{"id":6197,"date":"2018-04-25T21:58:00","date_gmt":"2018-04-26T04:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/alaska-senators-unveil-1-4-billion-capital-construction-budget\/"},"modified":"2018-04-25T21:58:00","modified_gmt":"2018-04-26T04:58:00","slug":"alaska-senators-unveil-1-4-billion-capital-construction-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/alaska-senators-unveil-1-4-billion-capital-construction-budget\/","title":{"rendered":"Alaska senators unveil $1.4 billion capital construction budget"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lawmakers got their first look at the state’s billion-dollar capital construction and renovation budget on Wednesday as the Senate Finance Committee unveiled its draft proposal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The $1.39 billion spending plan is some $280.5 million less than the idea proposed by Gov. Bill Walker, who intended to pay for the higher spending with a temporary payroll tax<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Senators have rejected that idea, and the capital construction budget under consideration is funded primarily with money from the federal government. Fully $1.1 billion of the proposal comes from federal matching funds unlocked with $280 million in state cash.<\/p>\n

Sen. Anna MacKinnon, R-Eagle River and co-chairwoman of the finance committee, said the proposal balances state needs with the fact that Alaska faces a $2.4 billion deficit amid dwindling savings.<\/p>\n

“This capital budget is based on withdrawing funds that are in savings,” she said.<\/p>\n

Most capital project spending is for transportation. Airports are scheduled to receive $221.5 million, and the state’s surface transportation program (generally road construction and maintenance) will receive $670 million.<\/p>\n

Both figures are up from last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Senate proposal also includes $13.5 million for maintenance, rehab and certification of the state’s ferries. That’s up from $11 million approved by the Legislature last year.<\/p>\n

Much of the budget’s technical language consists of re-appropriations from construction projects that finished under budget.<\/p>\n

State and legislative employees thoroughly scrubbed state accounts to find those projects. The smallest reappropriation is $31, left over from a Fritz Cove road project.<\/p>\n

One notable reappropriation that didn’t make the list is the Juneau Access Project.<\/p>\n

Last year, after Gov. Bill Walker said he would not proceed with the road north from Juneau, lawmakers diverted half of the $47 million allocated to Juneau Access<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The remaining half of the money remains unused in the state budget, and House Republicans have renewed calls for the road’s construction. A poll<\/a> commissioned by road supporters found rising support in the capital city.<\/p>\n

Also not appearing in the budget are budget requests for the Port of Anchorage and an enhanced 911 system.<\/p>\n

One program that does get funding under the Senate proposal is $2.5 million to address the state’s backlog of untested sexual assault evidence kits, which are informally known as “rape kits.”<\/p>\n

The state previously estimated<\/a> that clearing the backlog would require between $2.2 million and $3 million.<\/p>\n

The Senate Finance Committee will take public testimony on the capital budget starting at 1:30 p.m. Thursday.<\/p>\n

The capital budget is one of a handful of key bills that must be approved by the Legislature before adjournment. Last year, lawmakers needed to call themselves into a special July session to pass a capital budget.<\/p>\n

\n

• Contact reporter James Brooks at jbrooks@juneauempire.com or 523-2258.<\/b><\/p>\n

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Lawmakers got their first look at the state’s billion-dollar capital construction and renovation budget on Wednesday as the Senate Finance Committee unveiled its draft proposal. The $1.39 billion spending plan is some $280.5 million less than the idea proposed by Gov. Bill Walker, who intended to pay for the higher spending with a temporary payroll […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"featured_media":6198,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[34,95],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-6197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-alaska-legislature","tag-alaska-state-budget"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6197","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=6197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6197"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=6197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}