Health

Western Alaska, where almost all the residents are Indigenous, used to have the world’s highest rate of childhood liver cancer caused by Hepatitis B. After decades of screenings and vaccinations, that problem has been eliminated; since 1995, only one person under the age of 30 has been diagnosed with hepatitis-caused cancer.

Now the Trump administration is seeking to end one of the key tools credited with accomplishing that goal: Hepatitis B vaccinations of newborns.

The federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices on Friday voted to drop a longstanding recommendation for universal hepatitis vaccines for newborns. That is in accordance with the controversial views of U.S. Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr., a vaccine skeptic who fired all members of the previous committee and appointed like-minded members to replace them.

Current federal childhood Hepatitis B vaccination guidelines recommend one dose of the vaccine at birth, followed by additional doses at intervals through 18 months. The recommendation for newborn vaccinations has been in place since 1991.

The advisory committee, part of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, determined that children under 2 months should not be vaccinated unless their mothers are infected or could be infected by Hepatitis B.

Some vaccine critics in the administration, including Kennedy and President Donald Trump themselves, argue — contradicting medical experts and years of medical research — that Hepatitis B vaccines for young children are unnecessary, claiming that it is spread primarily or exclusively through adult behavior like sex and sharing of needles for illegal drug use.

“Hepatitis B is sexually transmitted. There’s no reason to give a baby that’s almost just born Hepatitis B. So I would say wait till the baby is 12 years old and formed and take Hepatitis B,” Trump said at a Sept. 22 news conference.

Those claims are false, said Dr. Brian McMahon, medical and research director of the liver and hepatitis program at the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium.

There is no credible evidence of a link between the vaccine and autism of any other health problem, McMahon said.

And sexual transmissions accounted for only a tiny percentage of Alaska’s Hepatitis B cases, he said.

Aside from mother-to-infant transmissions, which occur during childbirth, Hepatitis B was predominantly spread in Western Alaska through normal daily activities. That is because, unlike the HIV virus or other hepatitis viruses, the Hepatitis B virus can live for seven days on surfaces in schools and homes, like tables and personal-grooming items.

“The virus can be found all over, on school luncheon tabletops, counters and homes,” McMahon said. “Kids have open cuts and scratches from bug bites or anything else, and then they shed millions of particles of the virus on environmental surfaces. And then another kid comes along with an open cut or scratch.”

Such risks are exacerbated in rural Alaska, he said, where homes can be crowded and people pursue traditional subsistence lifestyles with a lot of outdoor activities.

“They’re hunting, fishing, cutting up meat, etcetera, and mosquito bites are real prominent,” he said.

Nationally, only 12.6% of chronic Hepatitis B cases recorded from 2013 to 2018 were attributable to sexual transmission, according to a 2023 CDC study. Transmissions of all forms of hepatitis, including Hepatitis B, are possible through contact sports like football, rugby and hockey, researchers have found.

Alaska’s disease and vaccination success

Before the past decades of vaccination and screening, Hepatitis B was so prevalent in Western Alaska that it was classified as endemic there. It was the only part of the United States with such a classification. In some villages, 20% to 30% of the residents were infected, McMahon said.

Geography and ancient migration patterns accounted for historically high rates of the disease in Western Alaska, as well as other Indigenous regions of the Arctic.

Various strains have been carried from Asia to Alaska over millennia, according to scientists. And the remoteness of Indigenous communities meant isolation from medical services, making early diagnosis difficult in the past, allowing infections to linger and be passed down through generations, according to scientists.

In Alaska, children infected with the virus early in life had a high likelihood of winding up with chronic infections that caused serious complications later, such as liver failure. The worst cases resulted in cancer, and even death.

For McMahon, now in his 80s, treating cancer-stricken children in the Yukon-Kuskokwim region, where he worked in the 1970s, was harrowing.

One of his patients was a 17-year-old high school valedictorian. A few months earlier, she started having abdominal pains, but she ignored them.

