Which Alaska Benefit Uses Which Test

There is no single Alaska definition of veteran, and the tests Alaska uses are of three different kinds. Knowing which kind a program uses is the fastest way to work out whether it is worth applying for. The first kind is a percentage, and the number is always fifty. The property tax exemption in AS 29.45.030(e), the disabled veteran licence plate, and the free permanent hunting, fishing and trapping card in AS 16.05.341 all ask for fifty percent and nothing more. None asks for permanence. The property tax section accepts a rating from the branch of service as readily as one from VA, which reaches a chapter 61 medical retiree who never filed a VA claim. The second kind is days of service with no rating at all. The land discount in AS 38.05.940 asks for ninety days of active duty or ninety days in the Alaska Territorial Guard. The AHFC interest rate preference asks for ninety days of active duty other than training, or five years in a reserve component. The death gratuity in AS 26.10.080 asks about residency and Alaska service rather than about disability. A veteran with no rating at all is fully inside all three. The third kind is the period list, and it belongs to the state employment preference in AS 39.25.159 alone. That section asks for 181 days of active service falling within one of five named periods. Between October 15, 1976 and August 1, 1990 there is no named period. A veteran whose entire service fell in that fourteen-year window is outside the preference unless they hold a campaign badge, an expeditionary medal, a Purple Heart or a decoration for heroism. This is the sharpest eligibility cliff in the Alaska file and nothing on a job posting warns of it. Discharge character is handled more consistently here than in most states. The land discount, the death gratuity and the Pioneers Home all accept a general discharge under honorable conditions or a discharge other than dishonorable. The private employer preference reaches active, furloughed and honorably discharged members. Alaska does not run the pattern seen in Kansas, where two tax programs quietly require an honorable discharge while everything else accepts a general one. Two cross-cutting things decide more cases than any of the above. Residency, and specifically Permanent Fund Dividend eligibility. Boroughs commonly administer the property tax exemption by requiring PFD eligibility, the hunting and fishing card voids the moment the holder stops being an Alaska resident, the Pioneers Home requires one continuous year, and the land discount requires one year. A service member stationed outside Alaska who loses the dividend can lose several of these at once, which is why the PFD absence rules are in this catalog at all. And the Alaska Territorial Guard, which is written by name into the land discount, the employment preference, the death gratuity, the private employer preference, the WWII diploma program and the Pioneers Home. It has its own entry, because a reader will otherwise not know why a militia disbanded in 1947 keeps appearing in current statutes. One absence worth stating plainly. Alaska has no dependent tuition waiver for the children of disabled or deceased veterans, which most states in this catalog carry. The education provisions here reach serving Guard members and Second World War veterans, and nothing in between.