’t have firm deals for either buying or selling, and it is expected to make a go/no-go decision on the first phase of the project — a pipeline from the North Slope to Southcentral Alaska for in-state use — within the next month.

“I think in January there’s going to be some major announcements that will solidify that this pipeline as a go,” Dunleavy said.

Dunleavy said he’s also been pleased with rising forecasts for Alaska North Slope oil. In November, the federal Energy Information Administration predicted that North Slope production would grow 13% in 2026, reaching levels that haven’t been seen since 2018.

“That’s good for Alaska as well,” Dunleavy said, “because of the renaissance on the Slope.”

The state’s unemployment rate is holding below 5%, he noted.

“When you look at the turmoil across the country and you look at the turmoil across the world, I think Alaska is in pretty good shape. … We have a lot of resources here, and I think we have a lot of great people,” he said.

Asked for the lowest point of the year on a statewide basis, Dunleavy said: “You’re always dealing with disasters. Under my tenure, there’s been 73 declared disasters … we had the issue out in Western Alaska, and so we have to add now a typhoon to our mix of volcanoes, earthquakes and so forth.”

Dunleavy himself was affected by the recent Matanuska-Susitna Borough windstorm disaster, and his wife couldn’t attend the holiday open house as a result.

“We lost some of our roofing on a building or two out there, and the heat went out,” he said.

While disasters are part of living in Alaska, he said Typhoon Halong was something extra.

“I would say that whenever a disaster impacts people at the visceral level, at the local level, at their household level — we got hit hard with that typhoon,” he said.

For much of the year, as in his conversation with reporters, the governor preferred to focus on the positives.

Earlier this year, Dunleavy said the arrival of the Trump administration was “like Christmas every morning” for Alaska.

Since Trump was sworn into office, his administration has relaxed restrictions on oil and gas drilling on the North Slope. It has advanced the Ambler Access Project, which promises to open a large mining area in Northwest Alaska.

The Interior Department has also pushed forward the road between Cold Bay and King Cove and proposals to explore for oil in the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The Dunleavy administration has been enthusiastic in its support of those actions, but most have been tied up in federal court and will be for months or years.

The ANWR drilling issue, for example, won’t even come before a federal judge until late 2026, according to a status update published this month in the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska.

The Trump-backed Big Beautiful Bill Act passed by Congress this year will deliver millions of dollars in construction projects to the state, and other legislation will provide millions more, but other projects — particularly those involving renewable energy and projects intended to deal with climate change — were eliminated.

“Christmas every morning” entailed other metaphorical bits of coal for Alaska this year: The extended government shutdown left thousands of Alaskans unpaid for over a month, and the cuts instituted by the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency caused significant amounts of uncertainty.

In the long run, DOGE doesn’t appear to have significantly affected the number of federal jobs here: The latest available figures show more federal employees in the state than there were at the start of the year.

While some federal grants targeted by DOGE have since been restored, many were not. Public radio stations and arts organizations laid off staff and curtailed their work.

Tariffs, visa issues and a prolonged dispute with Canada threatened the summer tourist season, but a feared Yukon boycott never appeared, and the number of cruise ship passengers traveling to Alaska increased slightly, to a new record high of more than 1.7 million.

At the holiday open house, Dunleavy said there’s plenty to look forward to in the coming year and in the years once he leaves office.

“There’s just a whole host of things — the possibility of data farms, artificial intelligence, and how that’s gonna revolutionize not just the world, but here in Alaska, I think we could become a data transportation center because of our proximity on the globe. So I think you’re going to see a number of announcements throughout the year that I think will set the stage for a great several decades going forward,” he said.

One of Rep. Nick Begich III’s uncles is endorsing his main Democratic opponent, Matt Schultz, in next year’s election. Tom Begich’s name was atop a list released to the Alaska Beacon by Schultz’s campaign this month.

Begich’s endorsement of his nephew’s opponent won’t surprise people familiar with Alaska politics — he’s a longtime figure in the state’s Democratic scene, has been publicly critical of his nephew’s actions and is running as a Democrat in the governor’s election — but Schultz’s list and a similar list of endorsements by Republicans for Begich III shows how the state’s political establishment is settling on a two-person race for U.S. House, unlike the crowded contest for governor.

