Looking ahead at state legislative session

JUSTIN F. BLOMSNESS/Frontiersman reporter

From closing the gap on retirement benefits for public employees to stemming the growing methamphetamine problem in the Valley, Mat-Su's state lawmakers are nailing down an aggressive agenda as they prepare for the 24th Alaska Legislature, which convenes in Juneau on Monday.

While last year's Legislature focused on bridging a looming state deficit, this year's session comes as the state projects a $650-million budget surplus, thanks to a huge spike in oil prices in the past year.

Oil royalties and fees fund about 80 percent of the annual state budget. Although everybody smiles when prices are high, the pressure is on lawmakers not to squander the surplus. Some watchdogs hope lawmakers will continue to address ways to pay for state government, rather than praying for high oil prices.

Heading into the four-month-long session, the biggest challenge facing state legislators is achieving an operating fiscal plan in light of multiple requests for spending.

"Money will be the subject of much political debate again this year," said Rep. Bill Stoltze, R-District 16. "It's attached to nearly every piece of legislation."

The Mat-Su state delegation, which includes Sen. Charlie Huggins, R-District H, who was appointed in September to serve the rest of Scott Ogan's term, and newly elected Rep. Mark Neuman, R-District 15, spoke last week to the Mat-Su Borough Assembly about the borough's priorities, a wish list ranging from reducing the threat of wildfires to expanding correctional facilities to upgrading emergency response equipment.

For the Assembly, priorities center on a host of funding proposals to address growth in the Valley. With more than 30 percent of the state's highways and a booming population, transportation and education funding easily top the Assembly's legislative wish list.

"The borough's priorities for 2005 are road improvements, education funding and school construction," said Borough Manager John Duffy.

Among the borough's education proposals, Assembly members said they'd like lawmakers to provide funding for a number of issues facing the Valley's school district, including building new schools and renovating existing ones.

The borough also wants the Legislature to inflation-proof the district's operating assistance (state revenue that matches the cap amount the borough supplies the district), fund school debt reimbursement and cover teacher and public employee retirement shortfalls.

Then there are the borough's statewide transportation improvement projects. These projects include:

€Adequate funding of the state Department of Transportation and Public Facilities' operating and maintenance budget.

€ $250,000 for a Port MacKenzie rail and highway corridor environmental impact statement. A study is in progress to determine the best routes for extending the Alaska Railroad to Port MacKenzie. The project envisions building a road corridor running parallel to the rail line.

€Funding for a proposed extension of Bogard Road to the Glenn Highway and upgrades for Trunk Road and the Palmer-Wasilla Highway.

Other borough costs include $500,000 to replace and upgrade emergency response equipment and $500,000 for public education, fuels reduction and management of public lands, to help reduce the threat of wildland fires in the Valley.

Sen. Lyda Green, R-District N, said every priority takes a back seat to funding transportation.

"Funding transportation addresses the safety and development issues caused by the Valley's growth spurt," Green said. "It does all of the right things and none of the wrong."

Green also cautioned against spending the budget surplus on education programs the state won't be able to sustain once oil prices drop. Such reckless spending helped cause a budget shortfall in 2004.

Rep. Carl Gatto, R-District 13, said the Valley's transportation issues affect the whole state.

"If Alaska is a large corporation, the Mat-Su is one of its top satellite companies," Gatto said. "It makes good business sense to support the infrastructure of an up-and-comer company that could someday support the whole corporation. And right now, the Mat-Su is the most significant place in the state."

The lingering question among lawmakers is, how to pay for the projects?

One proposal under serious consideration at this time is a transportation package recently proposed by Gov. Frank Murkowski. The package includes three Mat-Su road projects totaling $21 million.

About $13 million, the largest portion of the package, would be spent on design, environmental studies, right-of-way purchases and construction to extend Bogard Road from Trunk Road to the Glenn Highway. Lawmakers say this would help relieve traffic on the Palmer-Wasilla Highway.

Another $6 million is earmarked for an environmental impact study of expanding the Palmer-Wasilla Highway, and $2 million would go for environmental studies of alternate routes for the Parks Highway and the Alaska Railroad corridor through Wasilla.

But the Mat-Su state delegates give the governor's proposal mixed reviews. Because the funding would come out of earnings from a 1993 out-of-court settlement awarded to the state, the package wouldn't tap this year's budget windfall.

While some lawmakers say this would cut down on political wrangling in the Legislature, others oppose projects included in the package, such as a road from Skagway to Juneau.

Other priorities of the Mat-Su's state delegates include fighting a $100-million state capitol building in Juneau and perhaps crafting a new law to help curb the growing methamphetamine problem in the Valley.

Stoltze and Gatto have prefiled a bill to amend the 1994 FRANK Initiative, which required a statewide vote to approve the costs of moving Alaska's capital city from Juneau.

Stoltze and Gatto's bill seeks to extend the voter approval requirement to the costs of building a new capitol building in Juneau - which, Valley lawmakers say, is a priority among their constituents.

"Nobody I have talked to in the Valley is in support of building a $100-million capitol building in Juneau," said Sen. Charlie Huggins, R-District H.

The lawmakers are also looking at laws in some Lower-48 states that require grocery stores and other shops to keep pseudoephedrine - a key meth-making ingredient found in cold medicines - behind counters as a way to deter meth-making shoplifters. About a dozen

states have already enacted similar legislation.