Senate Labor & Commerce, 4/24/26, 1:30pm

Good afternoon. I'd like to call this meeting of the Senate Labor and Commerce Committee to order. The time is 1:35 PM. We're in Belt Room 105 of the Thomas Stewart Building in the nation's most beautiful capital city of Juneau, Alaska. Today is Friday, April 24th.

Members present are Senator Merrick, Senator Gray-Jackson, Senator Dunbar, Senator Yunt, and myself, Senator Bjorkman. Let the record reflect that we have a quorum to conduct business. Welcome everyone to Senate Labor and Commerce. Please turn off or silence your cell phones and join me in welcoming our recording secretary, Carrie Tupou, and our LAL moderator, Jude Augustine. Our agenda for today is a presentation on the AK LNG pipeline workforce plan by the Department of Labor and Workforce Development.

On the Teams web, we have Dirk Kraft, Executive Director for the AWIB, or Alaska Workforce Investment Board, Patrick Rose from Northern Industrial Training, as well as President of Northern Industrial Training, Joey Crump. Thank you for being with us here today. Could you please put yourself on the record, Mr. Kraft, and state your name and affiliation and begin your presentation?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, for the record, name is Dirk Kraft. I am executive director of the Alaska Workforce Investment Board. It's a pleasure to be here with you this afternoon.

We'd mentioned in previous hearings some of our work we were going to be doing on updating this plan. So we're very excited, happy to be invited back here to present some of those findings to you today. So I'll start with a quick overview of how we got here and what this work's intended to do.

In 2018, the state completed the original Alaska LNG Workforce Plan to kind of understand the baseline workforce needs for the project, along with some actionable steps and some action items to help get the state there in a position to maximize resident hire and Alaska hire in anticipation of that project. Since then, the timeline shifted, the project ownership's changed, and we also have multiple large projects on the horizon that might be competing for the same workforce. So last year, Governor Dunleavy asked us for an updated actionable analysis so we can understand what the workforce demand actually looks like today what capacity we have, and where some of those gaps are. So last fall, the Alaska Workforce Investment Board put out an RFP to— with a scope of work to accomplish some of those goals. And in response, we commissioned this updated statewide analysis, and the goal is pretty straightforward.

It's give the state a realistic picture of workforce demand, training capacity, and what it'll take to prepare Alaska's workforce for this project and others like it. And when we talk about workforce planning, it's important to remember what we're looking at from the Department of Labor's point of view, the state and the Alaska Workforce Investment Board, is training dollars. How many occupations will we need and what type of training dollars will we need to invest to achieve those occupational goals? So we have a draft report ready and we're waiting for that to be finalized, and when it is, we'll be submitting that to the legislature as soon as it's ready. So we hope to have that in your hands soon, but we wanted to present some of our findings early to you.

So with that, I will hand it over to Mr. Joey Crumb and Patrick Rose. Thank you very much, Mr. Kraft. Mr. Crumb and Mr. Rose, welcome to Senate Labor and Commerce. Please state your names and affiliations for the record and begin your presentation.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good afternoon. For the record, this is Joey Crone, the President and CEO of Northern Industrial Training. Mr. Chair, this is Patrick Rose, Vice President of Business Services with Northern Industrial Training.

Okay, I'm going to— if the audio is good, I'll jump right into the report. Yes, thank you. Uh, again, for the record, this is Joey Crum, President and CEO of Northern Industrial Training. We produce technical and vocational skills training and then workforce plans for certain employers, and this is along those lines. The report that we are creating is an update to the 2018 report that Director Craft just addressed, but we have synthesized data collected from publicly available sources, project owners directly, and surveys to reflect Alaska's current workforce ecosystem and abilities to provide insight into strategies that Alaska hire opportunities and provide the best return on state dollars.

There are a couple of key things that I would like to talk about. The first is, is that when we talk peak employment numbers, that is the highest number of people that will be working on the project at one point in time. It is different than total jobs created over the life, and everything that we are presenting is intended to be a floor, meaning that reasonable expectation that they're going to be greater than that. So the AK LNG project, you guys have received many updates to that. And I apologize, I'm just trying to see what slide is on the screen so that I'm keeping up.

