Alaska

The federal government is reviewing a business program that brings contracting opportunities to Alaska Native corporations and tribes.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said in a video posted on X Jan. 16 that his department will review the 8(a) Business Development Program. The program falls under the federal Small Business Administration and supports businesses owned by socially disadvantaged individuals or tribal entities, including Alaska Native corporations.

Hegseth said in the video that the program promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion framework and race-based contracting.

“We are taking a sledgehammer to the oldest DEI program in the federal government,” Hegseth said. “Our goal is to spend your money to build our defense industrial base with businesses, large and small, that share our mission.”

Quinton Carroll, the executive director of the Native American Contractors Association, originally from Utqiaġvik, said that Native participation in the program is not a diversity, equity and inclusion initiative.

“It is grounded in the unique political and legal status of tribal nations under U.S. law and fulfills longstanding federal trust and treaty obligations to tribes, Alaska Native Corporations and Native Hawaiian Organizations,” Carroll said.

Tribal participation in the program

Alaska Native Corporations rely heavily on federal contracts, which they often secure through the 8(a) program.

In 2021, corporations received more than $11 billion from federal contracts, which were their primary source of revenue, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. More than a half of that revenue came through the 8(a) program, and the majority of those contracts were with the Department of Defense, according to that research.

Christopher Slottee, an attorney who ‎works with Alaska Native villages, regional corporations and tribal governments, said that makes the Pentagon’s review of the program “a significant concern” for tribes and corporations.

“They often rely on those contracts to generate the revenue that lets them provide the benefits to their shareholders and tribal members,” he said.

Slottee said that tribal entities are subject to the same standards, reviews and compliance requirements as everyone else, but they do have a few advantages in the program.

Slottee said tribal entities, unlike individuals, don’t have to prove their social disadvantage. They can also have multiple companies in the program, while individuals can only have one. Plus, tribal entities have significantly higher limits for certain awards, he said.

Slottee said a government agency also might want to contract with an Alaska Native organization because they often have more experience than some of the traditional small businesses. And there are treaty obligations to fulfill, he added.

“There is a general, government-wide encouragement for agencies to contract with entities owned by tribes and ANCs, as part of the government’s responsibility to Alaska Natives and Native Americans,” he said.

The DoD review of the program 

Hegseth ordered a line-by-line review of 8(a) contracts that are over $20 million in value. He said in a memorandum to the Pentagon leadership that the department would get rid of contracts that don’t make the country’s military more lethal.

“We have no room in our budget for wasteful DEI contracts that don’t help us win wars,” he said in the social media video.

Carroll, with the Native American Contractors Association, said that Native federal contractors have been partners of the Department of Defense, working to strengthen readiness and the military industrial base.

Hegseth also said the department would make sure that the businesses with contracts were actually doing the work. He claimed that small businesses often receive a contract, take a fee and then pass the job on to a larger firm that’s not eligible for the program.

In June, the Small Business Administration ordered an audit of the 8(a) program following a fraud investigation. The Treasury Department has also been looking into potential misuse of the program.

Carroll said Native contractors support the elimination of fraud and waste within the program.

“It is critical that oversight efforts preserve a program that has proven its value — strengthening national security, reinforcing the defense industrial base, and supporting economic growth in Native and surrounding communities,” Carroll said.

Other threats to the program

The 8(a) program has faced recent scrutiny from other directions as well.

President Trump signed an executive order in April directing the rewriting of federal contracting regulations. Slottee, the attorney, said the revision has been completed, but it’s not clear yet how the changes will affect tribal entities.

He said that there is more focus now on the use of larger contracts, which can be harder for smaller corporations and tribes to access.

“It’s going to take a little bit for folks to actually see the kind of on-the-ground downstream impact, but we definitely anticipate seeing that in the course of 2026,” Slottee said.

Earlier this month, the Small Business Administration issued an announcement that, among other things, described a massive reduction in how many applications were approved for the program.

“The Trump SBA accepted just 65 new 8(a) firms into the program last year – compared to over 2,100 who were accepted during the Biden Administration,” it said.

