Fairbanks school district could face $8 million to $32 million deficit next fiscal year, layoffs, school closures

As predicted last spring before the tax cap election, the Fairbanks school district faces the prospect of major cuts in the next fiscal year of anywhere from $8 million to $32 million, the school board heard Tuesday night.

The financial environment for public education in Alaska is not stable, largely because of inaction at the state level and the lack of leadership from Gov. Mike Dunleavy.

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'One of the most brilliant things,' Sullivan says of plan to have Elon Musk slash the federal government

Elon Musk, temporarily on good terms with Donald Trump after spending more than $100 million to help him win, warns that “everyone’s taking a haircut here” and there will be “temporary hardship” if he has his way.

Sen. Dan Sullivan will not say what haircuts and temporary hardships can be expected in Alaska if more than $2 trillion is cut from the federal budget.

But asking Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead the way is exactly what the nation needs, according to Sullivan, referring to it as “reinventing government.”

“I mean to me that’s probably one of the most brilliant things I’ve seen that’s come out of the announcements from the incoming administration,” Sullivan told Neil Cavuto of Fox News last week.

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Dunleavy will leave Alaska if Trump offers a top job

Gov. Mike Dunleavy has been fawning over Donald Trump for as long as he’s been governor.

Now he says, he looks forward to working with Trump “to make Alaska great again.”

We’ll soon see whether Dunleavy has said “Trump is the best” enough times and at sufficient volume to qualify for a top job in the second Trump administration.

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State shifts PR focus to sell Alaska as home for data centers. This is not a PR problem. It's a leadership problem.

NEW PROPOSALS FOR Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s proposed $9 million public relations campaign aimed at the leaders of resource development companies and investors are due today.

This is not the job of a PR worker. It requires a miracle worker. Without cheap electricity, Alaska is not a prime location for data centers. It doesn’t have cheap electricity. It has talk about cheap electricity.

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Dunleavy plans $9 million industry public relations campaign, with $3 million identified to pay for it

The Dunleavy administration is trying for a second time to spend up to $9 million on a public relations campaign aimed at executives and investors in mining, forestry, transportation and other industries, having cancelled the first effort because the state was unhappy with the results.

The request for proposals was first issued August 15, with a requirement that firms be at least 10 years old, have “five years or more experience in providing public relations support for Alaskan issues or entities” and three years of “worldwide” experience.

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Trump expands his lies about ANWR, Alaska and oil production

Donald Trump has added new lies to his package of falsehoods about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, claiming that the refuge could have been supplying oil by now to all of Asia, including China and Japan, had he remained in the White House.

He also is now claiming that oil from ANWR would have prevented the war in Ukraine and helped the U.S. provide all the energy that Western Europe requires. He has lied in the past that money from ANWR oil is the key to saving Social Security.

There is no end to the money miracles that would come from ANWR oil, according to Trump, who has been repeating and inflating bubble-brained lies about ANWR since 2017.

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