We're on slide 3, executive summary. Just, um, if you could just let us know when you would like to advance the slide and we can make that happen. Also, when a new, a new one of you speaks, if you could just state your name for the record, that would help our recording secretary make sure we keep everyone's testimony assigned to the right person.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. For the record, this is Joey Crumb. So we are talking about the AK-1G is the mega project that's on the horizon for us. At peak employment, we'll have roughly 6,600 as the base floor.

If you take into consideration some of the other projects that we will talk about today, the peak will be about 6,770 employers. So these are the assumptions we use to calculate the labor needs, and again, they are the floor. So the challenge of this is Alaska is a small state, and we cannot independently supply the workforce required for multiple concurrent projects, or frankly, a big one like AKLNG. That provides us with an opportunity to strategically invest and strengthen in our workforce ecosystem and the Alaska residents, but the urgency is that we have to do it now. Otherwise, we will miss out on the opportunities provided.

Next slide, please.

So, the project overview for the AK LNG, there's going to be 3 major components that are going to be done in 2 phases. Phases. And those two phases are separate, but they will have overlap in their timeline and effect on the Alaska workforce. Um, next slide, please.

So this, this graph represents the timeline from final investment decision to sustained operations. The report is considered a living document and the information and the predictions are dependent upon projected start times. So when we have the FID happening soon, that is in a matter of weeks or a couple of months, if it is shifted, so will the workforce needs, plans, and demands because they are time, they are time dependent upon FID and start times. Start dates.

Next slide, please.

Here's more information on the challenge that we face as Alaska. We have an aging workforce. Depending upon the occupation you are in, 30% up to half of the key trades are 45 years or older.

In addition to be an aging workforce, we also have a shrinking labor pool that over the past 11 years has roughly lost 30,000 working-age Alaskans, which means that our non-resident reliance is increasing, as indicated by a report recently by the Department of Labor and Workforce Development. Non-residents now account for approximately 23% of Alaska's total workforce, and that's the highest share in about 3 decades. In addition, we have in front of us an amazing opportunity for multiple projects all happening at once.

Next page, please.

So when you look specifically at this working age population decline— and I do need to define working age is ages 18 through 64. You can see that we have been on a downward trajectory. We had a slight pause in 2023, but since that, the decline has started up again.

Next slide, please. So the report will analyze 61 different occupations. What this chart shows is the most— 9 of the most needed trades. And with each of these occupations or trades, there are going to be sub-occupations. When we talk about welders, that's an extremely broad term, but underneath welders you do have structural welders, pipe welders, specialty welders, etc.

But this graph is just kind of to anticipate the 2 phases, with blue being Phase 1, and peak numbers, and the green with Phase 2 peak numbers.

Next slide, please.

So this slide highlights the potential other projects on the horizon. So the ones that we added in consideration of this report were Donlin Bowl, The Port of Nome, Ambler Access, Graphite One, West Sisseton Access, and the Barrow Seawall.

While the other projects may not be as expensive or big in terms of peak employment, in a state with a small population that is simultaneously shrinking and getting older, every job matters in And I want to reiterate that the peak demand is considered the high amount of— the highest amount of working people on a project at a single time and is indicated as the floor. So all of these projects listed have the opportunity to at some point in time to overlap with each other. If they do, total peak employment at that moment in time will be roughly 8,700 workers.

Next slide.

The good news is that Alaska has a very mature and funded training ecosystem. So for this report, we surveyed dozens of organizations listed from the categories. So for colleges and universities that are typically defined as a degree-granting institutions, but in Alaska we have a university system that provides training from occupational endorsements all the way to PhDs. For registered apprenticeships, we met with the Trades Council and surveyed their members, as well as the Associated Builders and Contractors and many more federally registered Alaska Native programs. We also surveyed regional and vocational providers, including regional training centers and other institutions.

