The Alaska House of Representatives worked into the early hours of Friday morning before passing an $8.66 billion state operations budget that includes $639.6 million in cuts from the current fiscal year.<\/p>\n
A majority of lawmakers turned down all 31 budget amendments that came before them, which meant the budget that passed the full House was the same one approved by the House Finance Committee earlier this week.<\/p>\n
Most amendments were declined along caucus lines. All were suggested either by independent Republican Lora Reinbold of Eagle River or the Democratic-led House minority. All were opposed by the Republican-led House majority.<\/p>\n
\u201cNobody gets exactly what they want, and that\u2019s the budget reality,\u201d said Rep. Mark Neuman, R-Big Lake and co-chairman of the finance committee, about 2 a.m. Friday. \u201cSome think we\u2019ve cut too much; others think we haven\u2019t cut enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
The final house vote was 24-14 and came at 3:10 a.m. Friday morning.<\/p>\n
The budget becomes effective July 1, but it likely will undergo significant changes before then. The Alaska Senate is expected to pass a competing budget this weekend. Neither branch of the Legislature is expected to approve the other\u2019s budget, which means the two different plans are bound for a conference committee that will create a compromise plan.<\/p>\n
That plan is not expected to be complete until the end of the 90-day Legislative session. Friday was the 53rd day of the session.<\/p>\n
The budget is only a spending plan: With the state running a deficit of about $3.7 billion, lawmakers still have to come up with a way to pay for it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is only part of the process. We also have some other pieces of legislation out there,\u201d said Rep. Sam Kito III, D-Juneau. \u201cWe have some other things to be considered before we have a budget that is paid for. This budget doesn\u2019t have the money to pay for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
To pay for state operations, the Legislature may pass any of several proposed tax increases or spend some of the investment earnings of the $50 billion Alaska Permanent Fund. Lawmakers could also choose to cover this year\u2019s deficit with money from the $8.21 billion Constitutional Budget Reserve.<\/p>\n
Among the amendments defeated were proposals to reverse cuts for library Internet access, to the Alaska Public Offices Commission, to state revenue sharing, to state prosecutors, to heating assistance programs, construction academies, Alaska Pioneer Homes and public broadcasting.<\/p>\n
\nIn their words<\/strong><\/p>\n Rep. Sam Kito III, D-Juneau<\/p>\n \u201cI think we have to be very careful about not cutting our budget too much and creating a circumstance where we have a recession in our state.\u201d<\/p>\n Rep. Tammie Wilson, R-North Pole<\/p>\n \u201cNow the question is, who pays?\u201d<\/p>\n Rep. Shelley Hughes, R-Palmer<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s really an opportunity for Alaska to come out better on the other end.\u201d<\/p>\n Rep. Adam Wool, D-Fairbanks<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t want to crash the ship.\u201d<\/p>\n Rep. Lance Pruitt, R-Anchorage<\/p>\n \u201cWe are now having a different conversation that we haven\u2019t had in 35 years. That\u2019s what\u2019s so difficult about this budget.\u201d<\/p>\n Rep. Andy Josephson, D-Anchorage<\/p>\n \u201cThose who can\u2019t afford lobbyists didn\u2019t do so well in this budget.\u201d<\/p>\n Rep. Dan Saddler, R-Eagle River<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s Alaska 3.0. We\u2019re not quite sure what it is, but it ain\u2019t what it was.\u201d<\/p>\n Rep. Bob Lynn, R-Anchorage<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a good budget. We should be proud of it.\u201d<\/p>\n Rep. David Guttenberg, D-Fairbanks<\/p>\n \u201cTomorrow will be here \u2014 sorry \u2014 tomorrow\u2019s already here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Alaska House of Representatives worked into the early hours of Friday morning before passing an $8.66 billion state operations budget that includes $639.6 million in cuts from the current fiscal year. A majority of lawmakers turned down all 31 budget amendments that came before them, which meant the budget that passed the full House […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-18249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/426"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18249\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18249"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=18249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}