Legislators head to Juneau: Budget scrutinizing, election-year grandstanding on horizon

MAT-SU -- With just three days remaining until the second session of the Alaska Legislature, the Valley delegation is making its way to Juneau and expecting a year of belt-tightening and budget scrutinizing, mixed in with a dash of old-fashioned showmanship.

Rep. Scott Ogan, R-Palmer, said while numerous other issues loom on the horizon, he expected to see a bit of political grandstanding this session because, for everyone in the House and half of the Senate, 2002 will be an election year.

"It's going to be a really interesting year," Ogan surmised.

All seats in the Alaska House and all but three in the Senate will be go before voters in 2002, due to the changes resulting from the statewide redistricting plan. Ogan, Sen. Rick Halford, R-Chugiak, and Sen. Lyda Green, R-Mat-Su, have announced they will run for re-election, but other Valley representatives have not declared their intentions.

Rep. Vic Kohring, R-Wasilla, said between legislative sessions he chaired a committee on governmental efficiencies and is looking forward to seeing what that committee can come up with to help cut costs throughout the state.

Kohring said he will continue to chair the ad-hoc committee throughout the session and expects the group to bring forward a bundle of reports during the next month as to how they, individually, believe Alaska can trim the fat. Privatizing governmental services, consolidating agencies and reducing the length of the legislative session are just a few of the topics the group has discussed, Kohring said.

While it may be midway through the session before the group distills their suggestions into something that Kohring could present as legislation, he's hopeful it will be considered along with the suggestions from the Fiscal Policy Caucus. That caucus was created to look at ways of bridging the fiscal gap, Kohring said, but he finds some of their suggestions -- such as a gas tax, state income tax, education tax and others -- to be a bit troubling.

"I still don't think we have a revenue problem," Kohring said. "It's more of a spending problem. There's been too little time spent reducing spending."

Ogan agreed that it may be too early to discuss instituting new taxes.

"The citizens of this state can't pay enough taxes to make up that shortfall," Ogan said. "We need to have a reprioritization discussion -- not just cutting the budget, but doing without."

Senate President Halford said he's heard several proposals for bringing new money to the state coffers. Alcohol taxes, taxes on offshore industries such as cruise ships, and others will likely be discussed in the upcoming session, and there will be talk of dipping into the permanent fund. That, Halford said, is not a well-liked option.

"The dividend may be something unique to Alaska, but it's an Alaskan citizens' ownership interest in resource income," Halford said.

Taking a portion of money from each Alaskan's dividend, Halford said, is an unfair tax.

"That's what cutting the dividend by $500 is," Halford said. "It's a flat tax on Alaskans."

More popular ideas, Halford said, are a statewide sales tax -- if it can be instituted to maintain Alaska cities' ability to generate tax revenue on their own -- and the less popular suggestion of an Alaska income tax.

But Halford is looking at keeping the permanent fund off-limits.

"Most of the great political battles are battles between the needs of the present and [the needs] of the future," Halford said.

Sen. Lyda Green, R-Mat-Su, said she, too, would be keeping a careful eye on fiscal matters.

"I think the budget's going to be the biggest issue," Green said. "It's basically going to be … trying to find the resources for keeping up with last year's budget."

As chair of the Senate Health, Education and Social Services Committee, Green said she'll be looking closely at the big-ticket programs to find ways to cut back.

"We will still be looking at the causes and cures for the fraud increases and all the things that are impacting Medicaid," Green said.

The exit exam and Valley road construction issues also top her list, Green said, and she's hoping that, through revisiting school construction funding, the Mat-Su Borough School District may get some of the things on its wish list.

"Hopefully we'll be able to get that dietitian center," Green said.

But one project close to her heart, Green said, will be finding funding to finance more lighting along Southcentral transportation arteries.

"I've been so pleased with the lighting on the Glenn Highway," Green said, "now I want to put lighting everywhere."

Although Gov. Tony Knowles will be working to get a subsistence resolution passed, Green said she didn't foresee that it would be a much-discussed topic this session.

"I haven't talked to anyone that has changed [their] mind," Green said.

Ogan said he believed the issue would only come forward if the Senate acted on it -- and that wasn't likely.

"I don't think the house is going to deal with it," Ogan said. "They're not going to touch it unless the Senate does something. And I don't think [the governor] has swayed any of the Senate to vote [in its favor]."

The natural gas pipeline, Ogan said, would be a hot topic on his agenda this session.

"We're anxiously awaiting to hear what the oil companies have come up with for the gas pipeline," Ogan said.

Ogan, the chair of the House Oil and Gas Committee, said the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, as well as the later pipeline shooting, raised concerns about the safety of the oil pipeline. He said the committee met a few times during the interim to discuss pipeline safety and he felt confident the pipeline was as safe as possible.

"I think the threat is mitigated to the oil pipeline," Ogan said. "I think they're doing as good a job as they can do, given that the pipeline goes across 800 miles of some of the most remote real estate around."

The terrorist attack spurred Ogan to begin developing a piece of legislation he hopes to see passed this session. The legislation would request U.S. Congress to institute a new manner of selecting Senate seats, in the case that more than half of the Senate is killed in a terrorist attack or similar tragedy. The legislation proposes a U.S. Constitutional amendment that would call for state legislatures to appoint U.S. senators to act.

Valley road construction also tops Ogan's list of things to accomplish in the coming session. Although he said reworking the Old Glenn Highway is at the top of his list, the Department of Transportation's GARVEE bond proposal is not far behind. The House last session passed the GARVEE bond proposal, but the legislation stalled in the Senate Transportation Committee. Ogan said he plans to work to get it dislodged.

"I'll be dealing with that on a lobbying basis," Ogan said. "I'll be working with my Senate colleagues to try to iron out the difficulties in that bill."

Kohring said he had not yet read the Senate's version of the GARVEE bond proposal, so he was unsure of how much support he would be able to give the plan.

"I need to read the Senate's version of that," Kohring said. "Conceptually, I think it's good -- so long as we carefully spend the money. I think it'll be good for Mat-Su, as long as we're very careful."

The caution, Kohring said, should come by building only those roads that are a part of the Valley's vital transportation needs.

Kohring said transportation needs are his top priority as the chair of the House Transportation Committee during the upcoming legislative session. And topping that list, he said, is the development of the Parks Highway through the Wasilla area.

He said he's hoping to address the varied needs of the businesses along that area that are concerned about poor access after the highway is divided into four lanes, as well as looking at concerns about the Parks Highway and Glenn Highway interchange.

Rep. Beverly Masek, R-Willow, did not return messages left with her Wasilla office.