These institutions typically focus on short-cycle vocational and technical education. And then we also included secondary education, specifically the career and technical education components of that. By going to the Alaska Superintendents' Associations in the school districts themselves. When you look at roughly between 7,500 and 8,000 high school graduates a year, that is a potential real pool for Alaskan employers. In addition, we reached out to Alaska Native Education Foundations and some of the Alaska Native companies that have internal programs.

Next slide, please.

Information presented on this slide is a direct result of the survey responses and reflect what the individual training institutions themselves state as their current total capacity if they were operating at 100% full.

I do want to highlight what is on the bottom of that slide, that most of the training providers surveyed indicate that they are only operating between 60 and 80% capacity. We also received some feedback from the surveys that showed what some institutions are doing to increase the— will basically increase the number and lower the, uh, 60 to 80% capacity, meaning that more people output. One of them is the University of Alaska system and their student-first agenda that is focusing on recruitment, retention, and graduation. And in particular, the University of Alaska Southeast, which is offering in-state tuition to non-residents so that they can fill the unoccupied dorm rooms that currently exist. Exist.

In addition, others such as NIT are offering scholarships to Alaska high school graduates from last year and this current year in an effort to keep Alaskan kids here and offer them opportunities instead. Mr. Crump, Senator Dunbar has a question for you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Crump.

So I have a question about this kind of training. There's a non-apprenticeship and apprenticeship training. Is all this— are there any differences in the, in the quality of the training that you're describing? Or if not the quality, then sort of the length? That is, when someone comes out of a non-apprenticeship program, are they ready to go right to the workforce?

Or do they have to then in some cases enter an apprenticeship program and become fully capable for that, for that profession? Or, or is, is the, this chart showing us that everyone that comes out of any of these programs, whether apprentice or non-apprentice, are ready to sort of engage, uh, in, in high-level work?

Uh, through the chair, Senator Ombar, thank you for that question. It's very nuanced and gets right to the heart of this report. Um, the simple answer to your question is, is that At different levels, graduates of training programs will be able to engage in workforce immediately. Now, that is not to say that an entry-level welder is the same— at the same experience and skill level as a journeyman welder. But what we are talking about is can enter into the workforce.

And there is a slide later on, if I, if I can answer part of that question, then that talks about training length. And the training type and how they work together.

Uh, thank you, thank you, Mr. Chair. Very good, please continue. Okay, um, next slide please.

So increasing registered apprenticeship participants has been a Department of Labor's focus since 2014. Frankly, it's a little bit early, but there was a conservative effort started then, and we have seen in the past 5 years efforts in that because in 2025 we saw new registered apprentices increase to 1,100. So Alaska has roughly 65 federally registered apprenticeship programs from IT, healthcare, marine, manufacturing, and the construction trades, which make up the vast majority of apprentices. But we still only have a total of about 2,400 apprentices currently. So while we are seeing room— or while we're seeing increases, we definitely have room to improve even more.

Next slide, please. So the training institutions that responded to the surveys indicated some of the system barriers and constraints to getting their capacity to 100% and producing more output. The first one is instructor availability, and when you're talking about a state that has a small population, the, the workforce pool is small to begin with. When you are looking for an instructor, which is— should be defined as somebody that is capable of doing the work but also communicating and teaching how to do the work to someone else, that pool is even smaller.

We also have some facility and equipment limits. Now, the facility space is more acute in remote Alaska than it is on the road system, but it also includes other concerns for the space, such as, hey, our welding labs are out of date, we don't have the proper equipment, or the technology to train the workforce to the standards and expectations of what the work is now.

Another one was housing and support costs. Many grants and funding sources have limited financial aid to tuition and direct training costs. But we're in a different time now, and the problem with that kind of thinking is that it forgets that the cost of training is very rarely the barrier. It is the cost of not working while you're training that is the barrier. And when you think of things like child care concerns, grocery bills, mortgages, those add up.

