A debate on the best way to allocate more than $1.5 billion in mostly federal relief funding stretched into the evening Monday, and by the end of the business day lawmakers were still hashing it out.<\/p>\n
More than $60 million was approved early in the meeting, but the bulk of the appropriations, including cash payments for municipalities remained under debate at the time the Empire went to print.<\/p>\n
In a meeting attended by lawmakers both in-person and online, Legislative Budget and Audit Committee members questioned representatives from the Legislative Finance Division, the Office of Management and Budget and other state departments about how allocation amounts were determined and how they could be used.<\/p>\n
The meeting had already been rescheduled from last week, and was postponed Monday from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. and finally to 4 p.m. as some lawmakers maintain the governor’s method for allocating federal Cares Act money is illegal in some cases. Gov. Mike Dunleavy proposed allocating more than $1.25 billion in federal relief money, 45% of which was reserved for local governments, through the revised program legislative requests, or RPL, process.<\/p>\n
But RPLs can’t put federal money into programs that don’t already have federal money, and some lawmakers said. Furthermore, using federal dollars on programs that don’t already have federal receipt authority would be illegal, said Rep. Chris Tuck, D-Anchorage, who co-chairs the committee.<\/p>\n
“You can’t just RPL and get federal money into a program that didn’t have federal money in it first,” Tuck previously told<\/a> the Empire.<\/p>\n RPLs could be used in some areas, Tuck said, but there were critical areas where the federal money couldn’t be used and could only receive money through action by the Legislature. Community assistance, small business relief and fisheries were three examples of critical areas that needed money but couldn’t get it through RPL, according to Tuck and some lawmakers.<\/p>\n