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Juneau-Douglas High School Principal Ryan Alsup is resigning after three years in the job.

Alsup will leave his post on June 30^th for what he says are “personal reasons.”

He says it was a tough decision because he and his family enjoy living in the capital city.   He does not yet have another job.

Alsup moved to Juneau from Colorado in 2010, when JDHS was a larger school.  But Thunder Mountain High School had just opened and budget cuts were looming.  Alsup says he’s seen a number of major changes.

“We’re roughly 200 kids smaller, but we’re also roughly 25 staff members smaller as a result of budget cuts and things like that,” Alsup says.  “The bulk of my job has been to maintain a high quality education as we go through the budget reduction processes that we’ve done every year since I’ve been here”

He says the opening of a second high school in a town is difficult for the existing school.  He believes JDHS staff morale has improved in the last three years.

“I think when I started here there was still kind of the feeling of loss amongst the staff as far as the things that they were afraid they would lose with the opening of Thunder Mountain, and we’ve overcome that,” he says.  “So that’s where I feel like we’re in a better place. It isn’t so much that our test scores are going to indicate that we’re better off than we were or any tangible piece of evidence. It’s just simply the overall feel of the school.”

School District officials are to meet with faculty and parents soon to talk about the search for a new principal.  Alsup hopes his replacement will be hired before he leaves, which will help ease the transition.

The Senate Finance Committee was expected to take up amendments  to the $9. 9 billion state operating budget on Monday afternoon, but the hearing was cancelled.

The committee took public testimony over the weekend, with First Lady Sandy Parnell asking members to restore $ 827,200 to the Department of Public Safety for a sex-trafficking investigative unit.  A subcommittee recommends denying the governor’s request for new troopers because there hadn’t been a single investigation in the last year.

“The reason given for cutting the funding, however, is exactly why the funding is needed,” Sandy Parnell told the Finance Committee.  “Because sex trafficking is a hidden crime that must be unearthed by investigators.  Its victims do not self-report.  We have lots of sexual assault case investigations initiated after a report is made, but in commercial sex industry cases, this doesn’t happen.  These girls are under extreme control of their captors, both physically and mentally.”

In her testimony, Parnell said troopers’ lack of experience and training in that area results in a failure to recognize signs of trafficking.

Invest in education is the rally cry of the week in the state capitol, as the Senate completes its work on the state operating and mental health budgets.

Sue Hall of Fairbanks puts it this way:

“Alaska’s future really is in our classrooms right now.”

Hall testified Saturday before a partial Senate Finance Committee. Representing the Association of Alaska School Boards, she reminded lawmakers of their constitutional mandate to fund school operations.

“Education is an essential; it’s your only constitutionally mandated responsibility. Smart states don’t treat education as just another line item,” Hall said.

While money is in the education budget for the governor’s performance scholarship program, energy, technology and other add-ons, the Base Student Allocation, or BSA, has remained the same for the last three years, despite inflation.

Much of the testimony at Saturday’s hearing emphasized the cuts districts across the state have had to make because school operating dollars remain flat.

In Juneau, for example, the Board of Education is planning to cut about $1.7 million next year, including 14 positions.

“This is on top of the$4.7  million reductions last year.  The JSD has lost 104 positions and many services in the last three years.  Children and parents need your support for a stable budget plan that maintains buying power for schools when fixed costs go up,” said Andi Story, the board’s clerk.

The state’s largest school district, Anchorage, is expecting a $25 million gap between costs and state revenue, which is the largest portion of all school district budgets.

Senate Finance co-chairman Pete Kelly expects the committee will start on budget amendments Monday.  He said the operating budget bill is scheduled to come before the full Senate on Wednesday.

Meanwhile,  House and Senate minority Democrats say parents’ and educators’ concerns about funding are not being heard by their majority Republican counterparts.

The minority is hosting a statewide hearing Monday afternoon, called Save Our Schools.

Anchorage Rep.  Harriet Drummond served three terms on the Anchorage School Board and said she identifies with the public’s frustration.

“We’ve been getting hundreds of emails and contacts in our legislative offices from people who are very disturbed by the direction this legislature is going on all these issues – on pre-school cuts, on vouchers, and the classroom operating funds.  I’ve had visits from school board members, from superintendents, from principals, students,” Drummond said.

