Robert Woolsey, KCAW, Author at KCAW

The Sitka Tribal Council and Sitka Assembly meet twice a year for a meal, and to cover topics of mutual interest. During their May 12, 2025 meeting, the two bodies covered Redoubt sockeye, urban bears, and several other issues. (KCAW/Woolsey)

Sealaska selected 11 acres in Redoubt Bay, under a provision of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act – 14 (h)(1)c – which allows regional Native corporations to apply for title to historical places and cemetery sites across the state.

Sealaska made the Redoubt selection in 1975, but the formal conveyance took decades.

To the surprise of many, the Sitka Tribe supported Sealaska’s selection. The two organizations signed a management agreement in 2013 spelling out how they would work together, once the transfer was complete.

That’s now happened, and the Tribe’s CEO Lisa Gassman said Sealaska would be back this summer to expand that original agreement.

“They need to acknowledge that the lands that they own under traditional Lingít law, the Kiks.ádi were the true owners of Kunaa and therefore they believe that tribal citizens should be the direct beneficiaries of this land,”said Gassman. “What they have talked about is ensuring that fishing still happens out there. They understand – and that’s why they got this land – was because it was fishing had historically happened out there.”

And fishing is still happening at Redoubt. For over twenty years, the Forest Service has fertilized Redoubt Lake, producing a run of sockeye salmon that typically reaches the tens – and sometimes hundreds – of thousands. Scores of Sitkans take the 17-mile skiff ride to dipnet in Redoubt Falls (and now to set seine nets). Tribal Council member Steve Johnson said the Tribe and Sealaska had to be clear that fishing will continue unimpeded.

“We know that Redoubt is a very important subsistence area to a lot of us,” said Johnson. “And I mean so much food goes into so many freezers in this town from that area, and so we want to make sure that we’re transparent in our dealings with it, and that access and things will be preserved.”

Although continued federal funding for lake fertilization is a question mark, council members assured the assembly that the Forest Service would continue to have an easement to install and operate the weir at the top of the falls. Additionally, council member Lillian Feldpausch noted that Sealaska and the Tribe would keep policies in place, particularly the prohibition against dogs on shore.

Other issues discussed by the Tribal Council and Sitka Assembly:

Urban Bears

The rule about dogs at Redoubt is meant to protect pets against harmful interactions with bears, which are abundant at Redoubt. And they’re abundant back in Sitka as well, and much more active earlier in the season than in past years.

Council member Martha Moses expressed her continued frustration at the wide disparity between the relatively small fines paid by residents cited by the Sitka Police Department for leaving garbage out, and the $320 citations handed down by troopers for illegally feeding wildlife.

Tribal chair Yeidikook’áa said she felt privilege was involved, as many residents simply did not have a garage, or adequate freezer space, to store garbage until collection day.

One bear has already been killed by the Alaska Department of Fish & Game this year in Sitka. The recent record of 14 kills in Sitka was set in 2021. Council member Lillian Feldpausch felt 2025 was off to a bad start.

“When the bear is breaking down a shed, a garage, and if their garbage is secure, what’s next?” she asked. “The house? It’s going to be a bad year. It just feels like a bad bear year.” 

Feldpausch said she respected bears, “but I think we need to be a little more aggressive.”

Council member Lesa Way thought a 24/7 bear-proof dumpster at the transfer station would aid residents like her who want to be responsible about garbage after work hours.

“It would be so nice to have just a dumpster out in front that at five o’clock or at seven o’clock at night, when I’m done (with work) and I’ve got to get rid of garbage, that I could just take it up there,” said Way.

Sitka municipal administrator John Leach liked Way’s idea. He said that the city was already experimenting with bear-proof dumpsters.

“We heard great things about the system they put in place at the Trooper Academy, and that’s why we’re trying the dumpster thing,” said Leach. “We had a couple of those dumpsters available in the harbor system – the roll-off units – so we’re keeping those in a centralized location that hopefully gets the garbage away from the homes. And if the bears try to get into the dumpsters, they’re not going to be able to get into those dumpsters. And we’ll pick those up once a week.”

Leach said staff would monitor the new dumpsters throughout the season, to determine if they are something the city should adopt in the future.

A Washington state-based conservation group is suing the National Marine Fisheries Service over king salmon – again.

The Wild Fish Conservancy filed suit earlier this month in US District Court to compel NMFS to complete its Endangered Species determination for king salmon in the Gulf of Alaska.

The group previously sued in 2020 to halt commercial trolling for kings in Southeast Alaska, to protect an endangered  population of killer whales in Puget Sound.

Nat Herz is covering the story for the Northern Journal. He spoke recently with KCAW’s Robert Woolsey. 

