House rejects Galena school funding swap after dramatic rescind vote

The Alaska House of Representatives rejected an amendment Wednesday that would have redirected $5 million from a Galena school renovation to projects in Anchorage, the Matanuska-Susitna Borough and Fairbanks. The vote sparked debate over whether lawmakers should skip schools on the state's major maintenance priority list.

Amendment 2 failed 19-20 after a dramatic procedural sequence. It initially failed 16-23, was revived through a rescind vote that passed 20-19, then failed again by a single vote on final consideration. Before the vote sequence, a motion to divide the amendment into separate questions failed 11-28.

The amendment would have removed all funding for Sidney C. Huntington Elementary and High School in Galena, ranked second on the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development's major maintenance list. The $5 million would have been split among the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts, The Dome indoor sports facility, a Wonderland behavioral health facility in the Mat-Su, and Arctic Winter Games support in Fairbanks.

Opponents said the amendment would set a precedent by allowing lawmakers to bypass the ranked list that guides school infrastructure funding. "I do not think it is fair to basically punish the school district in Galena for having a partially funded project that is ranked number 2 on the major maintenance list," a state representative said. "What this amendment does is it removes the entirety of the funding for that project under the major maintenance list, and it sets the precedent that we as a body will skip the major maintenance list projects."

The representative warned that skipping Galena would encourage future legislatures to ignore the priority system. Alaska News previously reported that the House failed in January 2024 to override Gov. Mike Dunleavy's veto of Senate Bill 140, a major education funding package. In May 2026, the House passed HB 261 to base school funding on a rolling average of student enrollment and to increase various education program supports.

Supporters of the amendment cited a letter from the Galena superintendent describing partial funding as an extremely poor use of state resources. The total project cost is estimated at $36.5 million. House Finance had proposed $17 million, while the Senate capital budget included $5 million. A state representative said the superintendent's letter indicated that $5 million would not allow meaningful progress on the project. The letter noted that partial funding risks ineffective use of state resources because unresolved foundational issues would continue to drive deterioration. The letter did not say the district could not use the money, but that $5 million would not address the underlying structural failures.

The Galena City School District spent approximately $500,000 preparing the application for the major maintenance grant, according to floor debate. The project addresses life safety and egress issues at the school.