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The Alaska Department of Corrections spent over $24 million more than the budget approved by the Legislature last year, with a large portion for staff overtime, raising alarm from lawmakers.

DOC officials submitted their additional budget request to the Legislature earlier this month, part of a routine budget process to account for state spending over the past year — but this year’s price tag for the state’s prison system is at a historic high.

The department requested an additional $20 million for staffing and overtime for last year at the state’s 13 prison and jail facilities.

According to department data provided to the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday, there were 15 correctional staff that earned over $100,000 each in overtime pay last year, on top of salary and benefits.

Two correctional officers at the Anchorage Correctional Complex worked over 2,000 hours in overtime last year — one officer topped the list working 2,770 hours of overtime, to earn a total of over $225,000 last year.

DOC officials did not respond to questions about the department’s policies around overtime and mandatory overtime on Thursday, but a spokesperson said the department’s current vacancy rate is 11.5% statewide. In budget documents, DOC officials noted the additional funding was needed for minimal staffing requirements for “24/7 operational readiness.”

Sen. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka and co-chair of the Senate Finance Committee, said while the rising costs in DOC are well-known, going millions over budget is a problem as lawmakers grapple with declining state oil revenues and a growing list of state funding needs this year.

“Their budget has been growing exponentially,” he said Thursday. “It’s not fair, because those funds that are being channeled in that direction could go elsewhere.”

DOC’s budget has seen increases year-over-year throughout Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s term, unlike other agencies who have sustained cutbacks. Since 2019, the state budget for DOC has increased 46% to over $437 million last year, according to state data.

The $24 million in additional funds the agency requested also included $1.1 million for community residential treatment centers, or halfway houses, and $2.95 million in health care costs last year.

Sen. Mike Cronk, R-Tok, also serves on the Senate Finance Committee and expressed surprise and concern at the overtime hours presented to the committee on Thursday.

“That’s literally 100 hours a week. All year long,” he said, and questioned if people were running up overtime for a short time in order to retire or leave the department. “So it’s very concerning. You know, obviously I don’t blame anybody for it, but we have to figure out why this is happening, and we just have to do better. We have to be more efficient and make sure that we’re doing everything we possibly can to keep costs down.”

Stedman questioned the state’s contracts with the union representing correctional officers, the Alaska Correctional Officers Association, in accounting for the extensive overtime.

“My concern is maybe they ought to haggle a little bit better when they do their labor agreements, because this is definitely not appropriate for the public treasury to put up with, and it’s got to get corrected,” he said.

Representatives with the union did not immediately respond to emailed questions about lawmakers’ concerns on Thursday.

Last year, over 9,800 people entered DOC custody in institutions or on supervised release on probation or parole, according to state data.

In this newscast:

• After multiple weeks of being closed, Juneau’s recycling center is back up and running at a limited capacity.
• U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan bristled at the suggestion that he only defends the Trump administration. In his annual address to the Alaska Legislature Wednesday he also slammed national Democrats as bent on ruining Alaska.
• Immigration enforcement agents swarmed a Soldotna home Tuesday morning and took a family of four, including a kindergartner, into custody.
• A 17th candidate has announced she’s running for governor.
• If you’ve noticed you’re paying more for a cup of coffee these days, you’re not alone. Bean prices have been extremely volatile in recent years. Then, came President Trump’s sweeping reciprocal tariffs, which the White House removed on some agricultural products, including coffee, in November.

After multiple weeks of closure, Juneau’s recycling center is back up and running at limited capacity. 

The partial reopening comes after the center has been closed on and off since late December, after Juneau was hit with back-to-back record-breaking snowstorms, which inundated it with a backlog of materials to process. 

Denise Koch, the city’s director of Engineering and Public Works, says the center will begin by accepting only cardboard and mixed paper, and only for this Friday and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 3:30 pm. Other recyclables like plastic and glass are still on hold.

“We know that recycling is an important service for people, and we know it’s been really inconvenient for people to hang on to their recycling,” she said. 

The city contracts with Waste Management to operate its recycling program in Lemon Creek. Waste Management is the private company that runs Juneau’s only landfill, which is estimated to run out of space in the next decade.

Since late January, the city has been asking residents to hold onto their recyclable material while it fixed multiple issues with the recycling baler, which is the most critical piece of equipment for the center to operate. The baler is the machine that compresses the recyclables into blocks, which are then shipped by barge to recycling facilities in Seattle that repurpose the materials.