“She was really busy with school, and she’d gotten a full ride scholarship and was excited about going to the University of Alaska, representing her community,” McMahon said.

The pains turned out to be cancer, caused by a hepatitis B infection that she had not known she had. Too sick to be flown home, she died in the Bethel hospital.

“It was horrible,” McMahon said.

Another patient was an 11-year-old boy, also diagnosed after he complained of similar abdominal pain. McMahon visited him at home, where the boy was “in horrible pain” and yellow from jaundice.

“He was just crying. He said I know I’m going to die. Just help me with my pain,'” McMahon said.

“My wife was with me. She was a public health nurse. She was in tears. The community health aid practitioner was in tears. I was fighting my tears and pulling everything I could out of my bag to try to help this patient sedate. It was just something I’ll never forget. Never.” McMahon said.

He has relayed these and other experiences to the vaccine advisory committee in hopes of persuading members to keep the infant recommendations in place.

“I said, ‘Do you want to be responsible for children getting liver cancer because of this decision?'” McMahon said. “So I’m probably not very popular right now.”

Alaska was one of the first places in the world where the Hepatitis B vaccine was used as soon as it became available in 1981.

The pilot vaccination project was at the insistence of Alaska Native organizations, along with the state government and the Alaska congressional delegation. Under that pilot program, according to newly published study by McMahon and other researchers from the ANTHC and the CDC’s Arctic program, tribal health organizations and their partners screened 53,860 Alaska Native people for infection and gave vaccines to 43,618 Alaska Native people who tested negative, along with starting the universal newborn vaccinations.

Health officials have followed the outcomes since then, and the new study lists several achievements 40 years after universal newborn vaccination started.

Since 1995, according to the study, there have been no new symptomatic cases of Hepatitis B among Alaska Natives under 20 anywhere in the state. Since 2000, no new cases of hepatitis-related liver cancer have been identified among Alaska Natives of any age in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, a region where prevalence was concentrated in the past, the study said. And follow-up surveillance has revealed that childhood Hepatitis B vaccinations remain effective for at least 35 years, the study said.

Successes are also reflected in the trend of acute hepatitis, the form of infection that is short-lived and can be cleared from the body.

There have been no identified cases of acute hepatitis among Alaska Native children since 1992, according to Johns Hopkins University. The rate of acute hepatitis among Alaskans of all ages and ethnicities dropped from 12.1 cases per 100,000 people to 0.9 per 100,000 in the 2002-2015 period, according to the state Department of Health’s epidemiology section.

Alaska’s rate of chronic hepatitis B – the long-term and persistent infection that can lead to serious liver problems – remains higher than the national average. As of 2020, Alaska’s rate of chronic Hepatitis B was 14.2 cases per 100,000 people, nearly triple the national rate of 5 cases per 100,000 people, according to a report by the state Department of Health’s epidemiology section.

McMahon said that is partly because of the legacy of infections in the older Native population, people whose childhood predated widespread vaccination, and prevalence among foreign-born residents who come from countries without widespread vaccination.

Debate over Hepatitis B risks

This year, vaccine skeptics who are members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, however, along with people who are advising the committee, have argued that the risks of Hepatitis B among children are too low to justify universal infant vaccination.

One of the officials making that argument at Thursday’s committee meeting was Dr. Cynthia Nevison, a vaccine skeptic hired as a CDC consultant. She contradicted McMahon’s description of children spreading the virus through casual contact with contaminated surfaces – a process known as “horizontal transmission.”

“There’s very little evidence that horizontal transmission has ever been a significant threat to the average American child, and the risk probably has been overstated,” she said at the meeting. Also overstated, she said, are the risks of “vertical transmission,” the viral transmission between mothers and their newborns.

The committee’s new recommendation must be approved by the CDC administrator before it becomes federal policy.

McMahon said that no matter how national policy might change, Alaska Native tribal health organizations will continue administering Hepatitis B vaccines to newborns.