The hearing is scheduled from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.  Monday in room 203 of the state capitol building and by teleconference.

On Tuesday, a rally called Stand Up for Our Students will start at 4:15 p.m. outside the state capitol.

Former state Labor Commissioner and Juneau School Board member Ed Flanagan is already planning his speech.  He blames flat funding on Gov. Sean Parnell.

“Folks are just backing off because the governor has said you’re not going to get anymore – an increase in the BSA.  I think it’s still incumbent upon everybody that cares about our kids’ education to speak up and be heard with the legislature that we can’t fall back into the rut we were in in the nineties of flat funding.  And having our kids fall behind,” Flanagan said. “It’s great to have a scholarship program but it you’re not funding  secondary (schools) sufficient for kids to qualify for that scholarship, what’s the point.”

Organizers of Stand Up for Our Students hope school districts throughout the state hold similar events this week as the legislature begins closing out the education budget.

Monday is the deadline for comments on Alaska Electric Light and Power’s federal application to investigate the feasibility of a Sheep Creek hydroelectric project.

AEL&P submitted its application to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in January, and the agency set the 60-day public comment period to end on March 25^th.

If FERC grants the permit, the Juneau utility would be given three years to study the impact of a diversion dam on Sheep Creek. The environmental and engineering studies would have to include the impact on wildlife, fish and cultural resources of the Sheep Creek valley.

The project calls for a 10-foot high, 75-foot long diversion dam at about 620 feet above sea level.  According to the company, it would create a small pond, deep enough to get the water into a surface pipeline and to a power plant below.

The Treadwell Mine operated a small dam on Sheep Creek south of Juneau from 1910 to 1943.  Most of the area already belongs to AJT Mining Properties, a sister company to AEL&P.

Brief comments can be submitted online, using FERC’s eComment system. 

The recent reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act had many applauding its new protections for LGBT victims and illegal immigrants.

All three members of Alaska’s Congressional delegation supported the bill.

One of the reauthorization’s new, more controversial provisions – granting tribal courts jurisdiction over non natives for domestic violence crimes committed in Indian Country – has reopened a long-simmering debate about tribal power in Alaska.

Myron Naneng is the president of the Association of Village Council Presidents. He says tribes in the Lower 48 are celebrating the new authority they’ve won.

But not in Alaska because, Naneng says, the state does not recognize tribal powers:

“It’s the state’s position that anyone who moves through the villages who’s not a tribal member should not be handled by a local tribal court. But we move into urban areas ourselves, and we’re subject to state courts.”

The federal government still recognizes Alaska tribes, even though most relinquished aboriginal rights and territory, known as Indian Country, when Congress passed the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. Residents in Metlakata opted out of ANCSA. Metlakatla is the only reservation in the state, and the only federally recognized Indian County in Alaska.

Senator Lisa Murkowski inserted an amendment in the Violence Against Women Act that, she says, was clearly designed to ensure Metlakatla’s increased court jurisdiction:

“It was very clear that it was designed to be implemented in Indian Country. In Alaska, the only Indian Country, the only reservation, is Metlakatla. So I wanted to make sure that Metlakatla was going to be treated similarly to all other reservations, to all other land in Indian Country.”

But there’s been push back from Naneng and others who say more should have been done to make sure the new provision applied to all Alaska tribes.

Senator Murkowski says the Violence Against Women Act was not the place to hash out territorial disputes. And to the tribes who were looking to gain increased rights, she says that conversation can be had at a later time.

“I think there are some who saw this as an opportunity to gain an inch, and then build on it from there.”

The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the state’s lack of Indian County in 1998. Senator Murksowski says Congress would need to amend the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act to create Indian Country.

John Havelock was the Alaska Attorney General when the Native Claims Settlement Act passed. He says the Act was described as an alternative to what at the time was considered failing reservation system and was not designed to take away tribal authority.

“There was not any side discussion of tribal authority. In fact I think a lot of people assumed that the village corporation system would replace any tribal jurisdiction. But when you think about it and look at it, you say, well wait a minute.”