Koch said while the baler has since been fixed, the city is opening the center up at a limited capacity so that the machine does not get overloaded. She said the center’s staff will then decide further openings depending on how the baler performs this weekend. 

“We are, of course, hoping to be able to do that as soon as possible,” she said. “We are planning to make another announcement on Monday, after we see how things go on Friday and Saturday, and how quickly we’re able to move through material.”

More information and updates can be found on the city’s RecycleWorks webpage.

The smell of buttered popcorn wafted through the Skagway School as dozens of people streamed inside. They were there to watch a new documentary — one about their own community during one of its darkest periods in recent history.

The film depicts life in Skagway between 2020 and 2022, when the cruise industry shut down amid the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s named “Last Call in the North.”

Andrew Cremata was Skagway’s mayor at the time. He said the ordeal forced what may have been the community’s first serious reckoning over its complete dependence on the industry.

“I don’t think there’s ever been any real meaningful conversations about it as a community, either on a governmental level or on a social level,” he said.

That conversation was the film’s throughline, said Stan Bush, who wrote and directed the film.

“What happens when your main economic driver is completely shut off?” Bush said in an interview last week.

In many ways, COVID-19 was Skagway’s worst nightmare. With the town’s tourism-based economy shuttered for one full season and much of a second one, families and businesses went without income for an excruciating 22 months.

Bush went to middle and high school in town, but he hasn’t lived here since then. He said he was developing a project idea in Skagway before the pandemic, focused on the struggling local newspaper.

But Bush pivoted when COVID-19 hit the community in earnest, and the industry that had fueled the town for decades disappeared overnight.

“We’ve seen that when things are going great, they’re going really great. And when things go bad, here, they go really bad,” Bush said. “I think that’s a conversation for the community to have. Can you survive another crisis like this?”

The film follows a few key characters, including Cremata, the former mayor. In an interview after the screening, he raised questions about the long-term sustainability of the town’s economy.

“My fear was that when things got back to normal, people would kind of just go back to normal, right? Go back to the way things were before the pandemic,” Cremata told KHNS. “That’s really exactly what’s happened.”

The film also focuses on struggling small businesses — a jeweler who had to leave town, the owner of an outdoor guiding company who eventually shut his doors, and the former co-owners of the Skagway News. That includes Melinda Munson, the current KHNS news director.

Another key voice was Jaime Bricker, Skagway’s tourism director and the president of the Skagway Traditional Council, a local tribe.

After the premiere, Bricker said she was impressed by the videography and storytelling. She added that she could imagine how difficult it would be to tell the full story in just 90 minutes.

“I think I’ve heard different observations from just about everybody I’ve talked to, and rightfully so,” Bricker said. “We’re all a bunch of individuals in this community, and there were so many pertinent stories of that period of time that, you know, weren’t showcased.”

Bricker added that she thinks the film presents an opportunity for renewed reflection.

“Are there opportunities to plan as we look towards the future, given this particular COVID experience?” Bricker said. “Are there things that we can be doing differently in the future, to better prepare for an economic stop?”

Bush said prompting conversation was one of his main goals – not only locally but in similar communities across the state, country and world. As he sees it, what happened in Skagway could happen anywhere where the presence of one industry is the difference between economic survival and economic collapse.

Disclosure: This film features KHNS News Director Melinda Munson and her family, when Munson was co-owner of the Skagway News. Munson did not review this story before publication.

Lawmakers held a series of hearings with officials from Mt. Edgecumbe High School, the largest state-run boarding school in Alaska, following a tumultuous year of budget and staff cuts, administration changes and a wave of student disenrollments.

Sen. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka, opened his remarks at a Feb. 12 Senate Finance Committee hearing saying lawmakers need to air the school’s “dirty laundry” so they can help fix the school’s finances and make needed repairs.

“The goal here is to improve Mt. Edgecumbe High School, and we can’t do that without accurate information,” he said.

Stedman was among a delegation of legislators that made an impromptu visit to the school on Feb. 6, after the news of a mass student disenrollment after this winter break. Lawmakers reported they found leaking roofs, classrooms and buildings in disrepair, rodents, and outdated dormitories. They also met with students to hear about their concerns.