“I know they’re not going to stop. Even if they have to pay for it. They’re so aware of this,” he said.

His fears, he said, are for low-income families who depend on free vaccinations through state programs that might lose funding and for parents who are getting conflicting messages that may lead to conclusions that the vaccine is not necessary.

“It could be a real mess,” he said.

Susan Sookram sat in the hot tub of the Yukon-Kuskokwim (Y-K) Fitness Center. She brought her book to settle into — an anthology containing the first three Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books — with the whole tub to herself.

But up until recently, this post-workout ritual was put on pause.

“I think I did come a little bit less without that motivating thought of taking a relaxing dip afterwards,” Sookram said.

Since July, the hot tub in Bethel’s fitness center had been out of commission. There was an issue with its pump. And, like with any beloved relative – people have been calling, sending Facebook messages, and stopping by in person for months to ask if it was getting better.

Bethel Parks and Recreation Department staff said that they even got a request from a community member to publicly share the tracking information on the missing part so that everyone could keep tabs on it. Then, after four months, it was finally fixed.

“It was sort of to very quiet fanfare, and I felt like it deserved more of a community-wide announcement and/or celebration,” Sookram said.

David Chakuchin, the facilities manager at the fitness center, said that he didn’t know the hot tub outage would be that big of a deal.

“It was kind of surprising how people would be, like, getting upset,” Chakuchin said. “Like, chill. It’s just a hot tub.”

In the months since the hot tub has been down, the rumors have flown around town about what had gone wrong. KYUK Multimedia Department’s MaryCait Dolan asked Chakuchin about some of them during our interview.

“Wasn’t it also, like, once the part came in, there had to be someone to, like, crawl into the inner workings of the hot tub too?” Dolan asked. “I don’t know where I heard that.”

Chakuchin smiled.

“No, no one had to crawl,” Chakuchin said, laughing.

In actuality, what happened is a classic tale in rural Alaska. The broken part first had to be identified and its nearly $10,000 price tag paid for. Then it had to be shipped to Bethel from the lower 48, which takes much longer than normal shipping times. And then there were bigger problems to solve.

“Typhoon Halong hit, and then that, like, just delayed it another, like, two or three weeks, maybe,” Chakuchin said.

This is the first time in the pool’s 11 year history that it has needed major maintenance.

“In the future, I don’t think it’s going to be that hard because we kind of learned a lot of lessons,” Chakuchin said.

Chakuchin said that it was surprising to hear how much people cared about the hot tub.

Mac Nowicki is a hot tub regular and admitted that he fell into the party of pushier hot tub inquirers.

“I did for, I don’t know, like two months, [a] pilgrimage asking,” Nowicki said. “They displayed little piece of paper which says ‘it’s on the way’. Then they display another piece of paper which says ‘we should fix it,’ and then — finally.”

Now on the other side, Nowicki said that it’s been nice to have the space for his muscles and spine to relax. He likes to come at least twice a week.

Now that it’s back open, the hot tub and greater fitness center have been busy. After Typhoon Halong displaced many residents of coastal communities to Bethel, the fitness center is offering its showers and facilities, including the hot tub, to evacuees.

Chakuchin said that there are a lot of people using the facilities. Bethel is the only community in the Y-K Delta to have a pool and hot tub. Bethel Life Savers also sponsors free snacks and drinks for impacted families.

“There’s a lot, a lot of families come in, and it’s, it’s nice, nice to see it’s more busy for us, but it is nice that they do have a place to come in,” Chakuchin said.

On Friday and Monday nights, community members gather in the hot tub before starting a pickup game of water polo.

“If we’re one or two people shy of two teams, we have recruited people that never played before from just chilling in the hot tub,” Scott said.

That’s water polo regular Sundi Scott. Scott said that the moments before jumping in the pool to play are particularly important.

“It gives us time to socialize before we get really competitive with each other,” Scott said.