“It will be awkward. It’s always awkward,” Tom Begich said of the endorsement, “ but my mom taught us to learn to live with disagreement, to move beyond it. It doesn’t change the fact that I love my nephew. Just, I’m not supporting him in this election.”

Tom Begich is among 14 people — 12 Republicans and two Democrats — who have registered to run for governor in next year’s election.

Incumbent Gov. Mike Dunleavy is term-limited and unable to run.

While there are plenty of candidates for the governor’s seat, the number of people running for federal office is tiny. Incumbent U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, a Republican, doesn’t have a well-known challenger yet. Former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, a Democrat, has been rumored as a possible opponent but has yet to file.

In the U.S. House race, as Begich III seeks re-election, he has the endorsement of President Donald Trump and a wide range of state and national Republicans, including those running for governor on different tickets.

The same is true on the Democratic side, where support for Schultz appears almost entirely united.

“I’m very pleased to support him and glad he’s running,” said state Sen. Matt Claman, D-Anchorage and the other Democratic candidate in the governor’s race.

“I think he’s more connected with the general, broad spectrum of values in Alaska, more connected with some of the challenges we’re facing. He’s really looking carefully at how we’re dealing with homelessness, and I think he’s concerned about some of the affordability issues that are particularly a challenge in rural Alaska,” Claman said of Schultz.

Among the other people endorsing Schultz are independent state Rep. Alyse Galvin, who ran unsuccessfully for U.S. House in 2020 and 2018, and Forrest Dunbar, a Democratic state senator who ran unsuccessfully for House in 2014.

One notable absence is Peltola, who held Alaska’s U.S. House seat for one term before Begich III defeated her in the 2024 election.

Also missing is longtime Democrat Mark Begich, the incumbent Republican’s other uncle and Alaska’s U.S. senator from 2009 to 2015.

“There’s definitely been a lot of support from Democrats all around the state, and I’m very grateful for that. It seems to be a lot of coalescing support,” Schultz said by phone.

A pastor in Anchorage, Schultz spoke on the day that the U.S. House announced that it would not vote to renew subsidies for health insurance policies purchased on the federal marketplace.

Without those subsidies, the prices of many policies will spike with the start of the year.

“That’s really, really sad and disturbing,” Schultz said. “It seems like it should be a no-brainer that you start out by making sure that people can afford their lifesaving medicine.”

Schultz said that as he’s gone around seeking early support for his campaign, he’s found joy and excitement among people who want to find a common good.

“It really is this wonderful excitement to say — just like we pulled together as a nation to go to the moon, we can pull together as a state to provide food and health care to people. It’s a goal that matters so much and is so basically good at its heart that people can’t wait to start working for it,” he said. “I think there’s a hope out there that has felt absent in the last decade or so.”

A years-old mistake by the Alaska Department of Motor Vehicles voter registration program has endangered the citizenship of two prominent Kodiak residents and could cause them to be deported, according to a newly filed lawsuit in Alaska’s federal court.

The suit, filed Thursday by Eva Benedelova and Pavel Benedela in the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska, says U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services canceled their citizenship oath ceremony because they were erroneously registered to vote in Alaska when they updated their driver’s licenses in 2022.

USCIS is overdue on a decision about their citizenship, the suit claims, and it asks a judge to order final action.

Attorney Margaret Stock, who is representing the couple, said there’s a bigger issue at stake: Many more Alaskans may unknowingly be facing the same problem.

According to a timeline provided by the Alaska Division of Elections, between 2022 and 2024, “less than 50” Alaskans, “mostly non citizens,” were “being registered to vote through DMV online transactions such as address updates, license renewals, etc.” despite stating that they were not U.S. citizens and did not want to register to vote.

The Division of Elections admitted the error involving the Kodiak couple, apologized, and wrote a letter saying that Benedelova and Benedela did nothing wrong. The couple never voted and immediately canceled their voter registration when they discovered the problem.

Alaska Senate President Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak, and Rep. Louise Stutes, R-Kodiak, submitted a letter of support for the couple. The office of U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, has also been working on the case and advocating for the couple. The couple’s employer, North Pacific Seafoods, backs them too.

“The errors in 2022 and 2024 were committed by the Alaska DMV, not by these upstanding individuals,” wrote Dave Hambleton, President of North Pacific Seafoods.