After the visit, Sen. Lyman Hoffman, D-Bethel, reported at a Senate news conference the conditions of the facilities were “deplorable.”

Hoffman, who also serves as the finance co–chair, did not mince words to school officials at the hearing. “I could say that if I were a parent, I wouldn’t let my child go to school there,” he said. “The condition of that school speaks for itself. ”

Mt. Edgecumbe High School is based in Sitka, which typically enrolls around 400 students, the majority of whom are Alaska Native from rural communities without local high schools. As of February, enrollment dropped to 311 students, officials said.

Superintendent David Langford, newly hired in July, told lawmakers that administrators were concerned that roughly 25% of students had disenrolled, but said they could not identify a common reason to explain why.

“So far, all the data of all the 100 students that have left this year, we can’t find any trends,” he said. “Like we didn’t have any majority of the students saying ‘it was the food’ or ‘it was the dorm,’ or was this or the other thing. But all those were issues that we’re working to rectify.”

Lawmakers put questions to Deena Bishop, commissioner of the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development, which administers the school, along with the governor-appointed Alaska State Board of Education.

To explain recent events at the school, Bishop painted a picture for lawmakers of a “right-sizing” effort led by DEED after COVID pandemic relief funding ran out in 2024. She said Mt. Edgecumbe had a $1.6 million budget shortfall that forced a series of cost-cutting measures throughout 2025. The state sold off a parcel of land on the campus property for $900,000 to help fill that gap.

But Bishop said last year, the DEED and the administration cut four teachers, one administrator and two support staff positions. They also made cuts to student activities, travel and maintenance funding — plus a change in the superintendent and contractors running the student dorms and food service this year.

Langford testified that when he arrived in August, he wasn’t sure the school would open. But DEED and administrators made a series of emergency repairs and deep cleaned the kitchen facilities and dorms, replacing years-old mattresses, dorm furniture and upgrading the kitchen including all cookware.

Legislators asked how school facilities had been left to deteriorate so badly, who was responsible for advocating for the school repairs, and how officials planned to make improvements.

Hoffman said it was obvious from legislators’ visit that there is more work to do.

“It seems every time we go down the path, there are more and more and more issues that aren’t being addressed,” Hoffman said. “I’m glad we’re addressing the immediate needs, but there’s long term needs that need to be addressed that aren’t being addressed by the Department of Education.”

Bishop acknowledged that the effort is ongoing. “So in right-sizing the ship, it’s moving forward. I absolutely agree with you. Is Mount Edgecumbe where we want it to be? Absolutely not. I believe, with the leadership that is there and support for this school, that we can get there.”

Hoffman pointed out the school lost Americorps support staff after the Trump administration gutted the program last year. Mt. Edgecumbe lost three staff who served in major support roles for students for after-school activities and outings into town.

“The primary role of these people was to do nothing but be with students in the evening,” said Langford. He added that he tried to hire staff back this year, but it was too late. “So in terms of students going home, I would point to that as one of the biggest impacts that could have been prevented.”

In a state Board of Education meeting in December, parents, alumni and current and former staff from Mt. Edgecumbe testified that because of changes in the dorms, loss of staff and teachers and reduced activities, students’ quality of life suffered, and morale plummeted last fall. A local healthcare provider testified to members of the board that in the previous month, eight students were hospitalized for suicidal ideation — an unprecedented number, she said.

Ilana Kalke, a junior, was one of two Mt. Edgecumbe students that testified to lawmakers last week. She said there is a disconnect between the new contractor running the dorms, the NANA Corporation, and staff and students.

“It seems like they have trouble communicating, which impacts us, this leads to inconsistent application of rules,” Kalke said. “There’s been trouble communicating, getting rides, and just like less collaboration, which affects rec activities.”

Kadyn Cross, a sophomore, testified in support of the school and told lawmakers that supporting the school supports students like him, who are coming from small villages like his community of Koyuk, on the coast of Norton Sound.

“MEHS is already producing future educators, leaders and contributors to Alaska’s communities. But we can’t do that without stable funding for staff, updated facilities, student activities, and real maintenance, especially maintenance, which is stretched thin right now,” he said. “I’m not here with data charts. I’m here as one student who moved from a small village to a school that changed my trajectory fast. And I’m one of hundreds. MEHS isn’t just a school, it’s a place that grows people who go back to their communities and strengthen them.”

