Federal Government

The Juneau Assembly unanimously passed a resolution on Monday in support of keeping Mendenhall Glacier Recreation Area federally owned. It also urges the U.S. Forest Service to rehire recently fired workers there. 

City officials said earlier this month that Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski specifically requested the resolution after hearing that private entities were interested in taking it over. 

Kelby Randall, a glacier guide and student at the University of Alaska Southeast, testified in support of the resolution at the meeting. Randall referenced the photo of the Mendenhall Glacier that adorns the wall of the Assembly chambers. 

“When considering a non-public glacier recreation area, I feel the weight of the mural behind you. It is more than just the landscape. It is a defining feature of the land and the people who reside on and around it,” Randall said. “For these reasons, I support this resolution.”

The Mendenhall Glacier is one of Alaska’s most-visited tourist attractions, with more than 1 million visitors last year. It’s managed by the U.S. Forest Service and co-stewarded with the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska.

Assembly member Christine Woll asked to amend some of the language in the proposed resolution to better acknowledge the tribe’s role with the Forest Service.

The Assembly’s resolution comes as some congressional Republicans in other states consider selling off federal lands to pay for President Donald Trump’s domestic agenda. Earlier this month, U.S. House Republicans approved an amendment authorizing the sale of federal public land in Nevada and Utah.

Randall, while testifying, pointed the Assembly to the Matanuska Glacier northeast of Anchorage. While the glacier itself is public, most visitors can only reach it through private land or tours. 

“Private stewardship would put this area at the same risk that has been seen at the Matanuska,” they said. “It would paywall this uniquely accessible glacier, and hearing that it was even an option, shocked and appalled me.”

The Trump Administration’s mass federal firings caused the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center to lose most of its staff. Forest Service staff from other departments are maintaining summer operations, along with partner organizations. The Assembly approved a separate ordinance at the same meeting to set aside $200,000 to support staffing at the glacier if needed.

The Juneau Assembly has approved spending up to $200,000 to hire support staff for Mendenhall Glacier Recreation Area after federal firings left few U.S. Forest Service staff on duty. 

The heavily trafficked attraction saw about a million visitors last year and has a higher volume of tourists — and bears — on the horizon. 

The funding would go to organizations that already operate at the glacier so they can hire more staff. Those include education nonprofit Discovery Southeast and the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, which has a co-stewardship agreement with the Forest Service.

Shawn Eisele directs Discovery Southeast, which brings nature and science education programs to Juneau schools and camps. He said setting the funding aside is a common sense move.

“I think it gives us a lot more tools,” Eisele said. “I see Discovery Southeast and Tlingit and Haida both being in a position where we can bring on some folks that can ensure some of the basic stuff that people expect to see out there, particularly related to safety.”

The worker shortage is a result of national policy changes. In February, the Trump administration cut thousands of workers in the U.S. Forest Service, including most of the staff at Mendenhall Glacier. Some were rehired after courts challenged the firings, but some have taken a resignation option since.

The Forest Service has not responded to multiple inquiries about how many original glacier staff took the resignation option, and how many remain.

The agency released a plan in April that reduced the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center’s hours and said a handful of Forest Service employees from other offices and departments would staff the recreation area. 

Now it is staffed from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day but Saturday. When six ships docked in Juneau last Saturday, there were at least two Forest Service staff present at the glacier, but the agency doesn’t guarantee that will continue.

Góos’k’ Ralph Wolfe directs Tlingit and Haida’s cultural ambassadors program. Cultural ambassadors are tribal members who staff the recreation area to teach visitors about Indigenous history, language and culture. 

Wolfe said between the reassigned Forest Service staff, Discovery Southeast employees and the six cultural ambassadors, things at the glacier haven’t been out of control, yet. But he’s expecting more people — and other challenges. 

“We have been able to cover the basic necessities that are out there right now,” he said. “However, there is still, like, the anticipation of higher bear activity once the summer really starts going and more people.”

Wolfe said the tribe is already working to boost the number of ambassadors at the glacier. 

He said more staff would help ensure safety of people using the area. The first bear sighting was two weeks ago, Wolfe said, and it took half of the staff at the glacier that day to direct tourism traffic away from the bear and give it room to get away from the trail. 

“My essential concern is, I need somebody out there for bear and trail control, and I don’t think we’re seeing either of those happen too much right now,” he said. 

The ordinance passed 6 to 3. Assembly member Ella Adkison voted against the ordinance and expressed concerns about all of the areas of the Juneau community that may need support as federal funding cuts continue. 