KCAW: Nat, what is the Wild Fish Conservancy asking for this time?

Hertz:  About a year ago, a little more than a year ago, the Wild Fish Conservancy,  – which is a Washington state-based conservation group – filed a petition with the Biden administration, asking for a determination that king salmon all across the Gulf of Alaska fit the criteria for threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act. And there is a deadline in the Endangered Species Act that requires the federal government to act on those petitions within a year of their filing. And fast forward one year, plus a sort of legally-required notification period, and the federal government has not issued that finding yet. And so the Wild Fish Conservancy, with their lawyers that are battle-tested from previous conflicts in Southeast Alaska and across the Pacific Northwest, filed a lawsuit last week (5-8-25) to force the hand of now the Trump administration to issue a determination on this request to listing salmon as endangered or threatened. 

KCAW: This is a completely different lawsuit than the 2020 lawsuit the Wild Fish Conservancy filed to try and block Southeast trolling to protect Southern Resident killer whales?

Herz:  Fair to say it is separate. I don’t think it’s totally fair to say that it’s entirely unrelated. I think, from their position down there in Washington, they are looking at Alaska and saying, “These are species of fish have a bearing on folks down here in Washington State,” both because I think there’s some mixing of the fish and and their predators, but also, I think just because there are people in Washington state that visit Alaska and have a stake in the harvesting of these species, but I think it’s very clear that the Wild Fish Conservancy, which I think has done a lot of work previously on conservation in the Pacific Northwest, seems to be making Alaska and the Gulf of Alaska an increasing focus.

KCAW: Nat, in your article in the Northern Journal, you did have a response from somebody at NOAA who didn’t seem to say, “Oops, we goofed,” but more like, “Oh, we’re taking our time.”Herz: If I had to guess, I think there are entire law firms or attorneys that probably do a pretty good bulk of their business just filing these lawsuits against federal agencies that haven’t acted quickly enough on these Endangered Species Act petitions. I think it’s a pretty common thing that you have this 12-month deadline in law, but sort of from a practical standpoint, it’s not always possible for the agencies to issue their decision in that time frame. And so yes, the Federal official that corresponded with me about it basically was saying, “We’re working on it.” And there are also some state biologists that have  been attached to the team at the National Marine Fisheries Service that is reviewing some of the statistical data. And so it sounds like there is a robust review going on. Maybe that has been somewhat disrupted – I mean, there have been all kinds of headlines about the chaos at the National Marine Fisheries Service, specifically because that agency was really heavily targeted by DOGE (the Elon Musk government efficiency arm) and so I’m sure that has probably disrupted them a little bit. But I doubt that this is something that is not already on their radar, and something that is underway, as they (the NOAA official) said.

Tim Fulton developed TISABAS (“Tim Saves Backs”) in his home workshop in Sitka in 2018. During his 38-years in the airline industry, Fulton prototyped a variety of rollers and belts to safely move heavy items like fish boxes inside of aircraft. He sold his first two production models to Malaysian Airlines, and steadily built an overseas market for the device. His company, Ramper Innovations, was valued at $3.5 million and appeared poised for growth until tariffs on some of his Japanese-made components forced him to significantly raise his price. Now, both customers and investors are shying away, and Fulton is considering his options: Moving his manufacturing out of the country, or declaring bankruptcy. (KCAW/Woolsey)

An Alaskan entrepreneur was featured on the cover of the New York Times business section Tuesday (April 29), but not for the reasons he had hoped.

Tim Fulton launched Ramper Innovations in Sitka in 2018 to manufacture a unique conveyor system for loading baggage on airliners, and slowly grew the business into a $3-and-a-half million-dollar company with three full time employees, and customers in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe.

But almost overnight, tariffs imposed by President Trump have brought Ramper Innovations to the brink of bankruptcy. While Fulton’s equipment is manufactured in Sitka, some of the specialized parts are made overseas. Raising the price for his product has caused one of Fulton’s major customers to cancel, and uncertainty over future US trade policy has discouraged his investors.

KCAW’s Robert Woolsey recently spoke to Fulton from his wife’s home in  Belo Horizonte, Brazil, where he’s considering relocating his business.

Sitka AmeriCorps program director Sarah Lawrie (lower right) with Sitka corps members in 2024. The AmeriCorps program has supported Sitka’s nonprofits, government agencies, and schools for 21 years. Corps members earn a stipend, and an education award that they can use to pay student loans or college tuition.

It was no secret that DOGE, the quasi-department created by President Trump and overseen by billionaire Elon Musk, had begun dismantling the AmeriCorps program in Washington D.C. In mid-April, employees of the national office were placed on paid administrative leave, and told that their jobs would be gone by the end of the month.