And those are typical support costs that have been left out in past funding sources. We have seen this Department of Labor make some structural changes to funding. To allow more support costs, but we still have longer to go. And then when I talk about the funding cycles, many of the grants are awarded on 1-year cycles, typically based off of fiscal years, which effectively reduces the performance to 10 months because you have the administrative sides on both ends of it. And one of the ideas would be to have multi-year funding cycles so that people, providers, employers have the opportunity to recruit and time the training better, work— working around Alaskans' other needs.

Next slide, please.

So this workforce gap analysis— so this slide shows Alaska's training capacity in relation to the current needs of and what would be required with additional projects. So the light blue line indicates the current need to keep up with current projects, attrition, and the normal cycle of workforce within the state.

The dark blue shows the current gap plus peak employment for the combination of all the projects previously discussed.

The green shows what the state's current capacity is if all current institutions were operating 100% full.

So we can see that we do have some occupations that are easier to keep up than others.

But it is critical that we understand what is written on the bottom of that slide. Is that non-residents already represent 25% of the construction workforce, 23% of the overall workforce in Alaska, and that project construct— more projects will likely increase that. So in October, the Research and Analysis Division will be doing another study on non-resident hire and working within Alaska, and I fully expect we expect the number to continue and go up. In addition, what this workforce gap analysis does not show are some federal projects that occur on federal instit— installations such as military bases. Those projects are run through federal agencies, so it makes it very difficult to predict if and when they will happen and at what scale and magnitude they will occur.

But there will be stress put on the Alaska workforce.

Next slide, please.

Specifically through the chair, Senator Dunbar, I hope that this can answer a little bit more of what the question was, and then I ask that if it doesn't, that you ask me to reiterate, please. But what we are looking at here is a summary of training pathways and their availability to to scale. So the short-cycle vocational programs are the easiest ones to scale, and I would consider them the keystone species that feed all other pathways.

So this short cycle is what helps feed our apprenticeship programs, further university and technical programs, and employer-led/incumbent training.

The, the short-cycle programs also include some of the university programs that are offered in less than 1 year, occupational endorsements and such. But the short-cycle programs are basic entry-level workforce-type programs, duration of 1 to 3 months, but their scalability is quite high. Registered Apprenticeships The outcome is a journey-level skilled person, but that journey to get there can take anywhere from 2 to 5 years depending upon the occupation showing. And its moderate scalability is because we have to have not only numbers of participants that might have with the intake of apprenticeships, but employers that are participating in the program And we do have some federal constraints. Alaska has a couple of trades such as electricians and plumbers that are federally limited to a ratio of 1 apprentice to 1 journeyman.

In this state where we are getting older and losing working-age people, that does not allow us to reverse the trend.

Very good. Technical college— I'm sorry. Nope. I'm sorry to interrupt you, Mr. Crum. Senator Dunbar has another question for you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Looking at this scalability of these different training options, if we assume AKLNG has a PLA, which I think most of us expect that it will, with rules on apprenticeship utilization as well, and going back to my earlier question, will the folks at the top there, that scalable short-cycle vocational training, will they be able to go sort of right to work on the pipeline or will they have to go through that and then sort of start over and join a registered apprenticeship program or one of these other programs to work on the project?

Through the chair, Senator Gombar, I'll speak to that in some general terms. I do agree that there is most— there's going to be a need for increased apprentices on this. What I'm saying for the short cycle is there are some jobs and some trades that they can go to work in right away. In addition to, they become very desirable for apprenticeship programs because they have a baseline training and some certifications such as a CDL that make them more desirable for apprenticeship programs. I also believe wholeheartedly that this will be the single reason why we see a massive increase in non-resident hire.

We simply do not have the people in the state of Alaska, so they will be coming from out of state, and if it's PLAs, as you discussed, dispatched through the local halls to go to work.

Does that answer your question, Senator?

I think so. At least I might have some follow-ups in a couple of slides. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Very well. Please continue. Thank you, Chair. When we talk about college technical programs and university degrees, that if it is a 2-year or less program, the scalability is moderate. While there's, there is an application and acceptance period, because of the duration of the training, it is a little bit more scalable.

