Senators Joe Paskvan, Dennis Egan, and Gary Stevens during the closeout hearing of the Senate Finance DEED Subcommittee, March 20, 2012
This blog contains highlights from the Alaska Education Update. The update is issued daily during session and contains detailed summaries of education issues under consideration by the Alaska State Legislature. If there is a hearing on a Monday, a report will, with few exceptions, be released by Tuesday morning. There is also a weekly edition of the update. During interim, reports are issued only when there has been action. Interim action may include hearings, bill signings, the release of the Governor's proposed budget for the next fiscal year, and other items that may be of interest to the education community.

To subscribe to full reports, contact Shana Crondahl at (907) 500-7069 or akedupdate@gci.net. To subscribe to blog posts, submit your email:

Thursday, June 24, 2010

House Members appointed to Higher Education Task Forces

House members have been named to the Joint Legislative Higher Education Scholarship Funding Task Force and the Advisory Task Force on Higher Education & Career Readiness (established by SB 221 http://www.legis.state.ak.us/basis/get_bill.asp?bill=SB%20221&session=26 ). No word yet on when the task forces will begin meeting.

Members of the task forces include:
The Joint Legislative Higher Education Scholarship Funding Task Force (15 members):
Five senators: Senate President Stevens and Sens. Elllis, Hoffman, Meyer, & Thomas;
Five representatives: Reps. Seaton, P. Wilson.....

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Alaska Budget Vetos, June 3, 2010

Governor Parnell signed HB 300, HB 302, and SB 230 into law on Thursday, June 3. He said the capital budget passed by the legislature was significantly larger than his proposed budget. Final education funding and a list of vetoes is contained in the Alaska Education Update, June 3, 2010 edition.

Governor Parnell said that in talking to legislators, he found that all the small school projects included in the capital budget are school district priorities, but that they would never rise to the level of being funded without earmarks from the legislature. So earmarking by legislators is an appropriate method for funding those projects. He said that legislators know what the priorities of their districts are better than he does.

There is a new web tool on the State of Alaska website with a map showing projects by geographic area:
http://gov.alaska.gov/parnell/press-room/2010-budget/budget-map.html