Slottee said that the many Native-owned businesses felt that reduction.

“There is a concern that ANCs and tribes will have to start looking for alternatives,” he said. “If the SBA is not going to be approving new 8(a) applications, even though they should be under the rule established by Congress, that’s going to be a downstream impact on ANCs and tribes.”

Former Alaska Revenue Commissioner Adam Crum deviated from state policy and failed to perform the necessary due diligence before committing millions in state savings to a private equity fund, according to an outside review ordered by Gov. Mike Dunleavy after Crum’s decision came to light last summer.

In its report, the D.C.-based law firm WilmerHale said its investigation had raised “significant concerns” about whether Crum met his fiduciary duties under state law. Investigators also found Crum engaged outside lawyers to represent the state in the investment without obtaining the approval of the attorney general “in apparent contravention” of state law, according to the report.

“Mr. Crum’s process for selecting the DigitalBridge fund and the two other private funds in which he intended to invest did not involve rigorous due diligence, and Mr. Crum did not follow Department of Revenue protocols designed to assist him in meeting his fiduciary duties in connection with the investment,” the report states.

The state ultimately invested some $50 million from its primary rainy-day fund, the Constitutional Budget Reserve, with the private equity firm DigitalBridge. The investigation found that Crum intended to invest $75 million with the firm.

The investment came to light shortly after Crum left office to run for governor. The state ultimately sold the investment to an Israeli insurance company and lost roughly $859,000, according to a letter sent to the state House and Senate’s finance committees. A portion of the $50 million sent to DigitalBridge that was not invested yielded $325,000 in interest, offsetting a portion the loss, according to the letter.

“Clearly, this was an unsuitable investment for the (Constitutional Budget Reserve). No question about it,” said Sitka Republican Sen. Bert Stedman. “The ex-commissioner broke his fiduciary duty to execute it.”

Shortly after the legislative session began in Juneau this month, Stedman introduced a bill that would bar the state from doing business with DigitalBridge.

The report, which cost the state an additional $350,000, found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing or self-dealing. And it said Crum had the authority as revenue commissioner to commit money to the private equity fund. But that’s only if he had done the requisite due diligence, and the report says there’s reason to believe he didn’t.

In a phone interview, Crum said he tried his best to keep everything above board. The private equity investment was an effort to simultaneously boost the returns of the savings account and spur investment in Alaska, and he kept in touch with the Department of Law and the governor’s office about the investment, he said.

“I actually had multiple communications with (the Department of) Law, even with Treasury staff, trying to actually figure out what — I would send emails and ask the questions that say, have we met all of the legal duties in order to actually fulfill this?” Crum said.

But according to the investigation, he chose not to inform the governor’s budget office, the legislative auditor, or members of the Legislature as state policy requires. He wrote on a checklist outlining the policy for so-called “non-routine investments” — created after a state investment misadventure in 2015 — that “Treasury must not abdicate its statutory authority.”

Crum also failed to inquire with the Department of Law whether the investment met his fiduciary obligations under state law, according to the investigation.

Crum casts the issues the investigation raises as “procedural.” Details, he said, were not his mandate as revenue commissioner.

“It’s not about being technically proficient on all that stuff. It’s knowing the overall concepts,” he said. “Making sure that you actually are the expert on the actual delivery of that thing — no, that is not the case. That’s why you have staff. Otherwise, why do you have staff?”

The report included four recommendations aimed at avoiding similar issues in the future. As it was released, Gov. Mike Dunleavy issued an administrative order implementing many of the recommendations by placing additional checks on the revenue commissioner’s authority to invest in unconventional assets.

In the order, Dunleavy said the changes were intended to “enhance the transparency of investment decisions.”

Alaska had fewer overdose deaths in 2024 than in the year prior, and state health officials are working on ways to continue to reduce that total in the future.

In all, 339 people died from drug overdoses in 2024 Alaska, a 5% decline from the record high of 357 hit the year before, according to an annual report released by the state Department of Health.

Alaska’s decline was not as dramatic as the nationwide drop in overdose deaths.