Scott said that during the hot tub’s outage, participation numbers suffered. But now there have been enough people for two teams and time to laugh and relax against the jets.

For water polo regular and KYUK’s outgoing news director Sage Smiley, it’s her last night in town before moving away.

“I wanted to spend my last night with the community,” Smiley said. “And the way you do that on a Friday night in Bethel, at least for me, is by playing water polo and sitting in the hot tub.”

The fitness center’s Equitable Access Program offers assistance to make memberships accessible for all families interested. For more information, visit the Y-K Fitness Center’s website.

Pickup water polo is held on Monday and Friday evenings, beginning in the hot tub at 7:00 p.m. before playing between 7:15 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

Josh Engle was bundled up on one of the first frigid days in October, walking along a forest path to do outreach in a homeless encampment in Anchorage. He approached a man in a weathered coat near several tents and a makeshift structure.

“How long you been out here on the streets?” Engle asked.

“Too long,” the man said.

“You connected with any resources?” Engle asked. The man described the tarp and blankets he’d been able to get.

Engle, a manager and peer support specialist at True North Recovery in Wasilla, hoped to guide people into recovery, if they showed interest. It’s a path Engle knows well because he’s in long-term recovery himself, so he understands how fleeting the window of opportunity can be when someone decides to seek treatment.

Engle supports people in ways that go well beyond what a more traditional therapist or psychiatrist can do. He may text with clients outside business hours, help them find work or get connected with benefits–anything that might lead to recovery. Peer support specialists like Engle — people in recovery themselves— can help people recover from both serious mental illness and substance use disorders, and can reduce healthcare costs.

“I personally really enjoy being able to connect with them on a personal level (as) someone that has walked their path and been in their shoes and ultimately have struggled the way that they’re currently struggling,” Engle said.

True North Recovery, where Engle works, aims to hire people with lived experience in recovery not just as peer support specialists, but for every role–from receptionists to health care providers. Research shows that when patients interact with workers with lived experience, it aids recovery.

Peers can sometimes say and see things people without lived experience can’t.

Aaron Surma, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, or NAMI, in Juneau, trains peer support associates. Surma also experiences mental illness himself. He said psychiatrists and mental health professionals play an important role in supporting recovery and treatment, but there is a strong power difference.

“You’re in a small room, you’re making intense eye contact, and the dynamic is that you have the expert and the person who needs help, and the experts are taught to not really share about themselves,” Surma said. “Which makes it feel really one sided. It makes you feel like you’re being judged and evaluated.”

Surma said he was arrested multiple times during high school and was court-ordered to go to Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous meetings. He said hearing peers in those groups was awesome, but things felt different when talking with his formal providers.

“When I was a teenager, I was lighting stuff on fire and buying garbage bags of weed,” Surma said. “So then to go into a small room and talk to somebody who- imagine the counselor from South Park who’s saying ‘Drugs are bad, mkay?’ and it’s a million miles from what you know.”

He said it’s easier for peers to bridge those gaps in early recovery. Peer support specialists speak the language of addiction and mental illness and also understand the more traditional language of behavioral health professionals.

He said typically those professionals–like therapists and psychiatrists–dole out care in ways that are convenient for the health care system. But peer support is different.

“Recovery isn’t just supported in small doses from paid professionals, but it can also happen on our own time, in places that are comfortable to us, in settings that feel more accessible and from people who feel more approachable,” Surma said.

He said peer support relationships don’t have to be formal and the role can also be incredibly healing for the person providing the support. The hard times and challenges someone has faced suddenly have value, if those experiences help someone else.

“The sense of purpose is incredible,” Surma said. “I talk openly about having been suicidal and how to address depression, and people come out of the woodwork because they know that the door is open.”

That sense of purpose is also something peer support specialist Engle has felt deeply in his work.

“There is no way you could have convinced me 10 years ago that all of the damage and chaos that I was causing in people’s lives, my loved ones, people I just would cross paths with, that I would be able to use any of that for good,” Engle said. “I thought that was just going to be like a stain on my soul for the rest of my life.”