Despite that support and extensive documentation about the error, USCIS sent a letter to Pavel Benedela on Dec. 5 stating that the federal agency is seeking further evidence and that “false claims to U.S. citizenship and voting violations … even renders an alien deportable.”

The couple have two children who have grown up in the United States, Stock said. If either one of them becomes a citizen, the children will, too. If they don’t, all could be deported.

“It’s an insane situation,” Stock said. “It shouldn’t be happening. It’s not right. It’s unjust. The state’s at fault, and they shouldn’t be punishing these folks because of errors made by State of Alaska employees.”

According to the complaint, the delay in the Kodiak couple’s citizenship application appears to be due in part to a federal policy implemented by USCIS in May 2025 that requires the agency’s headquarters to approve all matters where an applicant has been registered to vote in the United States.

“By the way, blanket policies like that are unlawful,” Stock said.

According to a timeline of events provided by the Alaska Division of Elections, the errors affecting the Kodiak couple and an unknown number of other Alaskans took place at the DMV between 2022 and 2024.

Alaska law allows people who update their driver’s licenses — or get new ones — to automatically register themselves to vote.

It’s supposed to be an opt-in process, but in 2022, an update to DMV’s system “cause(d) online transactions with DMV to automatically opt-in people who don’t select either yes or no,” an act that sent voter registrations to the Division of Elections, the division’s timeline states.

In the case of Benedelova and Benedela, someone along the process — likely a state employee — filled out the voter registration form in their name, copying their signatures without their knowledge or consent.

“I confirm that Mr. Benedela and Mrs. Benedelova did not specify on any DOE document that they are U.S. citizens,” wrote elections supervisor Ryan Wilson on Dec. 12. “Additionally, your signatures on the voter registration forms are a digital copy of which neither of you was aware of its use.”

Stock said that while Benedela and Benedelova are the only people who have come forward publicly about the issue, she is aware of others in the same position.

“I can tell you that I know other people the same things happen to, so it’s not just a one-off with these two people,” she said.

Stock said that in her career, she’s seen many examples of people mistakenly registered to vote because of a lack of understanding about what a citizen is, but this case is something different.

“The creepy thing is that the registration form says you’re not allowed to use an electronic signature on it, but the state’s been doing that anyway. … We have a copy of their voter registration form, and the state created that on their own, without the immigrants’ knowledge, and submitted it and checked off that they were US citizens. Some employee of the state is really doing bad things, basically,” Stock said.

A spokesperson for the Alaska Department of Administration, which oversees the DMV, did not answer questions by the deadline for this article on Friday.

The Division of Elections, which has been examining the issues for years, provided detailed documentation and explanations, as well as an apology it sent the couple.

According to its timeline of events, Benedelova was registered to vote through the DMV process in September 2022.

The division became aware of noncitizens being registered to vote by the DMV in 2023 or 2024 and worked with the DMV to reword their forms and change the process so people who opted out did not have their information sent to the division.

An additional question was also added to the process: “Are you a U.S. Citizen?”

Despite those changes, the effects of the erroneous process appear to be lingering. This summer, the U.S. Department of Justice asked Alaska and other states to provide copies of their voter rolls in order to identify noncitizens who may have illegally participated in state or local elections.

The data provided by the division and obtained by the Beacon via a public records request included an inactive voters list with 541 people whose records were tagged as “NC” for non-citizen.

Among those 541 people were Benedelova and Benedela, who had canceled their registrations in 2024 immediately after learning they had been erroneously registered.

At the time the record was released, the director of the Division of Elections said to treat it cautiously because some people might have been erroneously labeled.

“When we have gone in there and looked and contacted them, we have found that usually it was a mistake,” she said.

The Alaska Department of Corrections has reported 18 people have died in custody of the state’s prisons and jails so far this year – on par with the state’s highest death count in 2022. Advocates and lawmakers say the number is “devastating” and “preventable,” and are calling for the reinstatement of an independent oversight body to investigate.

The count now brings the total in-custody deaths reported by DOC since 2020 to 84, an increasing number in recent years with at least 15 deaths reported in 2024 and 10 deaths in 2023.

“It’s devastating, it’s preventable, and it’s unacceptable that there haven’t been any changes made to reduce deaths in custody,” said Megan Edge, director of integrated justice with the ACLU of Alaska in an interview.

DOC officials, through a spokesperson, declined to comment on the number of the deaths.

