By Dr. Benedic Ippolito Click here to open the PDF of the report in a new tab. Foreword Health care costs have been a very public topic of discussion in America for […]
Report: Controlling Health Care Costs in Alaska
Alaska’s Budget Deficit Worsened Due to COVID-19: Tax Alaskans or Tighten Our Belts?
Click here to open the PDF in a new tab. Introduction Across the country, states’ economies and budgets have been hit heavily due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and unfortunately, Alaska is no exception. […]
Tax and Expenditure Limits: A 50-State Comparison
Click here to open the PDF in a new tab. Click here to download the Excel file of figures and tables. State Policy Decisions Affect State Competitiveness Over the past decade, Alaska has lost […]
It’s Time for Alaska’s K–12 Advocacy Groups to Focus on Student Outcomes
By David Boyle Click to open the PDF in a new tab. Introduction Many K–12 education advocacy groups in Alaska receive significant amounts of public funding for their internal operations, and dedicate […]
Moving Alaskans from Welfare to Work
And Protecting the Safety Net for the Truly Needy The Foundation for Government Accountability has released a memo with 12 recommendations for moving Alaskans off welfare and back into work, which will protect […]
The Problems with Plastic Bag Bans: A Policy Brief
Open a printable PDF version of the policy brief here. Introduction Several Alaskan cities have already instituted single-use plastic bag bans, and more are considering legislation to regulate the use of plastic bags.[1] […]
Mat-Su Borough Employee Salaries and Benefits for 2017
Transparency is a foremost goal of the Alaska Policy Forum. As citizens, we hold a critical interest in how our tax dollars are used and transparency only serves to better inform our future […]
A Shameful Narrative
An offensive narrative has been circulating that Alaska Native children are to blame for our state’s low reading test scores. That narrative is not only extremely divisive and offensive – it is untrue. […]
Unsustainable Spending: The State of Alaska’s Budget and Economy
Alaska Policy Forum is proud to have partnered with economic experts at The Buckeye Institute and its Economic Research Center to release our latest policy paper: a study of Alaska’s budget, economy and […]
Third-Grade Literacy: Alaska’s students must Read by 9
The Problem Statistics for literacy among Alaska’s children are dismal. Alaska’s K-12 education system has arguably the worst student outcomes in the nation in the fundamental task of teaching children to read by […]
Impacts of Ballot Measure 1 on Alaska
The Senate State Affairs Committee held a meeting earlier this summer to learn the impacts to our state if Ballot Measure 1 passes in November. None of the presenters took a position on […]
Alaska Schools Post Disappointing National Test Scores
Alaska saw a significant drop in test scores during the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in 2017. The NAEP is an assessment conducted by US Department of Education every odd-numbered year, […]
412 Anchorage City Employees Cost More than the Mayor in 2017
True to one of our guiding principles that government should be limited and as transparent as possible, we are providing the most recent annual payroll for the Municipality of Anchorage. We believe it […]
Taking Money from Classrooms to Pay Bus Drivers
Every year we hear the same refrain from many school districts, “We need more funding or we will have to fire teachers.” It would seem that Alaska’s funding of more than $20,000 per […]
Alaska options for health care reform and administrative improvements to the Affordable Care Act
By Roger Stark, MD, FACS, Alaska Policy Forum Visiting Scholar and WPC Health Care Policy Analyst Patients are the most important part of the health care system and they should be in charge of […]
Right-Sizing Alaska’s State Government Workforce
A few weeks ago the Alaska Policy Forum highlighted an analysis from Key Policy Data, a national data visualization firm. The analysis found that in 2016 Alaska had the second-least productive state and […]