Alaska has five AmeriCorps programs, most – like Sitka’s – funded indirectly through the state’s ServeAlaska Commission, and there was some hope that they might be spared the indiscriminate cuts that DOGE has been making in agencies across government.

But that hope vanished Friday afternoon, April 25. Sitka program director Sarah Lawrie got word that hers was one of four Alaska programs that were being terminated.

She called together her corps members for one of the most “challenging” meetings of her career.

“I knew that the Department of Government Efficiency was in AmeriCorps, and honestly, I just kind of had an intuition about it,” said Lawrie. “But telling them, ‘Your service isn’t worth anything.’ You’ve made this commitment to come and serve the community, that ethic of serving others: That’s what feels like a slap in the face.”

Until that bombshell, as Lawrie put it, Sitka had nine active AmeriCorps members, hosted by the Sitka Fine Arts Camp, the Alaska Marine Safety Education Association, the city’s Parks & Recreation Department, two at Mt. Edgecumbe High School, and four in the Sitka School District. All work for a small stipend, and an education award for completing their year of service that they can apply toward college loans or tuition.

And many remain in Sitka after their term of service. AmeriCorps, says Lawrie, isn’t just about community service, it’s about community building.

“I was here for two years as an AmeriCorps,” said Peter Vu. “I had intended to leave after that second year. But I think, like most other AmeriCorps who fall in love with Sitka, it was hard to.”,

Vu came to Sitka as an AmeriCorps in 2016, and served two terms working at Pacific High School. He remained in Sitka for several years afterward, left briefly, but now is back earning a Masters Degree – while student-teaching in the same school he served as an AmeriCorps.

And Vu’s story is far from unique.

“I didn’t even realize that the counselor that I work with at the school I’m at was an AmeriCorps almost a decade before I was,” said Vu. “To me, he’s always been  this established professional, contributing member of our community, and I always thought of him in that role and as a mentor. And so when he told me he was in AmeriCorps, it really kind of surprised me.”

The program began in Sitka in 2004, and former AmeriCorps are everywhere in town. They work at the Tribe, the Forest Service, own businesses, and they’ve married and started families. Sarah Lawrie is not optimistic that Sitka AmeriCorps will have another term next year – or even if she’ll have a job.

But she’s certain that the nine corps members in Sitka now won’t be left high and dry.

“That lifted my spirits,” said Lawrie. “I get this notice and the first thing is I hold the meeting with the AmeriCorps members …and then I start calling the host site supervisors, and they’re full of good ideas, and they’re full of solutions! And any AmeriCorps member that wants to finish out their term in Sitka, Alaska, they’ll be able to, with support from the host site supervisors, and the community. I mean, it gets said over and over, but people are so great – offers of housing and food and  jobs and ‘What can I do?’ And so that’s the beautiful part.”

Peter Vu says he’s feeling compassionate for the AmeriCorps who’ve been terminated. He says many have already sacrificed financially to gain the professional experience the program offers. He wants them to stay positive. 

“To not have the closure of the end of a year must be really hard,” said Vu, “as well as the uncertainty of not knowing what’s next. And so I feel sorry for them, but I also thank them a lot for what they’ve done and how much they’ve already given to our community in the eight, nine, or ten  months that they’ve been here.”

AmeriCorps was created by Congress in 1993, modeled on the Peace Corps, except intended to serve US communities. Other Alaska AmeriCorps programs to lose funding include the Alaska Public Defenders Agency, the Alaska Afterschool Network, and RurAL CAP’s Resilient Alaska Youth. Alaska’s lone surviving program is the Student Conservation Association.

Note: This story was updated on 4-29-25 to correct the number of Americorps programs in Alaska — five, rather than six.

In preliminary drawings, Lot 15 is designated as part of the “West Boat Yard.” GPIP board members want to take a hard look at how best to use that property, and any other available lots, to support the new haulout, which is due to come online by the end of May. (GPIP image)

Board members of the Gary Paxton Industrial Park agreed at their most recent meeting (4-17-25) to give short-term tenants until September 30 to move out, in order to bring in long-term leaseholders involved in the marine services industry.

The largest tract available to support the boat yard – lot 15 – is currently in use as storage, most of it unrelated to boats or fishing. The board anticipates more substantial investment, however, as the community’s long-awaited boat haulout enters service next month.

Linda Behnken, director of the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association, said thoughtful development of lot 15 and surrounding property would give locals a stake in the yard in the event things fell through with Kodiak-based Highmark Marine, which last month won the bid to operate Sitka’s new haulout.