Instead, now his struggles are a tool to help people and do his job.

At the Anchorage encampment, Engle approached a couple’s tent. They said they were interested in a detox program but wanted to go together.

“It’s gonna be tough,” Engle said. “But what we can do is we can line it up so, like, beds on the same date. They’re just going to be different programs.”

But the couple said they had more to do before committing to detox.

“I swear, every single time we talk: ‘almost there, almost there.’ I know you are,” Engle said, his voice taking on the loving but firm tone of an older brother.

It wasn’t enough to get them into a program, but he’ll be back working to make their next steps in recovery as easy as possible when they’re ready.

Thousands of Alaskans who rely on the federal marketplace for health insurance are experiencing sticker shock as they apply for coverage for the coming year. That’s because key health care subsidies that have helped millions of Americans afford their insurance are set to expire.

As Congress continues debating whether or not to extend the tax credits, some Juneau residents are growing increasingly worried about how sharp premium hikes will hit their wallets, and their access to life-saving health care.

David Elrod books performers for the Crystal Saloon in Downtown Juneau. He’s worked in bars for nearly 20 years, and he’s never had a bar job that offered health insurance. Right now, he pays about $60 a month for a basic plan through the Affordable Care Act marketplace.

When he went to apply for his 2026 plan, he got quite a shock. The number on the screen said $1,030 a month. 

“It was pretty scary to see,” Elrod said. “And that’s not even including dental, which I’m obviously going to skip this year.” 

He said the plan still had a $2,500 deductible — the amount he would have to pay each year before insurance kicks in.

“This is not like a Cadillac health insurance plan,” he said. 

He isn’t the only one seeing a massive jump in their premium payments. Federal subsidies that keep plans in the health care marketplace affordable are set to expire if Congress doesn’t act to extend them by the end of the year. In fact, the question of whether or not to extend the subsidies was the fundamental debate behind the recent, record-breaking government shutdown. 

The state estimates that 27,000 Alaskans buy insurance through the Affordable Care Act. KFF Health News reports that nationwide, enrollees who benefit from federal subsidies will see monthly payments increase on average by 114% if federal subsidies disappear. But Alaskans could see much higher jumps. 

The Alaska Beacon reported earlier this fall that the average monthly insurance payment for Juneau residents using federal insurance will rise from $124 to more than $1000 if the subsidies expire – likely causing some to opt out of insurance

For Elrod though, going without insurance isn’t a good option. 

He has a condition that requires expensive medication to prevent blood clots from forming.

“If I don’t take this medication, yeah, blood clots will come back. They will kill me,” he said. “I’m gonna try to cut back to one pill a day instead of two pills a day. You know, it’s like, those are the decisions that I’m having to make right now.”

For people in Juneau struggling to afford the health care they need, Heidi Adams says she and her team may be able to help. Adams is a care navigator with JAMHI Health & Wellness.

“Everyone’s situation is so very different, and so by coming in, we can assist them with connecting,” she said. “But also if we can’t meet those needs, who might be able to in a way that’s affordable or easily accessible.” 

JAMHI is a health nonprofit in Juneau. It provides primary care services and behavioral health treatment, regardless of insurance. With Alaska having some of the highest health care costs in the nation, care is often already out of reach for many Juneau residents. 

Now, with subsidies potentially ending and upcoming restrictions to Medicaid, Adams said she thinks the nonprofit will see an increase in people seeking medical care.

“We can assume we’re going to see a much larger population coming in because they can’t afford it any other way,” she said.

Randy Garcia also works at JAMHI. He assists in the intake process and supports medical providers.

He said JAMHI is a safety net for moments like this, when nothing else feels like an option. 

“It’s a scary moment, especially when things that are expected are being taken away or stopped, and you don’t know where to turn,” he said. “Well, you can always turn to JAMHI.” 

