As budget controversy continues, legislatures work on bills

Most attention in the state capitol in Juneau is fixed on the budget and what to do about Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s $1.6 billion cut. But there’s also work being done on other legislation, and some bills are starting to move from committees.

Since this is the first year of a two-year Legislature, bills that were introduced this spring will remain alive through the interim if they don’t pass by the time legislators adjourn, which will probably be in May.

On the budget, the House Finance Committee worked through Wednesday making amendments to the operating budget. An amendment made Wednesday morning to strip education funding sent waves through the education community and municipalities.

Among other things the amendment would cut school bond debt reimbursement, which would load an estimated $350 million in school debt onto property taxpayers in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough. It could cause property taxes to climb 20 percent. The amendment may be taken out of the bill, however.

When the committee finishes its work the budget goes to the full House of Representatives for final action, at least in that body. This will likely happen next week, the week of April 8.

Meanwhile the Senate’s budget subcommittees are continuing their work while waiting for the House to send over its budget. The Senate will then pass its version of the budget and a House-Senate conference committee will be appointed to reconcile differences in the spending plans.

Once agreed on by both the House and Senate, which is likely to occur in late April or early May, the final budget will be sent to Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who may veto parts of the bill.

Besides the budget, which is the Legislature’s main business, committees in the Senate were at work on bills.

Mat-Su Republican Sen. David Wilson has two health-care related bills that are active, one to repeal the state Certificate of Need program for licensing health care facilities, in Senate Bill 1, and second, Senate Bill 93, to authorize a medical education loan repayment program that would help health care providers attract more medical professionals to the state.

On the Certificate of Need, or CON, bill, Wilson argues that the licensing no longer serves its original purpose and now acts as an impediment to competition, at least in larger communities. The medical education loan repayment proposal would replace an existing program, now being phased out, that paid education loans partly with state dollars.

Under SB 93 the private sector, meaning health care providers, would fund the program with the state Department of Health and Social Services playing a coordinating role.

Another bill that is active is Kenai Republican Sen. Peter Micciche’s Senate Bill 52, which would reform and update the state’s liquor licensing and tax statutes. The state’s Title 4 statute, which governs liquor licensing, has not been updated in years. SB 52 would create a more flexible licensing system that takes into account changes in the industry and also allows more community involvement.

A bill that would resolve a problem in granting liquor licenses for special events, like the state fair, is also moving. Other proposals, including one that would extend statewide a successful “Middle College” program underway in the Matanuska-Susitna and Anchorage school districts, has advance to the Senate Finance committee. Under this program high school students can take college-level classes and get college credits while still in high school.

Another initiative, to set required periods of physical activity for children in the K–12 grades as an aid to academic achievement, is in bills that are active in the House and Senate.

Two health care bills sponsored by Sen. Cathy Giessel, R-Anch., who is also Senate President, are Senate Bill 44, allowing physician assistants to consult with patients and make prescriptions via tele-health, using videoconferencing or other electronic communication.

A bill passed by the Legislature in 2016 allows physicians to do consultations and prescriptions through electronic communication but physician assistants, who do a lot of health care work, were not included.

Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tompkins, D-Sitka, has a similar bill in the state House. It is HB 97, which was passed out of the House Health and Social Services Committee March 27. It is now in the Labor and Commerce Committee.

Giessel’s second health care bill that is moving is SB 37, which extends a program that uses the state’s purchasing power in bulk-buying to make vaccines available at low cost to nonprofit health clinics around the state. The bill passed the Senate unanimously on March 27 and is now in the state House.