House Finance subcommittee hears Department of Military and Veterans Affairs FY27 budget overview, disaster-relief request

The Alaska House Finance Subcommittee on Monday heard an overview of the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs' FY27 governor's budget request, including federally reimbursed staffing requests, a proposed veterans cemetery near Fairbanks, and disaster-relief funding tied to last year's Typhoon Hai Long, Chair Representative Foster said.

Deputy Commissioner Craig Christensen told the panel the department includes the Army and Air National Guard (about 4,000 members), the Alaska State Defense Force (about 225 volunteers) and the Alaska Naval Militia (about 50 members), and supports state divisions including the Office of Veterans Affairs and the Alaska Military Youth Academy. "Out of 270 missions, they got credited with 360 lives saved," Christensen said when describing search-and-rescue activity. He also cited refueling operations out of Eielson Air Force Base and about 102 alert scrambles for refueling support.

Administrative Services Director Bob Ernesi outlined the department's budget picture, saying overall unrestricted general fund (UGF) levels have been fairly consistent and that the department is asking for no additional UGF in FY27. "It's important to note that we are asking for no additional UGF at this time," Ernesi said. The FY27 governor's request does include personnel requests that are largely federally reimbursed: two program manager positions to serve as liaisons between military installations and communities (one to be located in Fairbanks and one in Anchorage) and two environmental program specialist 3 positions focused on hazardous-spill response and safe drinking-water work.

Legislators pressed for detail on vacancies and pay. Christensen said the department had roughly 20–27 vacancies across divisions and estimated the current vacancy rate at about 9 percent, noting six positions had been vacant more than six months for reasons such as reclassification or hiring difficulty. He gave an example of repurposing a long-vacant electrician position to a payroll specialist when payroll services were shifted back into the department.

Angela LaFlamme, the department's legislative liaison, said the two proposed program-manager positions would primarily work with the Office of Local Defense Community Cooperation, a Department of Defense program that helps link communities with military installations and makes jurisdictions eligible for competitive critical-infrastructure grants. "These two positions would primarily liaison with the Office of Local Defense Community Cooperation," LaFlamme said, adding that if grant awards come through the department would pursue a statewide critical-infrastructure assessment for energy, transportation and communications.

Ernesi also described a planned veterans cemetery outside Fairbanks (described in the presentation as in "Solcher"), saying construction is expected to take two seasons and that an operating request of about $1.0–$1.2 million would be needed in the future but is not being requested in FY27. He framed the deletion of an unused armory-collection fee receipts authority as a technical cleanup.

On disaster funding, Ernesi recapped a requested FY26 supplemental of $40,000,000 in general funds largely tied to Typhoon Hai Long recovery and a FY27 request of $24,000,000 in general funds plus a $9,000,000 placeholder in federal receipts so the department can seek federal reimbursement after a disaster. "The majority of this would be to address the Typhoon Hai Long disaster," Ernesi said.

Brodie Anderson, staff to Representative Foster, flagged two additional BA-sheet items that add small UGF amounts tied to IT classification-study implementations and noted the committee's BA sheet on Thursday will reflect those items; Anderson said the two transactions together add roughly $30,000 in UGF. "So this committee, by approving the budget action items, on Thursday, will be increasing... There will be a $30,000 UGF ask at the end for these two implementations," Anderson said.

The subcommittee took no formal action at the March 2 hearing. Chair Foster reminded members that a closeout meeting is scheduled for Thursday, March 5 at 4:00 p.m. and that amendments must be submitted to Brodie Anderson by Wednesday, March 4 at noon.