Alaska lifts 500-day hiring and regulation freeze, no reason given

State agencies can again hire staff, send employees out of state and write new regulations, after Gov. Mike Dunleavy revoked a freeze that had run for 500 days.

The revocation came in a four-sentence order, Administrative Order 364, signed and effective Sept. 21. It names no changed circumstance and does not mention travel, hiring or regulations, only revoking the earlier order "implementing fiscal restraint and operational efficiencies." No announcement of it appears in the governor's newsroom, where searches turn up only the May 2025 announcement of the freeze itself.

The freeze began May 9, 2025, with Administrative Order 358, applying to every executive branch agency and all funding sources, with no set end date. Oil supplied the stated reason: petroleum revenue, close to 90% of the unrestricted general fund in the 1980s, now supplies about 40%. That fund is money lawmakers can spend freely. The order cited a spring 2025 forecast of $68 a barrel for fiscal 2026, down from nearly $85 in fiscal 2024. It priced state savings at about $2.8 billion in the Constitutional Budget Reserve, $1 billion in the Power Cost Equalization Endowment and $407 million in the Higher Education Investment Fund, together insufficient to "fund state operations for even one year."

"This is the right thing to do," Dunleavy said the day he signed it. "With oil prices dropping and our savings accounts unable to carry us through even one year of full state operations, we have no choice but to act now."

The freeze exempted public safety and health roles, including Alaska State Troopers, corrections officers, the Office of Children's Services and staff at institutions such as the Pioneer Homes and the Alaska Psychiatric Institute, among others.

On Aug. 4, 2025, Dunleavy signed Administrative Order 360, directing agencies to cut regulatory requirements 15% by Dec. 31, 2026, and 25% cumulatively by Dec. 31, 2027. That order drives deregulation work including Fish and Game's plan to cut about 50 rules.

From August 2025 the two ran together: one set a rewriting target, the other froze new regulations except those already out for public notice. Whether the freeze reached repeals is unanswered, and no waiver record is public. Dunleavy did direct one new rulemaking during the freeze: Administrative Order 362, signed Jan. 19, 2026, on investing a Constitutional Budget Reserve subaccount.

The Department of Revenue's spring 2026 forecast, released March 13, put oil at $75.26 a barrel for fiscal 2026 against the $68 the freeze was built on, and $75 for fiscal 2027. It raised the unrestricted general fund outlook by $545 million for fiscal 2026 and $510 million for 2027 against December's. The department called the gain a possible "temporary windfall" in markets "experiencing a period of historically high uncertainty and volatility, driven by the unfolding conflict with Iran." North Slope crude has run higher still, averaging $85.95 a barrel in August, the latest published, and topping $68 every month since February. Whether any of that prompted the revocation is not established. The order ending the freeze gives no reason at all.

The lift falls 101 days before the Dec. 31 deadline for the 15% cut. Whether the target remains on schedule has not been stated, but Administrative Order 360 requires each department to file quarterly progress reports with the governor's office, copied to the Department of Law. Agencies have filed plans: the Department of Environmental Conservation's, from Jan. 5, 2026, counts 13,000 discretionary regulations and proposes 40 packages cutting more than 2,600 requirements, or 20%.

This account rests entirely on state records: the four administrative orders, the May 2025 press release, the spring 2025 and 2026 revenue forecasts, the monthly price series and one agency reform plan. No state employee, union, legislator or agency head speaks in them, and they contain no counts of waivers, unfilled positions, canceled trips or delayed regulations. Waiver authority over regulations rested with the chief of staff and deputy chief of staff. Hiring waivers rested with the Office of Management and Budget, and out-of-state travel waivers with the governor's office.