Valley legislators continue budget negotiations

ANCHORAGE — The Alaska Legislature passed about 70 bills before adjourning at 7 p.m., April 28. But for rookie legislator Rep. Jim Colver, there might as well be only one bill, and that one isn’t finished.

“I wouldn’t call it accomplished yet, but there’s three big issues: the budget, the budget, and the budget,” he said.

While legislators returned to local restaurants and city councils to talk with constituents — Rep. Lynn Gattis is slated to address the May 11 regular meeting of the Wasilla City Council, Rep. Shelley Hughes will host a morning chat from 10 to 11 a.m., May 9 at Vagabond Blues in Palmer, and rookie Rep. Cathy Tilton will meet with constituents at a town hall meeting tomorrow at the Espresso Café on the Seward Meridian Parkway — negotiations over the budget remained in progress at the Anchorage Legislative Information Office on Thursday.

Colver blamed the house minority for the hold up.

“The house majority, we placed education top of the list,” he said. “We were gonna cut a lot of everything else, but we wanted to honor the base student allocation committed to last year, because I represent not only the Mat-Su, but also a lot of small communities that don’t get a lot of local money.”

The declining revenue from oil has eaten into revenues for the state government. That means the government must reduce its spending and dip into the Constitutional Budget Reserve to make up the difference — estimated at about $3.5 billion. Accessing the reserve — which contains $10.13 billion, according to the Alaska Department of Revenue — requires the approval of three-quarters of the Legislature. Senators approved both the budget and the funding vote, but in the House, Democrats and one Republican voted against the measure, meaning the budget is approved, but its funding mechanism is not.

As a result, Walker called a special session, to which legislators responded by voting themselves a recess until May 12. Walker also submitted a new budget, known as the “Take 2” Budget, to the House Finance Committee for consideration during the special session.

The approved legislative budget cut about $809 million, said Sen. Mike Dunleavy. Gov. Walker’s new budget cuts $365 million. According to projections provided by the governor’s office, the Legislature’s budget will exhaust the reserves by Dec. 7, 2018, and the Take 2 Budget would exhaust reserves by Nov. 30, 2018, a difference of eight days.

At least one member of the House Finance committee — Rep. Lynn Gattis — said she felt it was improper for the Walker administration to play a role in budget negotiations, and that the addition of a second budget after approval of a first budget created unnecessary complications.

“The governor has inserted himself, so now we’re not just negotiating with the minority,” she said. “We are now going through the governor’s portion. So we’re trying to dip into savings, trying to get a vote from the minority, and now we got the governor inserting himself, and now we’re trying to deal with that. It’s not getting easier. It seems to be getting harder.”

Gattis drew fire for cuts to early education and public radio earlier during the process, but said the cuts were necessary to reduce the amount pulled from savings.

Others, like Dunleavy, said they didn’t understand why an additional budget was necessary. The Senate Finance Committee was waiting for its House counterpart to finish up, he said.

“We’re not sure why the governor has interjected himself at this stage in the game … I truly don’t know why he has,” he said. “The issue wasn’t the budget. The issue was funding the budget.”

The idea was simply to give the Legislature the largest number of options, said Governor’s Office Spokeswoman Grace Jang. The Walker administrative viewed an unfunded budget as unacceptable, Jang said.

“The Legislature transmitted to the governor their unfunded budget,” she said. “That is their way of saying they’re done.”

The decision as to whether the governor’s proposal would be blended with the approved but unfunded budget is ultimately the responsibility of the Legislature, Jang said.