State Government

When former foster youth Matthew Vandenberg took the stand in a downtown courtroom on the first day of a federal trial, he told the judge about a foster placement he and other foster youth called the “ramen house.” He recounted his testimony in an interview.

“The people there were to give you two ramen packs a day, and if you ate them, say, in the morning, because you were hungry, you would have to wait until the next day to eat again.” Vandenberg said. “I lost over 30 pounds being at that foster home.”

Alaska’s Office of Children’s Services is defending its practices in a federal court case that began Aug. 25 in Anchorage. A national organization, A Better Childhood, brought the class-action lawsuit hoping to force court-mandated reforms to a system it says is failing Alaska kids. It’s a strategy the group says has worked in other states.

Vandenberg testified that he moved foster placements about 13 times over four years. He also testified that at one placement he missed school because he was forced to clean the home’s cul-de-sac instead, and at another he was denied medical treatment for a broken finger. OCS staff are supposed to visit kids in their care monthly, partly to make sure kids aren’t mistreated.

But attorney Marcia Lowry, the director of A Better Childhood, said those monthly visits in Alaska just aren’t happening, putting kids like Vandenberg at risk. The nonprofit is based in New York and brings lawsuits against states across the country to push for foster care reforms.

“How else can you know whether a child is safe when you put a child in a foster home? How can you know when it’s time to move a child to get freed for adoption?” Lowry said. “The visits with both children and with parents are very, very low.”

Lowry said that on many federal measures, Alaska’s foster care system ranks among the worst in the country. Alaska has fewer caseworkers visiting children, longer child protection response times, shorter average placements, and more children maltreated while in state custody, according to data submitted as evidence in the case. And Lowry said the state has not taken the necessary steps to correct problems in the system.

“Alaska is one of the few places that I know of that hires workers who don’t have college degrees,” Lowry said. “Nice, well-intentioned people can’t just do this job. They need an education.”

Lowry said lawsuits like this can be an effective way to force system reforms. She said her organization has sued 11 other states in the last decade to improve foster care systems. It’s won four of those suits, with eight more ongoing.

When the group sued New Jersey in 1999, Lowry said, its system was one of the worst in the country. Now it’s one of the best.

“There was a court order entered, and there was monitoring provided, and New Jersey, over a period of time, reformed its system and had to go into court periodically and report on whether or not it was doing that, and that helped with the legislature,” she said. “The legislature then was required to appropriate more money.”

Alaska’s foster care system has long been plagued with serious problems. Caseloads for caseworkers are often several times the expert-recommended maximum and the state reports high turnover, which experts say creates worse outcomes for kids.

In 2018, a law required reforms meant to reduce caseloads and staff turnover, with mandatory audits to check on progress. The final audit released this year showed that by most measures, OCS hasn’t made meaningful progress. But those involved in bringing this class-action lawsuit to trial hope that if they win, it could actually force change.

Alicia Groh, a national expert in child welfare systems, testified in the federal trial. She said a wide variety of things can bring about change in a child welfare system and she agrees lawsuits can be effective.

“In some states, it is a lawsuit, or the beginnings of a lawsuit, that prompts a state to say, ‘We need to look at this differently. We need to take a very significant action to address these concerns,'” Groh said.

But she said strong leadership is also an important piece of the puzzle.

The Office of Children’s Services declined an interview for this story while the trial is taking place. But in her testimony, OCS Director Kim Guay consistently pointed out that her office is just one piece of Alaska’s child welfare system. She acknowledged case loads can be high, but said the state can’t implement caseload caps because her office can’t turn away kids or families who need help.

Margaret Paton-Walsh, assistant attorney general who is defending the state in the trial, said one of the main problems is that Alaska has a serious caseworker shortage.

“Our perspective is child welfare work is really hard,” Paton-Walsh said. “It’s especially hard in Alaska because of the size and the remoteness of so many of the communities, and we are doing the best that we can to manage the challenges that we have.”

The federal trial is slated to wrap up Sept. 11. There’s no timeline for when the judge will issue her decision.

Alaska’s 2026 governor’s race is becoming a very lopsided affair. While a dozen or so Republicans are either running or believed to be preparing a run, a big question hangs over potential Democratic hopefuls: What will Mary Peltola do?

Nobody has reliable intel, not even Alaska pollster Ivan Moore.

“Well, hang on. Let’s do this: I have three Alaskan buddies here in the car,” he said Monday, when he happened to be driving through western Canada.

He put his phone on mute to do some quick research.

“We had one yes and two nos to the question, ‘Is Mary Peltola going to run for governor?'” he said.

Moore himself is in the yes-she-will camp, making it 50-50 odds in one very unscientific sample.