But when you go to university degrees, and specifically we would target, say, engineering, that is a 4-year-plus type degree, and the scalability of those programs depends on so many factors. That's why we've categorized it as low scalability, meaning taking— it would take a long time to do it. Employer-led incumbent workers, those do have moderate scalability subject to the employer that is running them, the investment into the program, and the number of openings they have to accept people. But that would be on a case-by-case basis.

Next slide, please.

So the survey data strongly indicates that we immediately need to strategically plan and invest in developing our local workforce. The priorities for affecting immediate change in capacity are represented by these four strategies. The first is short-cycle keystone programs They feed all other pathways and they are the most robust with a geographically diverse network from the University of Alaska to the other colleges and universities within the state and training providers. We also need to grow apprenticeships and look at ways to do that internally. One of the ways to do that would be to try to petition the federal DOL or look at a state apprenticeship agency, which could allow a ratio of 2 apprentices to 1 journeyman for trades such as the plumbing and electrical occupations.

Then we need to invest in instructor and facility capacity, prioritize high-performing providers with current infrastructure over building new institutions. And then look at our funding sources and our support costs. We need to design funding that is around student barriers to allow them access to training. And the follow-up would be when they have access to training, they get upward mobility.

Next slide, please.

This slide indicates the average costs for the programs— to run the programs that we have talked about in previous slides. And I would just like to highlight, in comparison to the jobs that come or the careers that come as a result of attending these, that cost is pretty reasonable and low, frankly. We also have funding sources such as the State Training and Employment Program, TEVAP, which this committee is well aware of, Federal Workforce and Innovation Act, and other areas that have been invested consistently. And we have the ability to reprioritize to get what we need.

But the 2- to 4-year window for investment is critical for licensed trades and engineering disciplines. We gotta get to work on these so that we are ready for peak demand. Next slide, please. Senator Gray Jackson has a question for you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you for the presentation. Um, I'm familiar with some of these funding sources, but are any of these funding sources in European guaranteed?

Through the chair, Senator Jackson, I struggle to use the word guarantee. I think the people in this committee definitely have more ability to guarantee it than I do. TVAP is in statute. STEP is in statute. WIOA funds have been consistent for the two decades from the federal government to the State Department of Labor and Workforce Development.

So while I struggle to say guaranteed, um, these are long-standing funding sources that I've seen no indication are going to go away in the near future. Can I follow up, Mr. Chairman? Yes. Thank you. I really appreciate you not using the word guaranteed, and maybe I shouldn't have either, but I'm just looking at the typical cost range and realizing how important it is to have workforce available and have funding source available at the same time.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. [Speaker:MR. HERRERA] Through the Chair, thank you for the question and the opportunity to clarify. Can we go to the Alaska Hire Optimization slide? I believe that's what's up now. Okay.

So this graphic really shows the ecosystem, the training ecosystem in Alaska and how it works together. And when I call it the training and education ecosystem in Alaska, make sure I was specifically talking about post-secondary education. And they are really tied together in multiple different steps. And wings. So to truly optimize the Alaska Hire, we need to support short-term construction opportunities and long-term operational jobs.

So peak employment for AK LNG will have a floor or a base of 6,600, but they're also estimating between 900 and 1,000 operations jobs. And to work on those coherently or concurrently is the best way to ensure community stability and long-term careers for Alaskans. We can increase opportunities for not only Alaska residents to get these— and when I say short-term, I'm talking about construction projects that range from 3 to 5 years versus operations jobs that can have a 20-plus year— but we can also have the opportunity to convert the non-residents that come to our incredible state and work here and make them Alaskans by the time they're done.

Next slide, please.

So earlier I highlighted 4 strategies for scaling. This slide shows the recommended implementation timeline of those strategies.

We need to start now and be proactive, which increases the likelihood of projects occurring and the long-term sustainability of Alaskans in operational jobs that can last a career. If done correctly, this implementation framework becomes cultural and we can optimize Alaska Hire for every project that comes our way. We know that the construction phase is going to require a surge of a certain occupation at a certain time. We can address that while also understanding that the operations job may require 4-year degrees in engineering or other technical fields. So the start now in the pre-process planning is to make sure that when there's the peak peak, we have Alaskans ready to seize the opportunity.