Nationally, the 2024 death total was nearly 27% lower than the total for the previous year, continuing a declining trend that followed several years of sharp increases, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Overdose deaths, as measured in total numbers, peaked in the U.S. in 2021, according to the CDC. As measured by rate per 100,000 people, they peaked in 2022.

It is not yet clear whether Alaska’s decline in fatal overdose rates will catch up to the national rates or even if the state’s decline will last, said Jessica Filley, an epidemiology specialist with the department.

“I think it’s too early to say if this trend is going to continue,” said Filley, speaking on Thursday during a break at the annual Alaska Public Health Association Summit in Anchorage.

If the trend does continue, several factors may be responsible, she said. One of those factors could be the wider use of naloxone, an overdose-reversal medicine, she said.

Distribution of the emergency medicine has increased substantially in recent years, said Tim Easterly, coordinator of a Department of Health program that provides naloxone kits to people who might be treating at-risk Alaskans.

When the program started about eight years ago, it distributed about 8,000 kits annually, Easterly said at the health summit. In the past two years, it has distributed more than 40,000 kits annually, he said. “So this program has grown. And, unfortunately, we continue to see demand, steady around that 40,000 kits per year,” he said.

Naloxone kits are provided to schools around the state under a law enacted in 2024, for example.

Filley, in a presentation at the conference, described some state efforts to try to use a more holistic approach to prevent overdose deaths.

The state’s medical examination process includes an overdose committee that gathers information not just from official documents like toxicology reports, but also from family members, healthcare providers, first responders and other people who can fill in the backstories of overdose victims.

Those reviews reveal life stories that can contain complex and interwoven challenges that preceded the overdoses. Some victims had complex mental or physical health problems that did not get addressed. Some had traumatic experiences in childhood. Housing insecurity and homelessness also emerged as a factor in some cases, she said.

Reviewing each case took hours; the committee reviewed two every quarter, or eight in the past year. Using those reviews, the committee compiled some recommendations for more comprehensive prevention and treatment.

One of the committee’s recommendations, Filley said, is for “more integrated peer support” and more coordination of case management across different settings, including healthcare facilities, treatment facilities, parole operations and interactions with first responders.

Another recommendation is for better education about trauma, including from experiences in childhood that may have long-lasting effects, she said. “We definitely have some cases where there’s evidence that the decedent experienced trauma or adversity in childhood,” she said.

The committee also recommended more education about dangers from substances other than opioids, including alcohol. While opioids have received heightened attention in recent years and are implicated in most fatalities, there are many cases where victims are abusing multiple substances simultaneously.

Statistics from the state’s annual report show that only 35% of overdose deaths between 2020 and 2024 involved a single drug. The most common combination in fatal cases over those years was a blend of synthetic narcotics like fentanyl with psychostimulants, the state report said. Examples of psychostimulants are amphetamines and cocaine.

There were twice as many fatal overdoses among men than among women in 2024, similar to ratios in the four preceding years. By region, Anchorage had the highest rate of fatal overdose per 100,000 people over all years from 2020 to 2024, according to the state report. In 2024, Anchorage had about two thirds of the state’s overdose deaths, even though it has about 40% of the state’s residents.

Eight cross-country skiers from Alaska are going to the 2026 Olympics in Italy next month. U.S. Ski and Snowboard announced the team Thursday morning.

Alaskans make up one half of the 16-skier U.S. cross-country ski team. All eight of the athletes ski with Alaska Pacific University’s team in Anchorage. APU coach Erik Flora said it’s unusual for so many cross-country skiers on Team USA to come from one state, and one club. He said APU is one of the biggest, strongest ski clubs in the country.

Flora said the team has been steadily improving over the last decade. This year, he said, it’s very likely that Alaskans will bring home some medals for the United States.

Gus Schumacher, Hunter Wonders, Zanden McMullen and JC Schoonmaker are skiing for the U.S. men’s team.

Rosie Brennan, Kendall Kramer, Novie McCabe and Hailey Swirbul are skiing for the U.S. women’s team.