Open enrollment on the federal marketplace lasts until Jan. 15. For coverage that begins with the new year, the deadline is even sooner – on Dec. 15. 

In the meantime, Elrod said he’s waiting as long as he can to finish his application, in the hopes that something changes. 

Correction: This story has been updated to correct that the Beacon reported that federal insurance will rise from $124 to more than $1000 if the subsidies expire.

When people talk about Alaska’s reliance on imported food, they nearly always cite the same number: 95%.

The figure has been around for decades – appearing again and again in executive orders, media reports, state-commissioned analyses and speeches. But food systems experts can’t trace the number back to a verifiable, data backed source – or crunch it themselves.

“I think it is a very useful thing to just note that it is made up,” said Rachel Lord, policy director at the Alaska Food Policy Council, a Homer based nonprofit.

That’s not to say the figure is totally off base. It’s well established by now that the vast majority of food Alaskans purchase is imported from elsewhere. And Lord is among those who have said 95% is a reasonable ballpark estimate.

But uncertainty around the figure underscores the complex nature of tracking whether Alaska is becoming less dependent on imports over time – even as the Dunleavy administration seeks to push the state in that direction.

“How do we know if we’re succeeding, if we don’t actually have any metrics?” said Lord, who also spoke to the challenge in a recent High Country News article.

Glaring red flags

So where did the 95% figure come from? A web of reports and academic papers point in a few different directions.

A 2023 report prepared for Dunleavy, for instance, says the figure hasn’t been “substantiated, nor updated” since a journal mention in 1987. Another paper, published in 2010, says it dates back to the 1970s – and also nods to uncertainty around its precision.

“In 1977 it was estimated that 95 percent of food in Alaska is imported, despite our seemingly large number of avid gardeners, hunters, and fishers,” the paper says. “This figure has been used by many sources since then but research to verify it only began recently.”

A third report, published in 2014, attributes the statistic to speeches made by two different people, one in 1977 – and the other in 1998.

Original source aside, the figure has a few glaring red flags, said Mike Jones, a food systems economist at the University of Alaska Anchorage.

“Our biggest warning with something like this 95% statistic is that there are no units attached,” he said. “Is it 95% of the dollars we spend on food? Is it 95% of the weight of the food we have? Is it 95% of the calories of the food that we have?”

On top of that, it’s almost never framed consistently. In many instances, people will say 95% of Alaska’s total food supply is imported. But that doesn’t account for the significant role that hunting, fishing, farming and foraging play in local food systems.

“It’s [95% of] purchased food,” Lord said. “In rural Alaska, and a lot of communities, a huge amount of food eaten is subsistence, wild foods.”

Still, the figure abounds. As recently as March of this year, the Dunleavy administration included it in a video caption on Facebook, in which the governor announced his plan to create a Department of Agriculture.

“Alaska imports 95% of its food, but we don’t have to,” the caption reads. 

A data challenge

As Jones sees it, the figure seems to have been repeated so often, for so long, it’s become conventional wisdom. But he’s not convinced it should stay that way.

“I think we search for numbers in describing the scope of a problem. And it’s appropriate to look for numbers,” he said. “I think if we’re using a number, then it’s important that it definitely comes from a verifiable source.”

So why isn’t there a verifiable source? The short answer is that it’s a complex math problem that’s made more difficult by major data gaps around both imports, and locally sourced food.

The point of doing that math would be to pinpoint a figure that would help track progress over time. But for the time being, Jones said, it might be better to rely on adjectives, as opposed to percentages.

“I tried very hard to use publicly available, particularly federal statistics, to be able to infer that for the state. And I found it to be a very, very difficult exercise.”

A spokesperson for the governor’s office nodded to Dunleavy’s plan to create an agriculture department as a potential solution.

“An additional benefit of the Department is that it will be able to facilitate collecting more detailed data that will allow for more precise, Alaska-specific food system measurements moving forward,” Deputy Press Secretary Grant Robinson wrote in an email.