Lawmakers slam Gov. Dunleavy for years of vetoing funds for repairs

Lawmakers criticized Gov. Mike Dunleavy for vetoing funding for Mt. Edgecumbe year after year — most recently last year vetoing $2.7 million for a new roof and windows on the girls’ dorm.

Since the start of Dunleavy’s term in 2019, the governor has vetoed funding allocated for Mt. Edgecumbe, including maintenance of the aquatic center and student services. He vetoed funds to replace the dorm windows for three years in a row. Over six years his vetoes totaled over $22.4 million, according to state data.

Sen. Löki Tobin, D-Anchorage and chair of the Senate Finance Committee, expressed her frustration at a Senate news conference last week, reading out a list of the vetoes. “We continue to advocate for school repairs and to address school infrastructure across the state,” she added. “And it seems that we do not have a governor who wishes to lead. It is incredibly frustrating.”

A spokesperson for the governor’s office responded to questions about lawmakers’ criticisms by email on Tuesday, noting the governor had approved $15.3 million for repairs and maintenance for Mt. Edgecumbe since 2019, including for bathroom and kitchen upgrades, asbestos and lead abatement and some funding toward replacing dorm roofs.

“The challenges Mt. Edgecumbe is currently addressing stem from years of low prioritization of needs. With the new leadership of Superintendent David Langford, under Commissioner Deena Bishop, emphasis has been placed on realigning the budget to remedy maintenance issues,” said Jeff Turner, Dunleavy’s director of communications.

Turner said that even with the governor’s vetoes, Mt. Edgecumbe maintenance and repairs are underway.

“Without the vetoed funding, Mt. Edgecumbe has reprioritized and has updated culinary equipment, furniture, and scheduled three buildings to be re-rooved this summer — with more to come. Budget management has now been placed at the forefront, allowing existing funding to begin remedying what was thought to be unattainable without further allocation,” he said. “This is a textbook example of results obtainable when accountability is highlighted.”

Legislative action for Mt. Edgecumbe repairs

On Wednesday, the Senate passed a new bill, Senate Bill 146, that would add Mt. Edgecumbe to the state’s school major maintenance list to be eligible for state grants for construction and maintenance projects. Currently Mt. Edgecumbe is maintained using funds through the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Services, as a state-run facility.

The bill would also do away with the $70 million cap on the Regional Education Attendance Area school fund — for schools that rely solely on state funding as they’re located in rural areas without municipal funding — and allow those funds to be used for Mt. Edgecumbe projects, including teacher housing.

A similar bill was passed last year, but Dunleavy vetoed it. Senators said they are hopeful there will be more support this year, and the bill now advances to the House.

“I’m hoping that there’ll be broad support in the legislature like there was last year, and we’ll put it back on the governor’s desk, and hopefully the governor will reconsider,” Stedman said.

Moving forward, Stedman said the Finance Committee is gathering information on critical repairs and maintenance needed, projects in progress and items to be added into next year’s budget, including funds immediately available to replace items like washing machines and mattresses.

“We’ll be monitoring it,” Stedman said Tuesday. “There’s a good percentage of the (Capitol) building here that got its attention, because it’s embarrassing for everybody.”

Lawmakers questioned Langford, the superintendent, last week on his role currently running two school districts this year — both the Mt. Edgecumbe high school and the Chatham School District, which serves approximately 175 students across rural schools in Angoon, Gustavus, Tenakee Springs and Klukwan.

Langford and Bishop testified that a former Wasilla Republican Senator, Mike Shower, approached Langford to run both districts. Langford said he considered only with the permission of the Chatham School board, and then accepted both roles.

Bishop said at first she was skeptical of the arrangement, but changed her mind. “I initially said, ‘Yeah, no, thanks. This is, we’ve got big, big issues to solve.’ Then they started talking to me, and I said I would not go and poach someone else’s superintendent.”

She said she was convinced by Langford’s experience in education consulting, and his history with Mt. Edgecumbe, starting as a teacher in 1985. She said he has valuable leadership experience as a superintendent and running district finances.

Langford said the board of the Chatham School District is conducting quarterly reviews of his performance, and the State Board of Education conducts annual reviews on his tenure at Mt. Edgecumbe. He said while there are disadvantages of not being on the ground in the Chatham School District, he has access to DEED officials to the benefit of both districts.