Next slide, please.

These are the 3 priorities that should happen immediately. Maximize existing capacity within the systems that we have already built.

Priority 2 would be to align the pipelines with time to entry, and that goes back to the timing component that I just addressed. If we can produce the people when they are needed, the likelihood of them getting an opportunity to work is greatest. And then when we talk about strength and recruitment and retention, that is about recruiting Alaskans and keeping them here, and then having an opportunity to keep the out-of-state non-resident workers in Alaska beyond the cycle of their job rotation. This is our high school CTE finding ways to directly engage them in the workforce, and that's just one specific example.

Next slide, please. The bottom line: we need to act early. We cannot wait. Every quarter we delay makes it harder to prepare workers before the major construction push hits. In the 2027 to 2029 timeframe.

The window is closing, so the workforce prep needs to start now before FID, if possible. We have to fund it strategically. Money matters, but it matters more on how we spend it. Focus on direct student support. Commit to multi-year funding programs so that we can plan ahead and work with training providers who have a track record of delivering results and provide time-relevant outputs.

And then be realistic. We need to be honest about what is achievable. Alaska will not be able to fill every job with local workers. We need to set practical but ambitious targets and then track the Alaska Hire progress to make sure that we are achieving that goal. And then the biggest one is coordination.

There is not a single industry group or a single training provider that is capable of solving this workforce shortage or optimizing Alaska Work Hire on their own.

And then next slide, please. Before we go there, Senator Dunbar had a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, looking at this bottom line page, but also in conjunction with the next page and the page before, when you talk about student support costs, multi-year funding commitments, and the need to expand CTE, I'm thinking about the levers that we can pull in the legislature to make that a reality.

It seems like student support costs, first of all, that would sort of that would really, uh, indicate that we should invest in apprenticeships because, you know, good apprenticeships allow you to work on the job and make money while you're doing your apprenticeship, right? So that kind of apprenticeship is something we should focus on, and I think you say that on the next slide. The—. But the other thing is, would you agree that one of your recommendations is to increase education funding in secondary and post-secondary education, but particularly secondary education? That's where we do things like King Tech High School in Anchorage, for example, or CTE programs in other parts of the state.

And what you're saying here, multi-year funding commitments, tells me that we should do it in sort of durable ongoing funds rather than one-time funds. So would you say that one of your conclusions is we should increase secondary education with, with ongoing funds so that we can increase CTE?

Through the Chair, Senator Dunbar, we do not advocate for increasing or decreasing spending when it comes to that. What we are talking about is using existing levers and prioritizing the funding so that we can get to the desired actions. I don't want to presume that we are advocating the legislature take one stance or the other, only that they look at the pathways that are currently there and prioritize the funding to ways that we can get achievable results.

Follow-up, Senator Dommar. Thank you, Senator Bjorkum. Well, if we're not going to increase funding and you want us to prioritize CTE, what would you have us deprioritize and cut to make room for that?

Through the chair, Senator Dunbar, I believe that is a practical and realistic question. This report does not cover that, and I do not want to put my personal feelings into that answer, but I would be happy to have a conversation with you after committee on that. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Very good.

Please continue. Uh, through the chair, um, are we on to the key takeaway slide? Yes. Okay, thank you, sir. Um, the key takeaway and actionable recommendations: Alaska lacks the population on size and training capacity, so we need to adopt realistic Alaska Hire strategies with realistic, achievable, but ambitious targets.

Federal apprenticeship requirements expand— are constrained the rapid expansion. There are things that we can do, such as petition the federal Department of Labor or consider a state apprenticeship agency, and that would immediately allow more openings within specific apprentice programs. We also don't have any training ecosystem that is operating at capacity, and the short-term cycles are part of that. Now, one of the levers that the legislature does have— SB 217 was not analyzed as part of this report, but after reading it, we want to highlight it— is the type of proposed legislation that strategically addresses workforce capacity and Alaska Hire optimization, because the funding through the STEP grant, it has a requirement that a minimum of 50% of that money is spent directly on the student.