Mike Geraghty is the current Attorney General for Alaska.

“The state’s position is that we’re in favor of the law as it currently exists and the jurisdiction the tribal courts already have.”

Geraghty says state courts have jurisdiction over the entire state.

“These people, whether they’re members or not members of a tribe, are also citizens of the State of Alaska. They have Constitutional rights under the state constitution.”

In Indian Country, tribal courts have sole jurisdiction within the designated boundaries and state courts have none.

“I’m not in favor of disrupting that balance, and creating, you know 229 checkerboard, 229 tribal court jurisdictions. Where the physical boundaries would be, who knows.”

Because there are not defined borders like the reservation system has. Geraghty says the state cooperates with tribal courts on issues under the Indian Child Welfare Act and child support cases. It also recognizes and enforces protective orders from certain tribal courts.

Senator Murkowski says the state needs to be pushed on the issue of tribal jurisdiction … that the state has for too long feared relinquishing any authority to the tribes.

She says she’s introducing a plan that would “cross deputize” village public safety officers. It would allow them to hand out punishments throughout a village.

“Fines, or forfeiture, or fines, or community service, or even banishment, and it gives them that authority. This is something we’ve tried to get the state to come around on. I think we’ve made huge progress.”

The plan is being reviewed by both tribal leaders and state officials.

And in Murkowski’s eyes, it gives the state a chance to see there is nothing to fear in granting tribes more authority.

The University of Alaska says the low level of usage of the Bill Ray Center does not justify holding onto the property.

The University announced earlier this week that they’re accepting purchase offers on the downtown F Street building and nearby parking lot until April 22nd.

Kate Wattum, spokesman for the University of Alaska system, says disposal of the underutilized Bill Ray Center is part of the University of Alaska Southeast’s master plan.

And within that campus plan, it came up from students, faculty, and staff that the location of the Bill Ray Center and utilization of the building wasn’t as cohesive with the campus as it could be.”

Wattum says they won’t be losing any of the facility functions or classes with the possible sale of the building. Any existing classes will simply be moved to the main UAS campus at Auke Lake or Auke Bay.

The building built in 1976 is 22,000 square feet while the parking lot across the street is 38,000 square feet. The University says they intend to sell the property as-is, and “at or above fair market value”.

Keith Gerken, director of facilities services for the University of Alaska Southeast, recalls that the building was built in two phases and it was originally designed to include primarily classrooms with offices added over the years. But at least three classrooms, a specialty use room, and a nursing lab are only partly or sporadically occupied now. Most administration personnel who had offices in the Bill Ray Center have since relocated back to the Auke Bay area at the old Horton Hardware building.

About five- or six-years ago, at least half of the building was office space that basically got pushed out of the campus to make room for other things like a larger cafeteria. Administrative services people used to be in the Mourant Building, and they put them downtown because it was a space that was available and it made the cafeteria bigger. It was kind of a surge space for campus, and now we’ve sort of surged back the other way and moved those functions back out to campus.”

The University’s career education and the nursing program currently use the Bill Ray Center. Staff and faculty with offices currently in the building would likely be relocated to the Auke Lake campus or the Tech Center on the downtown waterfront across from Juneau-Douglas High School.

Gerken says the Bill Ray Center is in above-average condition with no major flaws, and it features a recently-upgraded dual-fuel interruptible boiler system.

He estimates that the operation and maintenance of the building, including fuel, costs about $40,000 a month. That would not automatically translate into equivalent savings upon sale of the building since a potential increased use of Auke Lake classrooms could incur additional expense. Relocation of the nursing program may also require additional renovation to an existing classroom space.

We tend to have more general purpose classrooms, in total, than we actually need. For the last decade, most of the growth in student hours has been in distance student hours as opposed to face-to-face student hours. Our growth has not generated the need for more general purpose classrooms and we don’t see it changing in the future. Some of those classrooms we can do without entirely and we’d be fine. Those classes (at the Bill Ray Center) can easily fit in the classroom space that we have at the Auke Bay and Auke Lake campus.”

Part of the second floor of the Bill Ray Center is also used by the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Cooperative Extension Service which could be forced to look for a new location under a new owner.