“If we get to the point when this contract is over with Highmark, or they decide to pull out, or it gets pulled back for some reason that we really have all the options on the table, a full understanding of what revenue can be generated from the yard, what the costs are, and what it might look like to have a different operating model out there,” said Behnken.

Park director Garry White agreed that it was time to focus on priorities, as the budget for Phase 1 construction of the haulout is almost spent.

“I think there are higher and better uses,” said White. “Instead of finishing out all of Phase 1, like, do we really need the deck over here, shown in front of the boat in the haul out? That is a pretty spendy thing. Do we really need an on/off float? Or instead of investing in that, should we invest in (upland) electricity, or  invest in being able to get over to lot 15, and start opening that up?”

He encouraged the board to have a work session with the public to iron out some of the details that will make the new haulout functional in the near term, and poised for growth in the future.

Local boatwright Mike Nurco actively opposed Highmark’s proposal to run the haulout. Now that they’ve won, however, Nurco said there were no hard feelings. He did want to know a) where the bathrooms would be located, and b) where companies like his could become established, and offset the competitive advantage that he believed had been given to Highmark.

 “To level the playing field for the vendors – I think the deck is stacked towards Highmark already – I would like to see where the vendor space can be, and I would really like to see that move forward,” said Nurco. “Just get that going, because that’s the lifeblood of the yard, as much as DIYers, it’s very important to get the vendors out there with a wide array of services.”

The park board supported the idea of long-term leases – comparable in length to bank loans – which could generate the type of investment they were looking for. One prospective vendor, Jeremy Serka, said that he anticipated spending $500,000 on a structure to house his business. Park director Garry White said long-term leases would generate the revenue the park needed to support the upland development of Phase 2 of the boat yard.

The lengthy discussions that have led to this point inspired Chris Hanson, a machinist, to organize local interests into a Marine Trades Association.

“This whole process taught me that if you don’t have a seat at the table at the beginning, you’re not going to get one mid midterm,” said Hanson. “So I think what we need to do is just advocate for the trades as a group, as a whole, from the mouthpiece of the trades. Or have a mouthpiece for the trades themselves. Not antagonistic thing. Just a way for their needs to be met.”

The new travelift for the haulout – the $1.4 million-dollar vehicle that lifts boats out of the water and sets them down in the yard – is en route to Sitka, but unassembled. Municipal engineer Michael Harmon said this expense had been missed. Paying for a crane to erect the travelift will take the project’s contingency fund down to $97,000. The haulout is scheduled to be operational by May 30.

The post As Sitka’s new haulout nears completion, park board aims at upland development appeared first on KCAW.

Two jobs at Xóots Elementary have been eliminated in the current draft of the Sitka School District’s ’26 budget, along with two at Keet Gooshi Heen. The Sitka School Board will have to decide how deeply to draw on district reserves next year to keep those jobs. (KCAW/Woolsey)

Note: View the most recent Sitka School District budget. The school board’s next public hearing on the budget is set for Wednesday, April 23, 5:30 p.m. at the Sitka High Public Library.

The four teachers – two at Xóots Elementary, and two at Keet Gooshi Heen – have already received  their notices of non-retention, superintendent Deidre Jenson told the board at its work session on April 16.

But those letters could be rescinded, depending on how far the school board chooses to draw down its reserves.

How much in reserves would the Sitka School District have to spend to save elementary teachers?

The Sitka School District traditionally keeps around $1 million in reserves, to cover emergencies or other unplanned expenses.

To keep two teachers, the district would need to spend the fund balance down to $557,000.

To keep three teachers, the district would need to spend the fund balance down to $447,000.

To keep four teachers, the district would need to spend the fund balance down to $337,000.

Other positions likely to be cut:

School nurse reduced to approximately half-time.

Data manager (duties redistributed to Blatchley assistant principal).

Loss of two positions funded by Sealaska Heritage Institute grant and a CLSD (literacy) grant.

Paul Rioux, who served a previous term on a school board that also faced a serious budget crisis, steered the group back to this fundamental question, as the conversation veered toward an hours-long micromanagement of specific line items.

“I’ve done this a few times in the past and we’ve come to this point, and we’ve been like, we want to add two teachers back, go find us $400k, or kind of that 10,000-foot view thing,” said Rioux. “Not that I’m saying to do that. I’m just saying that in the past it’s been pretty broad. It hasn’t been, ‘What’s this line? Let’s cut $20-thousand and move it to this line.’ It’s been, ‘We want a librarian. Go find us $300-thousand. I’m not saying that’s the only way to do it. I’m just saying that, in my experience, that’s how we’ve done it.”