We can— our existing funding programs do not address the primary barriers such as support costs. A lot of that can be a regulation change. I will compliment the current Department of Labor. They are making some structural changes to this, but some of it is tied to the VOA funding coming out, and we need to make sure that as much support costs are allowed so that we can keep an individual whole during their training opportunity.

And look at the multi-year funding. What I was specifically addressing on that is the survey results address that. And those survey results show that STEP grants, for example, are on a 1-year cycle. If they have multiple years to exhaust the grant funds, that they feel that was addressed as a multi-year funding cycle. And Mr.

Chair, with that, I would be happy for any more follow-up questions. Very good.

Thank you. Are there any further questions for Mr. Crumm or Mr.

Rose? I have one question.

Um, you mentioned just at the last action to change, uh, STEP grant spends to multi-year Is there anything else that you think the legislature should take direct action on this year with legislation that is in the works currently?

Through the chair, thank you for the question. I do not know the bill number off the top of my head, but I believe there was a discussion about exploring a state apprenticeship agency that would require legislative action. That is an item that I do believe the report indicates would be worth it to explore.

Okay, very good. And if I could follow up, Mr. Chair, there probably would be— the last one is to not have any legislation or requirements that require a quota of the number of Alaskans working on their projects. Okay. Senator Dunbar.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, uh, Mr. Krumm, I'm looking at the presentation. I believe this is on— so this is on behalf of the Alaska Workforce Investment Board, I believe, not Northern Industrial Training, if I'm not wrong. And the next page, the contacts are for, uh, Commissioner Munoz and the executive director of AWIB.

AWIB. I guess my question is, I don't know the composition of AWIB. Is there someone from building trades on the AWIB board? And, you know, the building trades, did they help put together this presentation? I guess I'd ask that to Mr. Kraft.

Well, through the chair, this is Joey Crown. Can I ask for a part of answer, a part of this, and then defer to Director Craft?

Yes, that'd be great. So the answer is, uh, we, we did meet with and discuss the building trades and sent surveys to— sorry, we met with the Trades Council, and then we talked with and met with individual building trades and sent surveys to all of the building trades in the state of Alaska. As far as the number of building trades represented on AWIB, I will defer to Director Craft.

Yes, through the chair, Senator Dunbar, for the record, Dirk Craft, Alaska Workforce Investment Board. As Joey mentioned, we did meet with the Joint Building Trade Council a couple times on this and a number of other issues to talk about this report and other issues that are topical related to workforce investment. And we have currently in statute and by federal law, we have 4 organized labor seats on the board, and they are all now filled. Um, so that's our organized labor, official organized labor representation on the board, Mr. Chair.

Very good, thank you, Mr. Kraft. Follow-up? Thank you, uh, Mr. Chair. For you, Mr. Kraft, we're were those members of the board involved in producing or approving this presentation?

Uh, through the chair, Senator Dunbar, the official report hasn't been finalized yet, but once that report's finalized, our executive committee will approve that as well as the full board. Any actionable report is approved by our entire board. So, um, on the executive committee, we do have one organized labor member that serves on that as well. So they'll look at this and approve it prior to distribution. Follow-up?

Uh, thank you, Mr. Chair. So, so for this specific presentation today, it hasn't gone through that approval process yet, is that correct? Through the chair, Senator Dunbar, no. Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Very good. Anything further?

Mr. Kraft, Mr. Crumm, Mr. Rose, thank you very much for joining us today together with Deputy Commissioner Kim Kolbig. We appreciate you being here. Oh, thank you very much. Man in the comms here. That's very good.

All right. Any further Committee discussion on this? Presentation today. Hearing and seeing none, the Senate Labor and Commerce Committee will meet again on Monday, April 27th, when we will take up the governor's appointees that have been referred to the Senate Labor and Commerce Committee, along with Senate Bill 259, property tax assessment increases, and House Bill 126, reinstatement of Native corporations, religious corporations. As there's no further business to come before the Senate Labor and Commerce Committee today, We are adjourned at 2:23 PM.