It’s Gus Schumacher’s second Olympics. He said the skiers themselves already knew who’d made it since the criteria is pretty clear, but he’s glad the news is out.

“Fun to share with everyone, officially,” he said. “Nice to tell people and just being sure about it.”

He’s feeling good, he said, because he thinks this year he and his teammates have a real chance to help Team USA bring home a men’s cross-country medal. The only other time the U.S. men’s team medaled at the Olympics was 50 years ago, in 1976. Earlier Friday, Schumacher earned a third-place podium result in a World Cup relay sprint race with teammate Ben Ogden in Switzerland.

“It’s exciting to be feeling good, and have a big opportunity to do something that hasn’t been done in a long time,” he said. “And yeah, it’s exciting. It’s a little daunting, but just got to go there and experience it and realize how lucky we are to be able to do this.”

It’s 37-year-old Rosie Brennan’s third Olympics. But this year is different for her. Brennan has been struggling with what she calls “mysterious health issues” for over a year.

Now, she’ll have what is likely her last chance to compete in the Olympics, she said. It’s bittersweet, since she had hoped to contend for medals in Cortina but she said that’s not her reality anymore. Now, she’d just love to have a race where she feels like herself again.

“It’s been a long time since I felt like the Rosie I’m accustomed to racing with for the last 15 years,” she said.

There were times she wasn’t sure she was even going to make it to this year’s Olympics.

Now that she’s going, she’s thankful her teammates are with her, helping her stay focused.

“They’re the people that have seen everything that I’ve gone through and have been there to help me through it,” she said. “So that just gives you such a sense of comfort on the road, and especially like in big events like the Olympics.”

Hailey Swirbul didn’t have a straight path to the Olympics this year either. She quit skiing in 2023 because she wanted to experience life outside a stressful ski racing career – she was burned out.

Then, this summer, she started coaching for APU. She was skiing and feeling strong and thinking about the limited time she has to do the things she loves. The idea of competing at the Olympics bumped around in her head for a few months until she eventually decided: Let’s do it, take the risk, go for something big.

But she said she’s thinking about the Olympics differently than she did when she competed four years ago in Beijing. Taking a couple years away from competitive racing has really given her a perspective about what’s important in life.

“Sports are important but what really matters is the people that you know are there through the ups and downs,” she said.

She’s talking about her teammates, and friends and family, but also her role coaching at APU.

When the news came out that she’d made the Olympic team, a big group of her middle school skiers made a video for her, cheering and chanting her name. She said it made her heart swell when she got it.

They inspire her to work harder, she said. The real inspiration in an endurance sport like cross-country skiing comes from seeing someone’s grit, she said. It comes from watching athletes as they dig deep to push through the suffering.

“Those kids are watching and they notice and they pay attention,” she said. “And I think it’s so important to try to lead by example with your effort.”

This year, she said, her goal at the Olympics is to race in a way that inspires the kids back home.

With the second regular session of the 34th Alaska Legislature under way, it’s a good time to check in with members of Juneau’s delegation.

Morning Host Mike Lane recently sat down with Representative Andi Story to learn what’s on her agenda for this session.

The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Mike Lane: The second regular session of the 34th Alaska legislature has just begun. What are your top priorities for this session?

Rep. Story: My top priorities for this session have to do with keeping our young people here, cost of living, housing is really important. And of course, education and ferries, ferries, ferries.

Mike Lane: Speaking of education, you pre-filed a bill on education funding, House Bill 261. Can you give us a brief explanation of what the bill would do if passed?

Rep. Story: Well, if you’ve been living in Juneau for a long time, you know that our education funding is backwards, that we do not get our numbers to our school districts till, like, June after the session is over. And so they are not being able to give contracts to their teaching staff, to staff at all. And so they’re living in limbo, and they leave us or we can’t maintain them. And so this bill has us do our funding a year early, where they get the number. It takes the average of the last three years student count or your last prior year student count, so whichever is greater, so we will give more stability to school districts. So that’s just critically important. And this came about because I’m on the task force for education funding. We’ve been reviewing. If you are an independent school district, you have your own taxing authority. They usually take the current year and the prior two years. But we cannot raise our own revenue. We are dependent upon what the state does and our municipalities. It allows us to focus on student achievement and not redoing budgets, and not put our community in chaos because we have to predict all this out. We don’t know our number, so I want to give confidence to our school funding budget process. 