Board president Phil Burdick wanted to allow all board members  time to have their questions about the budget answered, something he didn’t think was possible in a two-hour work session. He wanted the administration to revisit the budget, and to find a way to balance it that was consistent with the board’s previous direction to keep class sizes low, especially in the early elementary grades, and to update both the curriculum and technology used by students.

“While we have a balanced budget at this moment, we also have some cuts in places that we at the table have said that this is something that we want to focus on,” said Burdick. “So instead of getting into the line items, I just wanted to talk about the actual bigger picture of what it is that we’re facing, right?”

Board member Tom Williams felt that there were opportunities for cost savings in the budget – like staff travel and some administrative expenses – that could be converted into teaching salaries, but the answers to his questions were not obvious or straightforward. Clearly frustrated, he said, “I’m drowning.” His fellow board member and daughter-in-law, Amanda Williams, was also unhappy with the ongoing loss of teaching staff, and increasing class sizes in kindergarten. “21 is a lot,” she said.

(Note: The Sitka School District has experienced a 31-percent decrease in instructional staff since 2015 – 19-percent of that loss just this year alone.)

Amanda Williams also found some of the coding and categories impenetrable, and some of the expense items unrealistic. A former Science teacher at Blatchley Middle School until her job was cut last year, Williams pointed out that $300 for classroom supplies for a year in her old classroom was far from adequate. When someone asked how teachers would manage, Burdick – a former teacher himself – said quietly, “Out of their own pockets,” suggesting that this had become the unwelcome new normal for educators in a time of shrinking public funding for schools.

Board member Steve Morse was quiet for most of the work session, but when asked for his thoughts, he was hopeful. With less than two weeks before it’s due to be sent to the assembly, the Sitka School District actually had budget numbers that balanced.

 “This is the most transparent budget I’ve ever seen, and it’s balanced,” he said. “And I think that what we’ve come up with is we would like some of the things put back in there, like positions for teaching.”

House Bill 69, drafted by Sitka Rep. Rebecca Himschoot, would have topped up the state’s funding for public education by another $1,000, the first permanent increase in nine years. Both the House and the Senate passed the bill with slim majorities compared to last year – even Sitka Sen. Bert Stedman was among the “no” votes this time – so HB69 was far from veto-proof. As expected, the governor promptly vetoed it the morning following the school board work session, saying he’d accept an alternative bill with a $560 increase.

If this alternative bill passes, it’s likely to create headaches for the Sitka School District, whose present draft budget is built on an anticipated $680 increase from the state, with time running out to rebalance the numbers before the budget is due into city hall by the end of the month.

The post How far will Sitka’s schools dip into reserves next year to save elementary teaching jobs? appeared first on KCAW.

Expanding pre-K during a crisis in funding for public education seems like the opposite of what a school district should be doing, but the shortage of preschool spots in Sitka – and childcare overall –  can’t wait for the politics to settle out in Juneau.

Xóots Elementary principal Jill Lecrone says action needs to be taken now.

“The bottom line in Sitka is we need more spots,” said Lecrone, “as currently, we do not have enough spots for the amount of four- and five-year olds in our community.”

The idea of a tuition-based program emerged last fall, as it became clear that both private daycares and preschools were at capacity, leaving many working families scrambling to place their children.

Xóots Yadi, as the district preschool will be called, was conceived in November, and piloted in the new year. Teacher Marley Wild says her group of four- and five-year olds showed rapid growth in the program, which is housed in the same building as Sitka’s kindergarten and first grades.

“It also aligns with K-2 academics,” said Wild. “Our kiddos know how to rock-paper-scissors to solve small problems already. They know where the bathrooms are. They can tell us the school rules and show us what that looks like. So it’s this natural segue into kindergarten as well.”

Jamie Eells is a parent of two preschool-aged children, both of whom are in traditional daycare. She says that she and other parents of preschool-aged children are wait-listed in every available preschool in Sitka. She told the board that one long-established preschool has only seven openings. Eells saw firsthand the success of the district’s pilot preschool.

“I work across the hall as a teacher, and I do pop over every once in a while, and I just see all the amazing things that are happening in there, the artwork on the walls, the conversations they’re having, the learning they’re doing,” said Eells. “I walked past a little group of kids sitting in the hallway looking at a potato bug, and they were learning all the things about how to share the potato bug and how to be gentle, and they were just having on-the-spot learning right there about an insect. It was just phenomenal. I think Marley is doing a wonderful job, and I really hope to see this program continue for our students.”

The district wants to expand Xóots Yadi to 20 students next year, which means hiring additional staff. The district has already worked out an agreement with Tlingit & Haida Headstart to ensure that Xóots Yadi doesn’t take eligible students out of that program. Nevertheless, state and tribal childcare subsidies will support Xóots Yadi’s $250,000 annual budget.

