{"id":22227,"date":"2016-06-19T21:27:03","date_gmt":"2016-06-20T04:27:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/after-legislature-quits-with-work-undone-governor-calls-them-back\/"},"modified":"2016-06-19T21:27:03","modified_gmt":"2016-06-20T04:27:03","slug":"after-legislature-quits-with-work-undone-governor-calls-them-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/after-legislature-quits-with-work-undone-governor-calls-them-back\/","title":{"rendered":"After Legislature quits with work undone, Governor calls them back"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s over, but not done.<\/span><\/p>\n

At 11:46 a.m. Sunday, the Alaska Senate adjourned the fourth special session of the 29th Alaska Legislature.<\/span><\/p>\n

Forty minutes later, Gov. Bill Walker issued a proclamation stating that the fifth special session will begin on July 11. On its agenda will be three items: Using the earnings of the Alaska Permanent Fund to pay for government operations, reforms to the state\u2019s system of oil and gas drilling subsidies, and a suite of tax increases.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI am absolutely convinced that if we don\u2019t fix this now, then our challenges next year will be even more magnified,\u201d Walker said in a press conference Sunday afternoon.<\/span><\/p>\n

All three items were on the agenda for the fourth special session, too.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI feel horrible about it. We didn\u2019t get anything done,\u201d said Sen. Dennis Egan, D-Juneau, after the Senate adjourned Sunday morning. \u201cAlaska\u2019s still in a deep fiscal strait and it\u2019s got to be fixed.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite 149 days of work so far, the Legislature has failed to pass measures that would balance Alaska\u2019s state budget without deep draws from the state\u2019s savings accounts. Walker proposed a 13-point plan to resolve the deficit, but lawmakers failed to pass any measures raising taxes or providing new revenue.<\/span><\/p>\n

While lawmakers did cut hundreds of millions of dollars from the state budget \u2014 which is now down approximately 30 percent from two years ago \u2014 Alaska still has a $3.2 billion deficit in the fiscal year that starts July 1.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt would\u2019ve been nice to be able to complete (a fiscal plan), but to be fair, these are tough decisions,\u201d said Senate Majority Leader John Coghill, R-North Pole. \u201cThere\u2019s no easy decisions left, and so the House and Senate just could not agree on a methodology.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

[House quits: Reps. gavel special session to an end<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Walker implied Sunday that the Legislature\u2019s inaction means he will use his veto pen liberally before the budget takes effect.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe size of government may be quite a bit different once this budget is complete,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

He has 11 days to make vetoes before signing the budget.<\/span><\/p>\n

Walker did not rule out cuts to the Permanent Fund Dividend, even when pressed on the issue.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d say at this point, all options are on the table,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

The biggest of the many stumbling blocks between the governor and Legislature was Senate Bill 128, which called for a 5.25 percent annual draw from the Alaska Permanent Fund. The draw, which would be from a five-year average of the Fund\u2019s value, would pay for the Permanent Fund Dividend and provide money for state services.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis doesn\u2019t fix all the problem, but this is the cornerstone of it,\u201d Walker said of the bill.<\/span><\/p>\n

As a side effect of the bill, however, the Dividend would be cut as low as $1,000. Without SB 128, the dividend is expected to be about $2,000 this fall.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Senate voted 14-5 in favor of the bill earlier this month, but the House Finance Committee voted 5-6 on Friday against advancing the bill to a vote of the full House. <\/span><\/p>\n

Walker has previously said that preserving the full dividend is unacceptable. Without changes, he has said, the state will not have sufficient savings to take major action next year.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDo we have to run out of savings before we fix the problem?\u201d Walker asked rhetorically.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe time to act is now, and we support the governor on that,\u201d said Senate President Kevin Meyer, R-Anchorage, about the House\u2019s failure to pass the bill.<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

No benefits for families of slain police<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Senate\u2019s adjournment kills two bills passed by the House in the final days before its adjournment. HB 4002, which passed the House in a 34-0 vote Saturday, calls for 10 years of medical benefits for the spouses and children of police and firefighters who are killed in the line of duty. The children must not be older than 19, or 23 if they are still attending college. The benefits cover any peace officer or firefighter who is a member of the Public Employees Retirement System. This includes many municipal officers, corrections officers and some volunteer firefighters statewide.<\/span><\/p>\n

House Bill 246, which passed the House 30-6 on Friday, sets up an oil and gas infrastructure loan program under the state-owned Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority. Under the bill, drilling companies would have been allowed to apply for low-interest loans as a subsidy instead of using the state\u2019s controversial tax-credit incentive program.<\/span><\/p>\n

Meyer suggested the two bills could be revived in the 30th Alaska Legislature, which will convene in January 2016.<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Special session agenda<\/strong><\/p>\n

Neither of the two failed bills made it onto Walker\u2019s agenda for the fifth special session. That agenda is headlined by SB 128.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI spoke with the governor this morning, and obviously the main bill that he wants is SB 128,\u201d Meyer said.<\/span><\/p>\n

The agenda also includes tax increases that gained no traction in the House and additional reforms to the state\u2019s system of oil and gas drilling subsidies.<\/span><\/p>\n

Walker said he has not decided whether to veto House Bill 247, passed by the Legislature during its fourth special session. That bill contains cuts to the state\u2019s subsidy system but preserves a significant loophole that leads to an explosion in the state\u2019s subsidy payments at low oil prices.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some lawmakers, particularly in the House, said the bill does not cut the subsidy enough.<\/span><\/p>\n

Walker could propose further cuts or veto the bill entirely as a means to force action.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll see when it\u2019s time for me to sit down and focus on that piece of legislation,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Walker said he expects lawmakers to \u201cdo what they need to do\u201d during the interim, including talking to constituents.<\/span><\/p>\n

Asked whether the interregnum between special sessions could result in reduced support for SB 128, Meyer said he doesn\u2019t think that\u2019s likely in the Senate.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think the Senate\u2019s pretty comfortable in the vote that they made, and we would make that same vote again in July,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s any risk on our part of losing support in the Senate.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He said he\u2019s received more positive comments than negative ones since the Senate voted on SB 128, and he believes that some House members might change their opposition if they listen to constituents before the start of the fifth special session on July 11.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s over, but not done. At 11:46 a.m. Sunday, the Alaska Senate adjourned the fourth special session of the 29th Alaska Legislature. Forty minutes later, Gov. Bill Walker issued a proclamation stating that the fifth special session will begin on July 11. On its agenda will be three items: Using the earnings of the Alaska […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"featured_media":22228,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[34,230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-22227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-alaska-legislature","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22227","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=22227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22227\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22227"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=22227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}