What does former Alaska congresswoman Mary Peltola say about her plans? She declined to comment for this story. But she attended fundraisers this summer, met with important political players and spoke at the Alaska Democratic Party’s annual picnic, fueling much speculation and inquiry.

Peltola is the only Democrat to win statewide in years. She lost her seat last year to Republican Nick Begich. But Moore said, — based on his real polling, beyond the occupants of his car —that she remains popular. If she enters, Moore said she’d do well in the open primary and would be “overwhelmingly likely” to win one of the four spots on the ranked choice general election ballot in November 2026.

“So it’s kind of an awkward situation: Do you wait for Mary or do you get in?” Moore said, channeling the dilemma other Democratic hopefuls are in. “And if you get in, do you say that you’ll get out if she gets in? Because no one wants to just be in a race to lose it. No one wants to take money away from Mary.”

As he sees it, Alaska Democrats have an innate culture of not competing against each other, because they can’t afford to. There are fewer of them.

The only Democrat to enter the governor’s race so far is former state senator Tom Begich. He pledged to step aside if Peltola runs.

“And I’m hopeful that she will be in a statewide race, too, and that that statewide race will be for the U.S. Senate,” said Begich, who is the uncle of the current Alaska congressman.

Moore polled on the possibility that Peltola might challenge U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan. He found that more respondents had a positive view of Peltola but, in a head-to-head match, Moore’s poll suggests Sen. Sullivan would win.

Moore described those two findings as “very unusual” and attributes it to the incumbent advantage.

Axios and other news sites reported last month that Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer is recruiting Peltola to run against Sullivan. That could mean another multi-million contest, with national Republicans spending a ton of money in Alaska to defend what’s otherwise a safe seat for them. The National Republican Senatorial Committee says it’s not worried.

“Chuck Schumer’s best options in red-state Senate races are losers like Mary Peltola,” a spokesman told Axios.

Anchorage political consultant Jim Lottsfeldt, who generally helps Democrats and moderate Republicans, ardently hopes Peltola enters the governor’s race.

“I think she will just sail far and above everybody else, based on her popularity, her accomplishments, her name ID,” he said. “And the Republicans will be busy in a knife fight amongst the 47 of them to try to get the right to challenge her. It’s sort of a perfect race for her.”

Peltola could spend a year raising money and consolidating support across the left and middle, he said.

“Whereas, with that crowded Republican primary, everybody on that side has to figure out how to get to the second-, third- and fourth-places,” Lottsfeldt said. “And they’re going to be pursuing their niche.”

He figures they’ll take far-right positions to stake out specific GOP lanes to do well in the primary, and then have to walk it back by November.

Alaska AFL-CIO President Joelle Hall said it may feel like potential Democratic candidates are hanging back and waiting for Peltola, but it’s still early. The candidate filing deadline isn’t until June 1, 2026.

“She’s the most electable Democrat in the entire field, and so, yeah, it is natural for everybody to want to know what she’s thinking,” Hall said.

While Peltola lost in 2024, that was a presidential election year. Non-presidential years have lower turnout and Hall said the Alaska voters who stay home skew conservative.

Hall said she doesn’t care which race Peltola files for — governor or U.S. senator — as long as she runs.

“And then when she makes her choice,” Hall said, “we will organize ourselves to try to make the most out of the choice that she makes.”

Alaska students’ test scores improved modestly last school year, according to results released Friday by the Department of Education and Early Development. But the gains were small — only about a third of students across the state are testing at grade level in English, math and science.

The test scores come as policymakers debate ways to improve the state’s struggling schools.

“We did have a few grade levels that showed some promising movement, especially in the area of reading in elementary school and then again in eighth grade, in reading and math,” state Education Commissioner Deena Bishop said in an interview. “But overall, if we took all grade levels, generally, we were pretty flat.”

Bishop said hopes to see improvement in reading scores in the next several years, since early data shows that the Alaska Reads Act is boosting literacy among young students. But the lackluster progress is a sign that public debates about the state’s school system need to move beyond funding, she said.

“Much of our discussions have been on everything other than student learning, and for me, when you do put priority on student learning and what they’re supposed to learn and make sure our classrooms and teachers are able to do that, student learning improves,” she said.

Earlier this year, lawmakers boosted formula funding for public schools across Alaska by $700 per student. It took overriding vetoes from Gov. Mike Dunleavy to do so. Boosting funding had been the top issue for the largely Democratic bipartisan majorities controlling the state House and Senate.

But it’s not one or the other when it comes to funding and student achievement, said Anchorage Democratic Sen. Löki Tobin, the chair of the state Senate Education Committee.

“She’s saying we need to to now focus on student outcomes — as though that wasn’t the whole entire focus of that dialog and discussion,” Tobin said in an interview.