The sticking point for some Sitka School Board members is the relationship between Xóots Yadi and the district’s existing afterschool program called Ventures, which provides childcare for elementary-aged students between the end of the school day and the end of the work day for parents.

Xóots Yadi teacher Marley Wild coordinates Ventures in the afternoons, after teaching preschool in the morning. Some of the Ventures budget ($77,500) would cover this dual role. Superintendent Deidre Jenson explained that the new preschool and Ventures were always intended to complement each other.

“So (the pre-K) was never really meant to be kind of a standalone program,” said Jenson. “It is to be used in conjunction, because there’s also the after-school care program that goes along with, that supports kids that don’t have a place to go after school’s out. So that’s how it’s kind of used together.”

With no impact on the district’s general fund budget, the board decided to get behind the expansion of the preschool. Board member Steve Morse did not see it as a dilution of the Ventures program or funding – in fact, just the opposite.

“This is a win-win for both programs,” said Morse, “because really dealing with three-year olds, you’ve got a lot of staff that are not teachers, you know, they don’t have the training of teachers, they don’t understand the development of children. And here we’ve got a teacher in both programs. It may be half time, but that’s one of the benefits of the way this is organized.”

The board voted unanimously to extend and expand its tuition-based preschool program for the school year beginning next fall.

The post Sitka School Board expands its tuition-based preschool program appeared first on KCAW.

Watch Bill Spivey’s entire presentation to the Sitka Chamber of Commerce on 3-5-25.

The big unknown for Bill Spivey – and almost everyone else involved in federally-funded programs – is how the Trump administration’s funding freeze will affect the Indian Health Service, which contributes substantially to the tribal health consortium’s budget.

Spivey said the effects of a possible loss of IHS funding had not “trickled down” to him from upper management, although he knew it was top of mind.

“I think all I can say is be less impactful than it would have been once upon a time,” he said.

SEARHC took over the World War II-era Mt. Edgecumbe Hospital in 1986, and has been the only hospital in Sitka since the closure of Sitka Community Hospital in 2019. In order to win the $200 million to build the new Mt. Edgecumbe Medical Center, SEARHC had to invest over $20 million in new housing, constructing over 40 units.

Spivey said housing continues to be a problem for staff recruitment.

“We’re not interested in being in the real estate business, it’s not what we do,” said Spivey. “We’re in the healthcare business. We got involved in creating places to live because we had to. And right now, if I could quietly vote which I can’t, if I had a place for my visiting nurses to live, if I could offer housing for six months while somebody could live somewhere while  they find a place to live? That would be my vote.”

Spivey said that he had interviewed and hired new staff, only to have them back out when they discovered how hard it was to find housing in Sitka. When an audience member suggested revisiting SEARHC’s child care program, Spivey didn’t object, but noted that the childcare crunch wasn’t limited to SEARHC’s Sitka operation.

“We have 15 board members in 15 different communities in Southeast Alaska,” he said. “So the question to be appropriately asked, ‘If you’re going to do child care in Sitka, are you going to do it in Angoon?’”

Spivey said that SEARHC had significantly expanded specialty care in recent years, both in Sitka and in Juneau, and it was reducing the amount of travel needed for many patients. But even with a completely new facility, advanced critical care was still going to mean medevacing patients to larger hospitals.

“That issue, ironically enough, is not so much about the hospital, it’s about staff,” said Spivey. “It’s about how do I get that level of nurse, that level of respiratory therapist, that level of physical therapist, that can keep their skill set up at a high enough level to manage that very sick person…  it’s almost a chicken-and-egg situation.”

Spivey said staff were looking forward to moving into the new Mt. Edgecumbe Medical Center, although the date is uncertain. Personally, he was cheering for the new parking lot to be paved, since it will reduce the noise of the heavy equipment moving across it. And the old hospital? Spivey said the future of the current facility has yet to be decided by the board. He called it the $64,000 question. “I’d tell you the answer if they gave me the money,” he said, “but they won’t.”

The post Administrator update: Construction of Sitka’s new hospital on track despite federal funding uncertainty appeared first on KCAW.

Note: Mt. Edgecumbe’s proposed ’25 budget also includes reductions to the school’s classified staff, reduced hours for residential staff, and the elimination of sports travel and extra-duty contracts except what can be supported by the Student Activities Fund. Read the full budget presentation to the Advisory Board.

Travis Vaughn is a parent to Mt. Edgecumbe’s Class of 2024 co-valedictorian. Another child is a senior this year, also near the top of the class in academics, and a state contender in Wrestling.