“There will be a lot of worthy causes I think that will come up short on funding,” she said. “And this Assembly will not be able to support them.”

The Assembly is also considering budgeting extra money for Juneau’s public libraries to make up for lost federal grants. 

The money intended for staffing the glacier comes from marine passenger fees. There are no plans to hire just yet. City Manager Katie Koester will decide if more staff is needed if either organization says safety issues are arising at the glacier.

The Alaska Department of Education and Early Development, or DEED, failed a federal test that saves the state millions of dollars. It is not yet clear why the state failed, but the state will now be on the hook for more than $80 million if it can’t appeal the decision.

Alaska school districts receive money from the federal government called federal impact aid. That’s money that makes up for lost revenue from land that can’t be taxed, like federal, military or Alaska Native-owned land.

If the state passes a test to show that it’s funding education equitably, called a disparity test, it can put a lot of that impact aid toward its own contribution to school districts. But a letter sent by the federal Department of Education last week says the state failed the disparity test this year.

Alexei Painter is the director of the state’s Legislative Finance Division. He said Alaska is the only state that still uses the disparity test, and it’s getting harder to pass.

“The increasing difficulties with passing the test is a lot, because education funding has gotten more complicated over the last five or 10 years,” he said.

Painter says the federal government doesn’t require DEED to take the test, but state law does. School districts that qualify for the federal money will get it regardless of the results. DEED estimates Alaska districts will receive more than $110 million in impact aid for the next fiscal year.

But the test allows the state to put federal money toward it’s own contribution to education funding – basically saving the state millions of dollars each year.

Failing the test forces the state to pay those funds itself in its obligation to schools. But there are other calculations the state’s education department can make to pass the test after requesting a hearing. If it continues to fail the test, the state could owe districts more than $80.8 million this year.

Painter said the way the budget is structured means that the money would automatically be appropriated for schools, but he says there isn’t enough money budgeted for that.

This isn’t new for DEED. The state also initially failed the test in fiscal year 2022. But it’s allowed to request a hearing with the federal government to figure out a way to pass the test. Painter said the state was able to change how it accounts for transportation funding to pass the test last time.

“I would expect them to do something similar where they hold a hearing and then ultimately resubmit a test,” he said. “Hopefully they can find a way to reconfigure and pass.”

Last Friday, DEED Commissioner Deena Bishop said the state is considering its options moving forward. DEED officials didn’t respond to questions about its plans to address the failed test.

The test is really complicated. But basically, the state passes if the funding gap between school districts is less than 25% – after getting rid of the top and bottom 5% of funded districts.

The test also doesn’t include all of the state’s education funding in its calculations.

State education funding can largely be split up into two pools. The first is foundational funding – that’s money that goes to school districts’ operating funds, paying for things like teacher salaries, curriculum and anything else needed to run schools. 

The second pool is state transportation money – that’s money that goes to school districts to provide transportation for students.

In the disparity test, DEED can exclude state student transportation funds. That’s because it qualifies for adjustments that account for significant differences in spending across the state for transportation.

But that’s not the only money many school districts spend on transportation. Some districts, like the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District, use operating funds for transportation as well. Painter said DEED changed its calculations this year and tried to take those extra transportation funds out of the test calculations. 

“Under the way that they had submitted the test in prior years, they would have failed,” Painter said. “So it was an attempt to try to pass by submitting the numbers differently, and so the federal government rejected that attempt.”

DEED has 60 days from the day the letter was sent to appeal the decision and make different calculations for the test.

Clarification: This article has been updated to clarify that while the federal government doesn’t require the state to take the disparity test, state law currently does. It was also updated to reflect that DEED officials gave a statement last week.

The loss of a federal grant has forced the University of Alaska’s ANSEP program to cancel its long-running summer academy, less than two weeks before rural students were scheduled to arrive.

ANSEP, the Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program, operates the yearly Summer Acceleration Academy, allowing high school students in rural communities to come to Anchorage for a five-week program in various STEM courses.

Michele Yatchmeneff, chief operating officer for ANSEP, said many of these students don’t get a chance to take similar courses in their local schools.

“So what we do is offer the course here at the university, so that they can get dual credit,” Yatchmeneff said. “So they can get credit for graduation from high school and then also graduation towards a degree.”

Yatchmeneff said ANSEP officials were informed last week that the federal government had terminated their $2.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation, forcing the last-minute cancellation of the Summer Acceleration Academy. The program was set to begin May 24 and serve 47 students.

“The National Science Foundation right now has been told that they’re getting a 50% cut,” Yatchmeneff said. “They’re mainly supporting a lot of research; I also have had research projects with them. So nationally, this has become an issue, and ANSEP is part of that.”

