Legislature needs to make sacrifices, too

This editorial originally appeared in the Wednesday edition of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.

If last year in Juneau was the “education session,” this year appears to be the “cuts session.” There are cuts being batted about to nearly all the state’s departments and functions, in places like education, health care, public safety and public radio.

Gov. Bill Walker proposed substantial decreases in many sections of the budget, and legislators have gone further in many cases, suggesting more areas or greater cost reductions. But there’s one place the cuts aren’t nearly as deep as most: the budget of the Legislature itself.

Amid the state’s most serious financial crunch in decades, members of the House Finance Committee tasked with proposing reductions have adopted a “do as we say, not as we do” attitude.

Last week, the House Finance Legislature subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Mark Neuman, R-Big Lake, met to discuss cuts to the budget of the House and Senate. It didn’t take long — after a matter of minutes, the group signed off on a budget that would cut the Legislature’s $75 million annual budget by about $1.3 million, or about 1.7 percent.

By percentage, that’s half of the reduction the state court system is planning to take and less than a third of the cuts proposed by Gov. Walker for departments under the purview of the executive branch.

Depending on how you look at it, the legislative budget proposal is even more egregious: A $1.5 million cut to the Budget and Audit Committee masks a $440,000 increase in legislative operating expenses. Rep. Neuman said lawmakers are “looking at downsizing” but that he didn’t know if any legislative staff would be cut under the proposal. Given the 2 percent increase in operating costs, it seems unlikely.

For the Legislature to champion reductions that will mean the loss of hundreds of state-funded jobs across Alaska without sharing in that budget pain sends the message to voters that lawmakers are happy to make cuts to everything that doesn’t affect them, while jealously guarding their own piece of the pie.

It’s not an issue that’s common to all of state government. Gov. Walker proposed a reduction of about 10 percent to his own office, nearly double what he asked of other state departments.

Rep. Steve Thompson. R-Fairbanks, who is a member of House Finance’s Legislature subcommittee, said he hoped the body could reduce its budget by as much or more than the governor. So far, there has been no indication the Legislature plans to make the hard choices necessary for that to be the case.

And it’s not as though the Legislature has no way of knowing what a budget reduction of that magnitude would look like. Since fiscal 2012, the Legislature’s enacted budget has increased by more than 10 percent — from $69.3 million to $77.4 million. Returning to the funding levels the Legislature maintained only four years ago would be a reduction on the same scale as the governor’s cut to his office.

There has been good and honest discussion about the state’s priorities and needs this session as it confronts a budget crisis. But somehow the Legislature’s own budget has been exempt from that discussion so far.

That’s an abdication of legislators’ responsibility to the state and its people. Alaska can’t afford that.

– newsminer.com