Lord, of the Alaska Food Policy Council, said her organization is working on a grant-funded database with the same goal.

Lessons from Vermont

The challenge isn’t isolated to Alaska. David Conner is an economist with the University of Vermont who led the state’s efforts to count local food.

Conner and his team relied on some of the same datasets Jones has worked with. But he also built on that data by reaching out to grocery stores, schools, hospitals, distributors and more to get a sense of how much local food they purchased in the previous year.

From there, the researchers did their best to avoid counting any sale twice, and asked important questions like – is beer food?

“We have a fairly vibrant local brewery scene,” Conner said. “Do we count that?”

There’s also the reality that many agricultural products aren’t ultimately consumed by humans – or consumed locally. Like hay, which is used for livestock. The same is true in Alaska, where hatchery activity and floraculture – namely, peonies – make up for a substantial chunk of the agricultural production.

Back in Vermont, the researchers ultimately estimated that the state had likely surpassed its own goal to ensure local food accounts for 10% of total consumption.

Still, they wrote, “local food consumption estimates such as ours should not be taken at face value to the large data gaps.”

It all underscores that Alaska isn’t alone in importing the vast majority of its purchased food. That’s the case given that different areas are better suited to different crops – and that the U.S. food system hinges on long and winding supply chains. It’s true even in states with booming agriculture sectors.

“In many, many cases, food-producing regions are also the most food insecure, because the food is grown for export markets, not for local consumption,” Conner said.

Jones, with the University of Alaska, said it’s a good thing that Alaskans can access foods grown really far away. It’s necessary from both a nutrition and financial standpoint.

“I’m sure you could grow a mango in a Conex in Alaska. But nobody is trying to buy a $100 mango,” he said.

Still, many states think very hard about boosting local food production – and for good reason, Jones and Conner said. Doing so is good for the planet and yields fresher food.

“Maybe more importantly, when you buy locally grown food, the money tends to circulate more times in the economy and generate more wealth and more income before it leaves,” Conner said. “So it can really be an instrument of economic development.

Alaskans who qualify for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program received half of their benefits nearly a week late as a result of the federal government shutdown this month. Their full benefits were two weeks late, even though the state had emergency funds to prevent that.

Officials say the state never used the $5 million per week it set aside to keep people from waiting for food benefits because the state’s system had to be reconfigured to use state money rather than its usual federal funding source. SNAP is a federal food assistance program that is run by the state.

Division of Public Assistance Director Deb Etheridge said the state is now prepared to react quickly if a similar situation arises in the future.

“We went through all the steps we needed to create an opportunity for a state-only benefit to be issued through our EBT contractor,” she said. “So in the event that anything like this happens again, we can move swiftly to issue that state-only benefit.”

Gov. Mike Dunleavy signed an emergency order declaration on Nov. 3, following a request by state legislators and similar action by other states.

Etheridge said information technology and system operations teams had to scramble to come up with solutions, but by the time they found a way to get money to Alaskans, the federal government had begun to partially fulfill its obligations.

She said the state was closing in on a solution when the federal government released 50% of the money for benefits on Nov. 4. She said that money was processed and ready for Alaskans to spend by Nov. 6.

Etheridge said the eligibility technicians that process benefits were not excessively burdened by the shutdown.

“Eligibility workers were doing business as usual, processing cases and managing, obviously, increased phone calls — people wanted to know where their benefits were,” she said. “The pressure came on our system operations and our IT.”

The shutdown delayed service in a state division with a history of slowdowns in recent years. The DPA has battled long backlogs in processing food benefit applications as a result of staff shortages and technology issues since 2022. The division made progress against its backlog before slipping again in 2023. Paperwork slowdowns kept thousands waiting again earlier this year.

Etheridge says the division is currently working to make sure people displaced by the October storms in Western Alaska continue to receive benefits, even if they have lost access to critical paperwork.