Opinion: Here are my priorities for Alaska in the proposed state budget

Alaska is a land of unmatched potential and opportunity. It always has been, and it always will be if we choose the right policies and priorities.

This past week, I fulfilled my constitutional and statutory duties to introduce a budget for the 2026 fiscal year that will begin next July 1. The budget follows the law by fully funding education and the Permanent Fund dividend and provides funding to address the top priorities of my administration: public safety, energy and resource development, food security, and increased affordability for the necessities of life including housing and child care.

Alaska’s existence as a state is based on our enormous resource potential. We don’t have to tax each other or pit the PFD against other state needs if we’re pursuing every opportunity that’s available. Whether it is the AKLNG Project, the North Slope, timber, critical minerals, emerging energy technologies, and new markets to monetize carbon through sequestration and natural offsets — Alaska has it all. We have everything we need, and everything the world needs.

There is tremendous opportunity for Alaskans to be realized by unlocking our trillions of cubic feet of natural gas on the North Slope, especially as our Railbelt utilities face a shortage of supply from Cook Inlet. This budget includes the funds necessary to move to the next step in the process to meet the energy needs of Alaskans and the energy demands of the world.

Energy demand is skyrocketing through the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence and supercomputing, and, like so many natural resources, Alaska has everything the world needs from copper for transmission lines to rare earths for computer chips, and the ability to power it all.

President-elect Donald Trump is ready to pick up where he left off, and if we combine the right state policies with a federal administration that understands what Alaska needs, we can be a state like no other that’s the envy of the nation, and the world.

To realize our destiny as a state like no other, Alaska must be a safe place for everyone no matter who they are or where they live, where every family can afford to live, and where every parent can be sure that their child is getting the best education possible.

The budget I’ve introduced continues to build on the progress we’ve made since 2019 when we repealed catch-and-release policies and began to rebuild our ranks of Alaska State Troopers and Village Public Safety Officers.

According to the most recent reports, over the past five years, our overall crime rate has declined by 31%; violent crime dropped 5% in 2023 and is down 16% in the last five years to the lowest level since 2015; and sexual assault has declined by 20.2% since 2019 and by 15.5% last year alone.

Despite this progress, we still have much work to do to bring down crime rates that remain well above the national averages. I’m proposing continued investments in public safety with more trooper and VPSO positions, additional child crimes investigators for rural Alaska, and resources to improve emergency response and rescue capabilities with a new aircraft and reopening the Talkeetna Trooper Post.

As has been the case for many years, we will again have a conversation on education funding. However, more money alone is not the answer. Legislation is forthcoming that will address both funding and measures aimed at improving outcomes.

This is not an either-or proposition, and we can’t be captured by any special interest that demands money without accountability for outcomes.

We can respond to concerns over education funding as we build on the early successes under the implementation of the Alaska READS Act and the research that shows our charter schools are the best performing in the nation. We must ensure that additional resources benefit classroom instruction and that parents, who are the best suited to determine how their children are educated, have those choices.

I believe in the Alaska Dream; I believe in Alaska’s potential to achieve its dreams. I’m ready to work with anyone and everyone to enact the policies required to achieve it.

Mike Dunleavy is the 12th governor of Alaska.

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