Yatchmeneff said she’s hopeful the program will return next year, and she doesn’t anticipate any further cuts.

“Right now, we still have federal funding coming in from example, like the National Park Service and a few others, and we don’t foresee any more cuts,” Yatchmeneff said.

Other summer ANSEP programs, including the Summer Bridge internship program and middle school academies, were not impacted by the funding cut.

This is not the only recent impact to the ANSEP program from changes at the federal level. The program recently removed the term “Alaska Native” from many parts of its website, citing compliance with federal guidelines on DEI-related language related to race. The change sparked widespread pushback. In the United States, Native American and Alaska Native tribal members are legally considered a political class, as opposed to just a racial group.

Correction: This story has been corrected to reflect that ANSEP is still referred to as the Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program, despite the removal of “Alaska Native” from different parts of its website.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski introduced a bill last week that would reauthorize funds for landslide monitoring work across Southeast Alaska, including in Haines.

At issue is the National Landslide Preparedness Act. The legislation was originally passed in 2020 and has provided millions of dollars each year to agencies including the U.S. Geological Survey for landslide-related work.

But the funding was only approved through 2024. So Murkowski is working to reauthorize it, but this time through 2035.

“We must do everything we can to safeguard our communities and protect Alaskans from fatal natural disasters, and that is why I will continue to advocate for the reauthorization of this bill,” Murkowski said in a statement.

State officials say the original funding has played a major role in fueling Alaska’s efforts to respond to landslide risk, which is intensifying with climate change. Southeast has seen four fatal landslides over the last decade, including one that killed two people in Haines in 2020.

With the exception of some dollars from FEMA, “pretty much the entire” state landslide program is funded by the USGS, said Jillian Nicolazzo, the acting manager of that program, which is within the state Department of Geological and Geophysical Surveys.

“Without the USGS funding, we don’t have another pot of money to use,” Nicolazzo said.

The state has taken on a range of projects as a result of the national funding. Perhaps most important is a statewide inventory on where landslides have happened. Nicolazzo said that project is nearly complete, and will feed into a broader, national database.

Nicolazzo said it’s an important first step toward better understanding where landslides have already happened – and where they’re more likely to take place in the future.

“If we can see that a certain soil type, or a certain slope angle with a certain soil type have had more landslides, then maybe we can say the susceptibility is higher in those conditions,” she said.

The federal funding has also fueled work focused on Southeast weather stations.

Most towns already have weather stations at their airports. Those are critical for aviation purposes but insufficient for monitoring landslide risk across a broader area. Take Wrangell, where a landslide killed six people in 2023.

“People who lived by the Wrangell landslide said there was a lot more rain than what had been recorded at the airport,” Nicolazzo said. “And they suggested that the weather patterns had also been different than what had been recorded at the airport.”

The program helps maintain existing weather stations, including several in Haines. The station on Beach Road, for instance, needs maintenance. Nicolazzo said it looks like some animals have nibbled on wires, and that a bear may have disrupted some solar panels.

But the program also funds the construction of new stations. Nicolazzo said that could happen in Ketchikan and Petersburg this summer.

The reauthorization bill has been introduced in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. The House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources is set to hold a hearing on the legislation this coming Tuesday.

The Alaska Department of Education and Early Development failed a test that allows it to include millions of federal dollars toward its contribution to education funding. 

Alaska receives millions of dollars in education funding each year called federal impact aid. That money makes up lost revenue for regions with land that can’t be taxed like federal and Alaska Native owned land. The state can put that money toward its own obligation to school districts in those regions – as long as there isn’t too big of a gap, or disparity, in funding between the most and least funded school districts.

In a Friday letter to state Education Commissioner Deena Bishop, the U.S. Department of Education said the state failed the disparity test. That means what’s usually tens of millions of dollars in federal aid won’t count toward the state’s education contribution for the next fiscal year. 

The state failed the test because the gap between the most and least funded school districts it compared was too wide.

The state failed the test before in 2021, but successfully appealed the decision. It received an exemption to leave out state funding for student transportation — a change that allowed it to pass the disparity test.

The letter also says the state can request a hearing with the federal department if it will be negatively impacted by the test result.

Bishop said in a Friday email to KTOO the state is considering its options moving forward.

This comes as the state’s education department is pursuing a regulation change intended to keep it from failing the disparity test. The regulation would further limit how much funding local governments can contribute to school districts. But it’s unclear if local contributions were a factor in the education department’s most recent failure.

The state has 60 days to request a hearing.