The ACLU is calling for the reinstatement of an independent oversight body to investigate the circumstances of in-custody deaths and reduce risks, Edge said.

The state created a special internal investigative unit in DOC in 2016, following a 2015 report that widespread failures and dysfunction within the system led to at least six in-custody deaths. But the unit was dissolved in 2018 during budget cuts under the Dunleavy administration.

Betsy Holley, a spokesperson for DOC, declined an interview but said by email Wednesday that the agency has no plans to resurrect that unit.

“The unit was eliminated, reducing duplicative functions, reducing costs and moving to a more transparent investigative process,” she said.

The Alaska State Troopers, with the Alaska Department of Public Safety, investigate death incidents, not DOC, she said. “DPS is the investigative agency assigned to review incidents and because they are not affiliated with DOC, investigations are conducted independently, ensuring neutrality and objectivity,” Holley said.

Rep. Andrew Gray, D-Anchorage, and chair of the House Judiciary Committee, said he will look into the process of creating such a system in the next legislative session. He said it should be external and independent from DOC. “There’s just no doubt that the way we currently have it, which is that there’s not really any organized official oversight happening, it’s just unacceptable,” he said.

Gray said he would like to see an independent unit created to investigate DOC deaths, so that details and reports can be verified, and best practices are in use.

“We can’t verify that they are following the correct protocols, that there are ways of reporting warning signs, or assessing folks who are at risk. We have no way of knowing,” he said. “And when we have a death toll that’s high, we have a right to question if there are mistakes being made, and we are questioning whether mistakes have been made.”

The ACLU is also calling for changes in Alaska law to allow more people who are elderly and with terminal illnesses to be released on medical and geriatric parole, which Gray said his office would be pursuing in the next legislative session starting in January.

At least 18 reported deaths by DOC in 2025, one more by the ACLU

Most recently, DOC reported the death of Kane Huff, 46, on Dec. 15 in Goose Creek Correctional Center, bringing the state’s total in-custody deaths for this year to 18 people.

DOC releases limited information on the causes and circumstances around in-custody deaths. But the department included a note when it announced eight of this year’s deaths — nearly half of them, including Kane’s — saying in the case of an “expected death” the Alaska State Troopers and State Medical Examiner’s office are notified. That office determines the cause of death.

Alaska’s prison population is aging, with an estimated 21% being 55 and older, according to DOC data. DOC officials testified to the Alaska State Legislature earlier this year that more in custody deaths were due to “natural causes,” including acute and chronic disease and illness — or 68% of deaths since 2016.

Over half of this year’s in-custody deaths, or ten people, were over the age of 60. The oldest was Keith Landers, at 94 years old, who died on Nov. 24, and the youngest was Christopher Ligons, 30 years old who died on June 28.

At least four of the deaths have been ruled suicides, according to Alaska State Troopers, news reports and investigation by the ACLU of Alaska. One was Aaron Merritt, who died on Nov. 26 and was a Kenai church member, as reported by KDLL Public Radio.

Seven people died this year while under arrest and awaiting trial – one person in custody for less than a day – and two people were convicted and awaiting sentencing.

At least two in-custody deaths followed violent altercations. Jeffrey Foreman, 53, died on Jul. 11 after being restrained by correctional officers after a fight with a cellmate in the Anchorage Correctional Complex, according to Alaska Public Media.

Not on the DOC list this year is William Farmer, 36, who died in an Anchorage hospital on Jan. 6, after an assault by a cellmate in the Anchorage Correctional Complex. The case involved mental health issues and DOC failed to release the cellmate who was found incompetent to stand trial. Both families have questioned why the two men were placed in the same cell, according to reporting by the Anchorage Daily News.

DOC has said the case was not reported as an in-custody death because Farmer was released on bail after he was hospitalized. The ACLU has criticized DOC for a pattern of releasing inmates who are hospitalized or dying.

DOC attributes more deaths to natural causes

DOC medical and correctional officials testified to the Legislature earlier this year that more in-custody deaths were due to natural causes, like chronic disease and illness, whereas in previous years more deaths were attributed to drug overdoses.

Alaska’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Robert Lawrence, who previously served as the chief medical officer for DOC from 2013 to 2024, said in an interview last year that the state’s inmate population has higher needs for care than the state’s population as a whole.