Despite a funding crunch, she’s glad to see test scores stay roughly flat rather than fall.

And Tobin said she’s optimistic about the future. She said she’s hearing from educators about the ways that the bill lawmakers approved this spring is improving classrooms across the state. A Southeast Alaska principal recently emailed her excited about the school year, she said.

“She’s now been able to purchase reading curricula rooted in the science of reading for all grades, and she is excited about deploying it to all grades in her school,” Tobin said. “She’s hired back teachers. She’s been able to reduce class sizes. They have been working with parents on their cellphone policy.”

But Tobin said it’s clear there’s more work to be done. She co-chairs a task force looking at a wide variety of possible education policy changes created by the same bill that boosted funding.

Tobin said she’s especially interested in an upcoming presentation on chronic absenteeism.

That’s a focus for Bishop, too. More than 40% of the state’s students missed at least 10% of school last year, she said, with the highest rates of absenteeism among kindergarteners and first-graders. Chronic absenteeism surged during the pandemic, and Alaska has one of the highest rates of absenteeism in the U.S., according to data from the federal Education Department.

Fundamentally, Bishop said, that’s a problem that local leaders are best equipped to solve.

“Really looking at attendance and the research behind it demonstrates that it has to be looked at at the local level,” Bishop said. “You have to really see, what is it that’s keeping your students from school? Is it the school climate? Is it transportation? Is it the school time?”

But Bishop said there is a role for the state to play — possibly by providing financial incentives encouraging all kinds of improvements.

Lawmakers approved an incentive program in this year’s education bill that rewards districts based on students’ reading performance. But it’s unclear whether Dunleavy will sign a bill taxing out-of-state companies that would provide funding for the incentive program. He has until Oct. 1 to decide.

The Trusty Tusty, the Rusty Tusty — the Alaska ferry Tustumena has a few different nicknames. In the Aleutians, where the ship doubles as the only restaurant for many small villages along the route, people call it the McTusty.

“We’re going to have dinner,” Ellie Hoblet said when the Tustumena docked in False Pass on Aug. 8. “There’s no other places to get food.”

Hoblet was there with a handful of others from the fishing village of about 30 residents.

“Best restaurant in town,” Calum Hoblet said. “The clam chowder and the chicken strips, that’s the best.”

The Tustumena is more than just a ferry: it’s a lifeline for Aleutian communities. Barging in freight can be prohibitively expensive, so the ferry is a cheaper alternative. And a $350 ferry ticket is often the only way people in the Aleutians can afford to travel out of their communities — a one-way flight from False Pass to Anchorage costs more than $1,000.

But the aging vessel doesn’t make it up and down the chain as often as it used to. Meanwhile, the state’s efforts to replace it have been postponed and delayed for years, leading to reduced service and canceled sailings while the ferry undergoes repairs.

The ship also doesn’t sail as late into the year anymore. Captain John Mayer says one reason for that is to avoid inclement weather.

“I’m far more prudent in the weather I choose to go out in because she is a 61-year-old ship,” Mayer said. “When I first started here, it wouldn’t be unusual to leave the harbor in 20-foot seas. Now I don’t even think about that.”

Before the pandemic, the Tustumena made two Aleutian chain runs each month during the summer. In earlier years, they sailed into October, when the crew handed out pumpkins for the famed “Pumpkin Run.”

“When we would pull into port, say, for Sandpoint, the whole town would be on the dock,” Mayer said. “Total chaos.”

Mayer has worked on the Tustumena for about 25 years, working his way up to captain in 2015. He says he hopes a new ferry will mean they can sail as late and as often as before.

“Maybe with the new ship we can, because it could just be more resistant to heavier weather,” he said.

But improved ferry service won’t happen until the state builds the Tustumena’s replacement. That’s been in the works for over a decade, but it wasn’t made official until Gov. Mike Dunleavy announced the project in 2021. The Alaska Department of Transportation solicited for builders the next year, but nobody bid.

Craig Tornga, the ferry system’s marine director, told the marine highway’s advisory board at its July 25 meeting that they’d finally be going out to bid this fall.

“We got a tired Tustumena that needs a replacement,” Tornga told the board.

He said one of the biggest challenges is a requirement that 70% of the money spent on the project goes to American companies, a point that Captain Mayer also made.

“That’s been very exasperating,” Mayer said. “They simply do not make the systems you need for a new ship in this country.”

The original target date for replacing the Tustumena was 2027. Despite the fact that the project hasn’t gone out to bid yet, and despite the fact nobody bid on it the last time, Tornga told the board that they’re still trying to get the replacement ferry on the water at the end of 2028. But he said that date could change once they accept a bid and get a more realistic timeline.

