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Alaska Children’s Budget

The Alaska Children’s Budget (ACB) translates the Alaska State budget from just numbers into a story about the role our level of investment plays in determining the success and/or failure of our children.

 

What is the Alaska Children’s Budget?

The Alaska Children’s Budget (ACB) creates a fiscal map of funds the State of Alaska spends to support the well-being of Alaska children. It documents how Alaskans choose to spend our financial resources related to children, youth and families.

How Can Alaska Refocus on Children?

Children are Alaska’s more valuable resource. Unfortunately, they are not faring well.  In 2023, the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s KIDS COUNT ranked Alaska 38th in the nation for child well-being. In 2014, Alaska was ranked 27th.


Five ways we can transform the budget into action:

  1. Look at the budget through a different lens. The budget is more than just numbers and mathematical formulas.

  2. Focus on upstream policy choices with significant downstream benefits.

  3. Maximize federal dollars flowing into Alaska’s economy just as we do for the non-children’s portion of the budget.

  4. Develop a statewide plan focused on child well-being and reversing Alaska’s slide in the KIDS COUNT metrics.

  5. Stop allowing current resources to be a barrier to creating a better future.


Alaska Children’s Budget Videos to correspond with the 2020 Children’s Budget

Public Data Set

The data used for this analysis come from publicly available datasets managed by the Alaska Legislative Finance Division.  The final datasets for the analysis can be downloaded here.  Parties who wish to replicate this analysis from the raw datasets should request the “final Operating budgets with duplicates removed” from the Division. Capital budget can be downloaded directly from the division’s website at https://www.legfin.akleg.gov.  After downloading this data, users should contact the Division about how to remove duplicative interagency spending.