“Prisons are not just warehouses where we put people. These are neighborhoods within the larger community. And one of the things that we recognize about this unique neighborhood that is a correctional institution is that it tends to have a concentrating effect, meaning that any of the issues that we’re dealing with in the community get concentrated within this prison environment,” he said.

ACLU’s Edge said the increasing physical and mental health care needs of inmates is well known, and DOC should be doing more to provide adequate care.

“It’s not new and is not unique. People in prison are some of the often sickest people in our society and in Alaska especially, because we have such limited resources for physical and mental health care and substance use treatment,” Edge said. “Often the response in our communities is to incarcerate people. If people are homeless, they are taken to jail. People with mental illness are often put in jail. People experiencing substance use disorder are put in jail.”

She pointed to the state of Alaska’s legal obligation to provide people with health care while they’re in custody, including access to mental health care resources and treatment.

“We hear stories from people who are experiencing suicidal ideation and thrown into solitary confinement, stripped of their clothing and placed in a suicide smock till they say they feel better,” she said. “That’s not mental health care.”

On average, 4,500 people are incarcerated in Alaska’s jails and prisons each year, either awaiting trial or sentencing, or serving criminal sentences. That average population has been steady over the last decade. Edge pointed out that the death rate is growing, while the overall population is not.

“Our death numbers continue to rise and stay disproportionately high for the amount of people that we actually have incarcerated,” she said.

Deaths prompt legal action

The ACLU filed a federal class-action lawsuit in May challenging DOC’s health care system as inadequate and inhumane, which includes an investigation and documentation of a variety of cases where inmates’ failed to be treated, resulting in deteriorating health conditions.

The civil rights group is also part of two wrongful death lawsuits, one for Lewis Jordan Jr. who suffered an untreated ear infection while incarcerated at Goose Creek Correctional Center in 2023 that developed into fatal meningitis.

The lawsuit claims “deliberate indifference” from DOC, and that Jordan’s death was preventable. The families of James Rider and Mark Cook Jr., who died in pretrial custody in 2022 and 2023, have also filed lawsuits seeking restitution and damages.

Expanding opportunities for medical and geriatric parole

For the elderly and those with severe or terminal illnesses, Gray said he would like to see Alaska move toward a compassionate release program, which would also be a cost saving measure for the state.

“I think people kind of know this intuitively. Folks in their sixties and seventies need to see the doctor more than folks in their twenties and thirties, and so if we’re incarcerating a large population of folks who are older, they’re going to require a lot more health care, and that health care is more expensive,” Gray said.

The cost to the state for incarceration is estimated to be $202 per person per day in Alaska, compared to an estimated $13 per day on parole.

“It is extraordinarily expensive. We cannot afford to be running basically nursing homes in our prisons,” Gray said. “We have a mechanism in Alaska for those folks who are very, very, very unlikely to be able to commit any more crimes, let’s get them out of our system. Let’s get them back to their families.”

Alaska has a special medical and geriatric parole to release those who are elderly and with a terminal illness, and have been found to no longer pose a risk to the public.

But that system is not currently being used – the Alaska Parole Board has not granted anyone medical or geriatric release in the last five years, since 2020.

Edge said due to restrictions in the current law for those convicted of unclassified felonies – like first-degree murder and sexual assault – people may not be eligible for parole. It would require the legislature to take action to change the law.

“So it’s really inaccessible for the people that actually need it,” Edge said. “I’m thinking of one person in particular who was wheelchair bound, blind and in his eighties. And his family, his children, had a plan to take care of him, and he could not get out. He was denied discretionary parole, and was ineligible for geriatric and special medical parole because he was convicted of an unclassified felony.”

Deaths reported by DOC in 2025:

Pedro George Rubke, 78

Reginald Eugene Childers, Jr., 42

Nathaniel David Leask, 49

Marcias Zoritas Reinhold, 83

Lena Lola Lynn, 63

Alvin Lynn Archa Jr., 62

Carl K Thompson, 68

Christopher Ligons, 30

Jeffrey Daniel Foreman, 53

Mattfi Abruska, 78

Robert Ahvik, 62

Joshua Paul Keeling, 35

Kurt Charles Malutin, 37

Barry John McCormack, 74

Donald Scott Hotch Sr., 78

Keith Landers, 93

Aaron Scott Merritt, 45

Kane William Huff, 46