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The Alaska Senate Finance committee advanced a draft capital budget on Tuesday that would put nearly $250 million toward state facilities and maintenance projects next year.
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The draft budget adds $88 million to Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s proposed capital budget of $159 million, with the largest additions going toward K-12 schools and university facilities maintenance.
That was a focused effort by the finance committee, said co-chair Sen. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka, who called funding for education facilities maintenance a “heavy concentration” on Wednesday.
Earlier this year, students and school officials testified to lawmakers that decades of deferred maintenance has reached crisis levels — with many rural school districts in particular grappling with deteriorating facilities, failing water and sewer systems — which they say is degrading student and staff morale. Lawmakers have expressed support and increased funding in recent years, but point to Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s history of vetoes as a roadblock for funding education.
The Senate draft includes $57.8 million in additional funding toward K-12 school maintenance through the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development and $17 million toward the University of Alaska. It also includes $5.7 million for the Alaska Court System’s facilities and $8 million for community infrastructure and workforce development programs through the Alaska Department of Commerce, Community, and Economic Development.
The Legislature relies on state ranked lists to prioritize where to direct funding to capital projects for K-12 schools, the university system and the court system.
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For K-12 schools, the state’s current totals over $400 million needed for 103 school projects and repairs. Stedman said he recognized this year’s capital budget will only fund a fraction of those.
“Hopefully we get a quarter of it done, or something like that, but it’d be nice to retire the entire list,” Stedman said.
The draft budget would fund the top 15 school projects on the list, plus funds for three other schools in need of emergency fuel tank repairs. The top projects range from roof and boiler replacements to septic systems, fire suppression and safety upgrades in schools from Fairbanks to the Aleutian Islands.
In order to distribute funds more widely, members of the finance committee reduced funding for one project in Galena, in the Western Interior of Alaska, from roughly $35 million to $5 million for renovations to the Sydney C. Huntington Elementary and High Schools. They also allocated $17 million towards rebuilding the school in Stebbins in Western Alaska, after it burned down in 2024.
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