Vaughn is the president of Mt. Edgecumbe’s Advisory Board. He says board members weren’t completely surprised when they were presented with the proposed budget for next year. Probably baffled is a better word. 

“The problem is we’ve made school funding so opaque in this country that nobody can understand it,” said Vaughn. “That’s the source of the real problem, and nobody wants to pay… I don’t know what you do with half the teachers. How does that work? 

The Advisory Board doesn’t oversee Mt. Edgecumbe like a local school board. That’s the job of the State Board of Education. Vaughn and his fellow Advisory Board members keep an eye on the things that make a school more than just a brick building with classrooms. Mt. Edgecumbe currently has 32 teachers for its 420 students. Rolling staff back to 15 or 17 positions, plus eliminating the competitive sports programs, is what Vaughn calls “carnage.” I asked him if he believed the school itself was in jeopardy.

Vaughn: What’s the point of a high school with no teachers, no sports, no cultural activities?

KCAW: Will Mt. Edgecumbe close, conceivably?

Vaughn: I don’t think so. I don’t think that that’s a realistic possibility. I don’t think that the political powers that be, they probably understand that that is a disaster that they don’t want to touch because we have alumni in every voting district in the state, and I don’t think they really want to drive us off a cliff.

Listen to the full interview with MEHS Advisory Board president Travis Vaughn.

Sitka Rep. Rebecca Himschoot co-chairs the House Education Committee. “ The problem is that Edgecumbe, when you start cutting into the bone, you impact the program so significantly that you start to wonder if you can even have a school,” she said.

Himschoot has introduced legislation (HB69) to catch-up state education funding with inflation over the next three years. The BSA, or base student allocation – hasn’t significantly increased since 2016. Most school districts, like Sitka’s, have been able to stay afloat by increasing class sizes, and shifting some expenses onto local government. Himschoot says Mt. Edgecumbe is more akin to the 19 rural schools in Alaska’s Regional Education Attendance Areas, or REAA’s, that are not supported by a local tax base.

“And that puts them in an exceedingly difficult position,” she said, “because there is nowhere else to turn. And so that has helped to make the case for why a base student allocation increase is so desperately needed across the state – that’s all those schools have.”

Himschoot’s bill has broad support in the House, but her colleagues have already proposed substitute language (CSHB69) limiting the BSA increase to $1,000, with a $450 reading incentive grant. That language could get the bill passed in the House, but the Senate is a different matter. Sitka Sen. Bert Stedman co-chairs the Senate Finance Committee.

“Frankly, we have significant deficit issues we’re trying to deal with, and those big BSA numbers are probably not going to materialize,” Stedman said.

Stedman managed to find some extra instructional funding for Mt. Edgecumbe last year. It’s not clear to him how the school’s situation could have become so dire in so short a time, with more or less the same number of students and same revenues as this year.

“We’ll have a conversation with the Department of Education, which we do every year at Edgecumbe, and take a look at it,” said Stedman. “But it doesn’t seem to smell right to me.”

Administration’s response: Mt. Edgecumbe’s budget crisis emerged from the COVID pandemic

KCAW received this email from Mt. Edgecumbe Superintendent Suzzuk Huntington:

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Mt. Edgecumbe High School increased its staffing while reducing its enrollment to keep a number of rooms empty to mitigate illness for quarantine or isolation. During this time, we added staff to address the increased mental health needs and needs related to learning loss. Now that this federal funding has expired and the pandemic is over, MEHS is moving back to our pre-pandemic staffing ratios with class sizes from as low as six to as high as 30, depending on the course and student interest.

Last school year, the impact of our reduced enrollment came to light when the Fall OASIS data was finalized at 398 students. It caused us to look closely at our management plan. We requested and received support from our state leadership to offset increases in some of our fixed costs and focused the bulk of our efforts building our student enrollment back to pre-pandemic levels. This included sending early-round acceptance letters in April, which has long been our practice. We also re-instituted the process of offering acceptance to students in August, as returning students or accepted students change their minds and decide not to attend MEHS after all. This continued right up to the first day of classes. We were partially successful in our efforts to increase enrollment, but we did not reach the 435-445 target. We started the year with 429 students and had 417 for our official fall count. 

Mt. Edgecumbe teachers first learned about some possible cuts last December, and they were reassured by the Commissioner’s office that Mt. Edgecumbe would stay open. But Matt Hunter, president of the union representing teachers (Teacher’s Education Association – Mt. Edgecumbe, or TEAM), doesn’t think it would be the same school if half of the teaching positions were eliminated.

“Our students really thrive when they can have classes like art and music and electives,” he said. “And if we don’t have that, it will be hard to attract kids. So… there’s always efficiencies, but oftentimes they come with a cost that maybe isn’t foreseen.”

