By Sean Maguire

Updated: February 23, 2024 Published: February 23, 2024

JUNEAU — The Alaska Senate on Wednesday advanced a measure to permanently extend a benefits program for low-income seniors.

Senate Bill 170 passed unanimously from the Senate along with three other bills, including a measure that boosts free civil legal aid for low-income Alaskans, which is often used in domestic violence cases.

The state’s senior benefits program pays three tiers of payments, ranging from $76 to $250 per month. As of December of 2022just under 9,000 older Alaskans got the payments.

Sen. Scott Kawasaki, a Fairbanks Democrat, said the program provided “an amazingly small amount” to seniors 65 or older who are on strict income limits. He said low-income older Alaskans often struggle to balance high costs of energy, prescription medicines and food.

Kawasaki’s bill was originally introduced to extend the state’s senior benefits program to 2032 at a cost of roughly $25 million per year. The bipartisan Senate majority amended the measure to make the program permanent.

In 2019, Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed senior benefits from that year’s budget, but he restored those payments after hearing strong and widespread public opposition. Since then, the program has enjoyed strong bipartisan support.

Palmer Republican Sen. Shelley Hughes, one of three non-majority senators, said that she encouraged churches, charities and communities to support elder Alaskans, but sometimes that wasn’t enough and the state needed to step in, adding, “our seniors are treasures in our community. ”

The Senate on Wednesday also unanimously approved Senate Bill 104. The measure would be more than double state funding for the Alaska