Senators voice alarm over Mount Edgecumbe buildings and broader deferred maintenance backlog
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Summary
Sen. Kronk, whose daughters attended Mount Edgecumbe, described aging dorms and WWII‑era buildings at the state boarding school and said moving the school onto maintenance lists would help; senators and reporters linked the school’s condition to a statewide $10.5 billion deferred‑maintenance backlog from a 2022 OMB list.
Sen. Kronk said two of his daughters attended Mount Edgecumbe and that he and colleagues were surprised by the condition of the campus buildings and dorms on a recent visit. “We have billions and billions of dollars of deferred maintenance or buildings that just need to be replaced,” he said, calling the school’s needs “a drop in the bucket” compared with the statewide backlog.
Kronk said Mount Edgecumbe’s facilities are old — he described dorm buildings dating to World War II — and that, under the current funding framework, the campus has been low on the maintenance priority list. He said supporting the bill to move Mount Edgecumbe onto a maintenance list (referred to in remarks as the REA/REAA fund) would help the school move up for fixes.
Reporter Corinne Smith asked about a recent vote in which some caucus members opposed moving Mount Edgecumbe onto the maintenance list; Kronk said he respects individual votes and called for dialogue on solutions. Sen. Tilton said he supports Mount Edgecumbe but expressed concern that current funding flows — as administered by the Department of Education and Early Development (referred to in the transcript as “Deed”) and the REA/REAA process — may leave the school without a sufficient share of that funding. Tilton said he is in conversations with other senators and the DEED commissioner to identify alternatives for immediate help.
The exchange prompted broader questions about the state’s deferred‑maintenance list and how to pay for repairs. Sen. Myers said the state’s deferred maintenance list from OMB in 2022 was about $10.5 billion and singled out roughly $1.5 billion for the university at that time; he said the backlog has accumulated over decades and that changing spending priorities — not a single cut to the Permanent Fund Dividend — is needed to address it.
What’s next: senators said they are pursuing legislative and administrative options to identify repair funding and are discussing targeted measures to help Mount Edgecumbe while addressing the larger maintenance backlog.