He said so far, the arrangement is going well. “I think it’s very exciting to work with you and all the staff at Mount Edgecumbe,” he told lawmakers. “To try to remake Mt. Edgecumbe and bring it back to the greatness that I think it once was.”

U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, in his annual address to the Alaska Legislature, slammed national Democrats as bent on ruining Alaska.

“Now, I’m not being partisan here. These are just the facts,” he said at one point during his speech Wednesday. “And Alaskans should know who wants to help us and who wants to hurt us.”

As in past years, he blamed the Biden administration for trying to shut down Alaska. But under President Trump, he said, Alaska is in the midst of a comeback, with renewed emphasis on military expansion, resource development, Coast Guard icebreakers and a new rural health care fund.

“Our state will receive from this fund approximately $1.4 billion over the next five years to transform our health care system,” Sullivan said, to resounding applause in the state House chamber.

As he describes it, though, Democrats are still targeting Alaska. Sullivan referred to the U.S. Senate’s top Democrat, Chuck Schumer, at least nine times.

Sullivan spoke for about 50 minutes and took questions from half a dozen legislators and then from reporters at the Capitol.

He doesn’t often take challenging questions in large public forums, so his yearly address to the Legislature is closely watched, especially now that he’s running for reelection, aiming to serve his third six-year term.

Rep. Genevieve Mina, D-Anchorage, who chairs the health committee, challenged Sullivan on the $1.4 billion achievement. She said she’s discovered that Alaska isn’t allowed to use the health care fund to help self-employed people cope with rising premiums, on clinic expansions or to build housing for health care workers, among other priorities.

“You helped shape the Rural Health Transformation Program Funds. Why are these funds so difficult for us to use to address Alaska’s core issues?” she asked Sullivan. “And how will this finite fund help address the thousands of Alaskans who will lose their health insurance?”

She cited a new analysis finding that up to 12,000 Alaskans risk losing their Medicaid insurance coverage because of another provision in the same bill.

Sullivan said wasn’t aware of the report or of all the restrictions on how Alaska can spend its share of the health care fund.

“This is not going to be a panacea that solves everything,” he said, though he also said that the government might be able to remove some of the limits.

Sen. Forrest Dunbar, D-Anchorage, contrasted Sullivan’s negative take on Biden with his positive stance on Trump and asked how far his loyalty goes.

“You’ve said yes to Trump many times. I’m wondering if you’re willing to say no,” Dunbar said. “For example, if we saw a deployment of federal forces to Alaska, like we’ve seen it seen in Minnesota, or if the federal government demands we purge our voter rolls, will you say no to Trump?”

Sullivan seemed irritated at Dunbar.

“I think you were the guy who asked me last year about Medicaid,” Sullivan recounted, and he began his answer there.

“You know who cut Medicaid for Alaska? Chuck Schumer, right? That’s a fact,” Sullivan said. “So I wish that you and others could have gone to Schumer and said, ‘Hey, why are you cutting Medicaid for Alaska?'”

Schumer didn’t cut Medicaid funding for Alaska, but Sullivan had tried to get an increase in the Medicaid payment rate for the state. Opposition was bipartisan.

As for Dunbar’s current question, Sullivan said he goes after Trump administration officials when they deserve it, sometimes publicly.

“You want to put out a tweet smashing them on certain issues or criticizing them? Sometimes that works,” Sullivan responded. “But sometimes, if you want results, that’s not always the best way to get results.”

Rep. Ashley Carrick, D-Fairbanks, said the speech was “par for the course” for Sullivan. Still, she said, the tone was jarring in the House chamber.

“His hyper-partisanship really showed in the speech today, and it does present a sharp departure from Alaska’s bipartisan coalition governance and the spirit of Alaskans to not affiliate with parties as often as not,” she said.

She found it “surprising” that Sullivan suggested Alaska legislators lean on Schumer.

“We don’t really have that authority to, you know, make demands of those that are not our senators,” she said. “And the insinuation that it’s only Democrats in the United States Senate that are holding back progress is a mischaracterization of some of the biggest and most challenging problems that we have.”

It takes bipartisan solutions to solve the complex disputes facing the country, she said.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski is scheduled to address the Legislature late next month.