Hunter says Mt. Edgecumbe has an incredibly strong program and teaching team. He hopes there will be some reassurance from the legislature soon, before his members begin looking for jobs elsewhere.

In the meantime, Travis Vaughn says the Advisory Board supports the work of Mt. Edgecumbe’s superintendent and the Department of Education – and he’s not laying blame on the legislature, or even the governor. Nevertheless he remains frustrated with state education funding. He sees it as a shell game, and he wouldn’t mind if Alaskans were more upset about it.

“People need to organize on their own and start demanding this money, because for our government to tell teachers, cops and firefighters that there’s no money is just a lie,” said Vaughn.

Having once managed large government contracts for the Army, Vaughn is wary of the “word salad” that accompanies the state education budget. “It’s a magician’s trick,” he says, “to distract you while the man in the black hat walks out the back door with all the money.”  

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In a state full of unique riparian systems, Redoubt Lake is pretty unique. It’s nine feet above sea level, but quite deep – so the bottom of the lake is saltwater, and the top is fresh.

It supports a relatively small-but-robust population of sockeye, and a large population of Sitkans who make the 17-mile skiff ride every summer to the falls to dipnet for salmon.

But, the characteristics that make Redoubt unique, also make it fragile. Calvin Casipit, with the Southeast Subsistence Regional Advisory Council, explained that there is such a thing as too many fish.

“Redoubt Lake the last couple of years has had a huge surplus of sockeye salmon,” said Casipit. “According to the numbers that I have here, in ‘24 there were 210,000 Sockeye through the weir. And the weir is above all the fisheries. So this is after all the harvest has been taken. In ‘23 it was 148,009, in 2019 it was 56,020, in ‘18 it was 71,000. This is above the optimal escapement goals of 7,000 to 25,000 sockeye salmon.”

So proposal 135, which would allow subsistence harvesters to use seine and gillnets, is more than just a way to support local human diets. It’s also a management tool to keep escapements at optimal levels.

Heather Bauscher, who formerly chaired the Sitka Fish & Game Advisory Committee, and now serves on the Petersburg AC, filled in some of this detail for the board.

“It’s pretty unique,” said Bauscher. “It’s a meromictic lake. It doesn’t turn over like a normal fresh water system. There’s a long history of having fertilized that lake to help support the sockeye, but now the sockeye returns are considerable to the point that they’re worried about too many fish coming back and crashing the system.”

The Sitka Ranger District of the US Forest Service has been fertilizing Redoubt Lake for the past two decades or more, and funding for the program – now more than ever – is unreliable. All the more reason to keep the number of fish entering the lake at or below its carrying capacity of 25,000.

The Board of Fish saw wisdom in this, but had concerns over execution.

The daily harvest limits at Redoubt usually start low, at 10 or 25 fish per permit holder at the beginning of the summer, and then increase to 100 per day in July.

Board member Gerad Godfrey, from Eagle River, was concerned that harvesters would blow right through these limits if they were allowed to use seines or gillnets.

“You can’t control your harvest level with gillnet or seine – you get what’s in the water,” he said. “And what if it’s an overharvest? That’s my concern. It far exceeds your subsistence, now your mortality rate of throwing fish back – obviously some of them will survive – and the weight of the bag doesn’t kill him.”

This has been a problem in some other sockeye systems where nets already are allowed, and several permit holders join forces to seine, and lose count of their fish.

Keenan Sanderson, with the Ketchikan Tlingit & Haida Community Council, said Redoubt harvesters would almost certainly use small beach seines, or similar gear, and that they’d get the hang of it.

“All you have to do is just let down the rings and let the fish swim over the corks once you know you have what you can actually keep for your possession limits,” he said. “In terms of seining, I don’t think there’s a huge issue with mortality, unless you’re being very reckless with it.”

Other board members expressed concerns over possible user conflict, as the base of the falls can become crowded with subsistence dipnetters and sport fishermen. The proposal was amended with language that would restrict the use of seine and gillnets to beyond 100 yards seaward of the falls.

That settled it for board members like Tom Carpenter, of Cordova.

“When I looked at the escapement levels in this particular system, I mean, I wish a lot of places had this problem, quite frankly,” he said, “but understanding that this gives more opportunity, there’s no conservation concern associated with it, the use of a seine, although it may be a new tool for a lot of people, I think that  the ability to wrap up too many fish and release them is fairly easily done, so I’ll be supporting it.”

The Board of Fish passed proposal 135 unanimously. The new regs allowing the use of seine and gillnets in the subsistence sockeye fishery at Redoubt Lake go into effect this summer.

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