Tornga said the marine highway system is meeting with potential bidders later this month, when he’ll give another progress report.

Back in False Pass, on board the Tustumena, the galley was packed at 6:30 p.m., right when the ferry was supposed to leave. Standing in the galley, Mayer started to sound more like a restaurant manager than a boat captain.

“To-go order? Anybody here to go? Everyone staying on board?” he asked.

He said he didn’t want to set sail for Akutan while folks from False Pass were still waiting for food from the best restaurant in town.

Alaska’s Department of Law is asking a judge to throw out much of a class action lawsuit over the state’s failure to process food assistance applications on time. Thousands of Alaskans are caught in backlogs that have plagued the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, and other aid programs for years.

But the state argues a recent Supreme Court case, Medina v. Planned Parenthood of South Carolina, means they shouldn’t be allowed to sue. Rather, the state argues that the federal Food and Nutrition Service, part of the Agriculture Department overseeing SNAP, should be the only entity able to enforce federal requirements.

“The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Medina makes clear that the plaintiffs have no private causes of action. This litigation must now end,” state attorneys wrote in a motion for summary judgment submitted Tuesday.

Attorney Saima Akhtar of the National Center for Law and Economic Justice, part of the legal team suing the state on behalf of Alaskans caught in the backlog, said in an interview that lawsuits like the SNAP case are an important way for citizens to hold their government accountable.

“Unfortunately, for better or for worse, a lot of times, agencies function better when there is oversight and when they are being held to standards and to account for what they are doing,” she said.

In June, the Supreme Court ruled that a South Carolina Planned Parenthood chapter could not sue the state over violations of the federal law that governs the Medicaid program. The justices ruled 6-3 that only the federal government could enforce that law.

Alaska Department of Law attorneys argue in a filing Tuesday that the decision means hungry Alaskans shouldn’t be allowed to enforce deadlines set out in the law that created SNAP.

Late last year, U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason granted a preliminary injunction, requiring the Division of Public Assistance to report monthly on its progress towards ending the backlog.

The state argues the ongoing court battle takes time and resources away from the Department of Health’s efforts to end the backlog — especially because the department continues to struggle with understaffing.

“This is not a situation where a state has moved to dismiss while refusing to take any meaningful remedial action,” state attorneys wrote. “However, the litigation continues to divert DOH’s limited resources.”

That’s no excuse, Akhtar said. She said the state’s continued failure to clear the backlog means oversight is necessary.

“I don’t think anyone is asserting that the time spent on the reports would magically allow them to clear the multi-thousand-case backlog they have,” she said. “That is not the problem.”

Department officials report they are making progress on the SNAP backlog, which stood at roughly 3,000 in August, down from roughly 4,500 in June.

State officials have barred the import, transport and sale of two fast-growing invasive species that were once popular garden ornamentals but have now wreaked havoc on natural vegetation.

The Alaska Division of Agriculture on Friday said it issued a quarantine for the two species: Prunus padus, commonly known as the European bird cherry tree or mayday tree, and Prunus virginiana, commonly known as the Canada red or chokecherry tree.

The order went into effect Monday.

In essence, it will extend through the state a ban that was imposed in 2017 in Anchorage. The trees have become a particular nuisance in Alaska’s largest city, where they have proliferated in greenbelts and other spaces and crowded out native species like birch and spruce.

State and local officials have been trying to remove these non-native trees, and the new policy should help that effort, said Division of Agriculture Director Bryan Scoresby.

“This quarantine prohibits the importation, transport, and sale within the state of these two trees and their parts,” Scoresby said in a statement. “Many agencies continue to pursue control measures with the goal of eliminating these invasive trees. With this quarantine, the flow of trees into Alaska will stop, making this goal more attainable.”

The ornamentals quickly spread, displacing native vegetation, impeding animals’ access and upsetting natural food webs, according to the University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service.

Their berries can be toxic to moose, causing cyanide poisoning that is sometimes fatal.

Along with those problems, the invasives might be spreading disease to other trees, according to the Division of Agriculture. A fungal disease called “Black Knot” was recently discovered on chokecherry trees on the University of Alaska Anchorage campus, making the invasive trees potential disease spreaders, the division said.

The two tree species are prime targets of annual Anchorage “weed smackdown” invasive-removal events. There is also a concerted effort to remove the trees from Fairbanks, including on the UAF campus, where officials have been methodically replacing them with native trees.

Eradicating the trees might require more than simply cutting them down because new trees can grow out of root systems below stumps, according to the Cooperative Extension Service.

For all the damage the two invasive tree species cause in Alaska, however, some people have found ways to benefit from them. The toxin in their berries can be neutralized and eaten by people.