Mike Lane: So what is your plan for getting this bill passed?

Rep. Story: I co-chair education. I’m starting to talk to people about it. I have an advantage that I’m on the task force, and so people have read that report, they’re, they’re aware of that, but just have a lot of talking to do. But people have been living this roller coaster of instability for funding for school districts, so it’s not going to be a surprise for them that we’re trying to stabilize this.

Mike Lane: What other bills have you sponsored or co-sponsored that you think could get traction or succeed this session?

Rep. Story: Well, I’m really hoping my bill, which is in house rules, on housing investments, where [Alaska Industrial Development Economic Association]will be allowed to do workforce housing, give developers loans for workforce housing of five dwelling units or more. This has been critical. We have to move on housing. There are a few things that [Alaska Housing Finance Corporation] does, but this is something AIDEA  could do that would really help developers. 

Mike Lane: How can Alaskans inside and outside of Juneau get a hold of you?

Rep. Story: 907-465-3744, of course. I’m on the website, but calling is really good. And I very frequently do Zoom meetings, you know, phone calls. And I do that with Alaska residents too. Juneau residents who do not want to drive and try and find parking downtown, they just call and we set up a meeting. So please call, please email. That is probably the number one thing we have to do is bring the community, the state in on our policies, and get their voices heard. And so I like to hear what people really want me to be working on

Mike Lane: To wrap up: As one of Juneau’s representatives, what do you see as your ultimate duties and responsibilities to the people of Juneau and all of Alaska?

Rep. Story: Really, to meet our constitutional obligations because it is so important — the people of the state. We have a lot of resources in the state. The biggest resource we have is each of us, is the people. So we want to try and bring that voice up to the the capitol that it’s important our human resources and how are we making sure we have quality of life here.

Eaglecrest Ski Area’s board of directors is pushing back against the mayor’s proposal to remove most of the board’s decision-making authority. This comes after recent leadership turnover at the mountain and ongoing financial challenges.

Last week, Mayor Beth Weldon told the Juneau Assembly she asked the city’s attorney to draft an ordinance to reduce the status of the board from an empowered board to an advisory board. The Juneau Assembly will discuss the draft ordinance at its committee of the whole meeting on Monday evening. 

As an empowered board, Eaglecrest has its own set of laws, rules and responsibilities and makes decisions without direct Assembly oversight. If it became an advisory board, members could only give advice or make recommendations to the Assembly. It would lose the authority to establish policies or make decisions without Assembly approval. 

“As we know, they’re having major financial issues, and I just think the city needs to have more oversight over what’s happening to Eaglecrest,” she said. “I think the government is standing in its way right now, and it needs to be changed.”

But, at a special meeting on Thursday evening, Eaglecrest’s board moved to draft a letter to the mayor and Assembly asking to remain an empowered board. The board intends to finish the letter this weekend, in time for the Assembly discussion during its committee of the whole meeting on Monday. 

Board member Jim Calvin said remaining an empowered board is in the community’s best interest. 

“The board is deeply engaged in gondola planning work, and we’re deeply engaged in recruiting a new GM (general manager),” he said. “We’re initiating some business planning work, and all of that is at risk of completely derailing if we’re not an empowered board.”

The tension between the Eaglecrest board and the mayor comes after the ski area’s general manager resigned and the board chair stepped down earlier this month. Eaglecrest has also had several issues with its facilities that sullied the beginning of its season, including a broken water line and issues keeping Ptarmigan lift open. 

Eaglecrest is expected to run into a multimillion-dollar deficit in the coming years to repair some broken and aging infrastructure, while boosting pay to employees and preparing to operate year-round. Its plan toward financial stability relies heavily on revenue from the gondola, which the ski area hopes to get up and running by the summer of 2028.

According to the board, the city plans to post the general manager position online next week, which will remain open until it’s filled.