This newsletter includes updates on the recent East Anchorage Townhall meetings and a review of bills I am working on this year. One bill the Senate is working on fixes a tax loophole and an oil tax subsidy. Please consider sending the Senate Finance Committee a message of support for Senate Bill 114. You can read more about SB 114 here and in the write-up below.

We had two great town hall meetings recently that covered several topics including revenue, education funding, energy costs, neighborhood safety, and more. Thank you to everyone who attended. If you didn't get a chance to attend, and you still want to send in a comment, my office is always open. You can send me an email at Sen.Bill.Wielechowski@akleg.gov or call my office at (907) 465-2435.

Here are updates on legislation that I am sponsoring and assisting with.

Senate Bill 99, Financial Literacy, has now passed the Senate Education Committee and was heard in Senate Finance this week. This bill creates a financial literacy curriculum requirement for all high school students in Alaska to help them learn important topics such as student loans, managing a budget, avoiding fraud and scams, and more. The bill allows school districts to either offer a stand-alone class or spread the curriculum out over different classes. I am excited to see so many letters of support pouring in from all over Alaska including students, teachers, school board members, and the Superintendent in Anchorage.

If you agree this bill is important for young Alaskans, then I encourage you to send me a letter of support for Senate Bill 99 here.

Yesterday, I introduced another bill related to financial security for Alaskans. Senate Bill 135, The Alaska Work and Save Bill, will help small businesses in Alaska streamline retirement programs for their employees. Senate Bill 135 establishes an auto-retirement program and is similar to programs that are offered in 16 other states with great success. It helps Alaskan individuals save while reducing red tape and bureaucracy for small businesses. Thank you to the Alaska AARP and other groups and individuals helping push this important legislation. If you would like your name or business added to our list of support, please email my staff at nick.moe@akleg.gov.

One of the most important pieces of legislation the Senate is working on to address a fiscal plan is Senate Bill 114, a bill that would close a tax loophole and adjust tax credits for the oil industry. SB 114 would add around $600 million in revenue by closing the S-Corporation tax loophole and reducing the sliding scale oil tax credits from 8 to 5 dollars. It also ties those credits directly to investment.

For the last 10 years, Alaska has spent our enormous savings reserve and gone from a state of prosperity to a state that can barely keep the lights on without cuts to education, the PFD, and critical infrastructure. Senate Bill 114 is a compromise, bi-partisan effort to reverse that. It’s not a silver bullet, but it is an essential piece of the solution to Alaska’s fiscal crisis. Over the next two years, our state government is facing a Billion-dollar budget shortfall and this bill will go a long way toward helping address that.

The great part about SB 114 is it incentivizes investment. By tying per barrel credits to investment, it will incentive $100s of millions in more investment on the North Slope and hopefully reverse the decline of Alaskan jobs lost in the last 10 years.

Senate Bill 114 is a Rules Committee bill from Senate Leadership and is currently in Senate Finance. If you have time, please send an email to the Senate Finance Committee encouraging support: Senate.Finance.Committee@akleg.gov

The Senate Rules Committee, which I chair, introduced this bill to bring Alaska’s corporate income tax into the 21^st century and ensure that out-of-state online businesses pay taxes on their Alaska income. Currently, Alaska’s corporate income tax rules allow out-of-state businesses to say that income made from online sales to Alaskans does not count as Alaska income and places Alaska-based businesses at a disadvantage. This bill makes two reforms to level the playing field between in-state and out-of-state online businesses and ensures online income is properly subject to the corporate income tax. SB 122 was heard in the Senate Finance Committee earlier this month.

This bill will have Alaska join an agreement with states across the nation to award their electoral college votes to the presidential ticket that wins the popular vote nationwide. Under the current system, Alaskans are completely ignored in presidential elections. The last time a major presidential candidate campaigned in Alaska for the general election was John F. Kennedy in 1960. This agreement would make every American’s vote equally meaningful in electing the president. 

This agreement would take effect once the states who control a majority of the electoral college have joined. The bill has moved from the Senate Judiciary Committee and was heard in the Senate State Affairs Committee on Tuesday.