The Alaska Legislature is close to a deal to avert a statewide government shutdown, legislative leaders say, and an agreement could come as quickly as Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we, the Senate, should be done tomorrow. If it hits the floor, we\u2019ll be done tomorrow,\u201d said Senate President Pete Kelly, R-Fairbanks, in a Wednesday interview with the Empire.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think tomorrow will be a good day. I\u2019m anticipating we\u2019ll be out of there by the weekend. I think we\u2019re that close,\u201d said House Minority Leader Charisse Millett, R-Anchorage, on the same day.<\/p>\n
In a brief hallway conversation, Speaker of the House Bryce Edgmon said he agrees with what Kelly said. Edgmon, busy in meetings and negotiations all day \u2500 members of the Senate Majority were seeing entering and leaving his office \u2500 did not have time for a more detailed conversation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t say we have an agreement between leadership yet. That just hasn\u2019t happened,\u201d Kelly said early Wednesday afternoon, but one appeared imminent.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think you never know until you see a vote,\u201d said Rep. Les Gara, D-Anchorage. \u201cI would say that it seems like people are working with each other well.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Legislature must approve a state operating budget before July 1, the start of the state\u2019s fiscal year, to avoid a shutdown of state services.<\/p>\n
Until this week, lawmakers have been stalemated between positions held by the Republican-dominated Senate Majority and the coalition House Majority, which includes independents, Democrats and Republicans. The Senate Majority has advocated passage of a stopgap budget that uses savings to avoid a shutdown. The House Majority has demanded a comprehensive fiscal plan that avoids a shutdown and addresses Alaska\u2019s $2.7 billion annual deficit.<\/p>\n
Edgmon has said that tackling the deficit next year will be difficult because 2018 is an election year, and lawmakers will be reluctant to make unpopular choices in an election year. Furthermore, Alaska has only one year left in its Constitutional Budget Reserve.<\/p>\n
Gov. Bill Walker broke the impasse when he called a second special session last week. Lawmakers were in its sixth day Wednesday. Walker put only one thing on the second special session agenda: the budget.<\/p>\n
That meant the House Majority\u2019s position was no longer sustainable because none of its supporting pieces \u2500 new taxes, cuts to oil drilling subsidies \u2500 were on the agenda.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the governor limiting the call to the operating budget was the actual genesis (of a breakthrough),\u201d Millett said. \u201cNow you don\u2019t have any leverage whether it\u2019s (House Bill) 111 or the capital budget or with income taxes or with a broad-based tax. All of those things have been removed as distractions \u2026 and I think the clock is ticking.\u201d<\/p>\n
With nothing else to consider, lawmakers have focused negotiations on how much to cut from the state\u2019s operating budget. That has put the issue in the collective lap of the six-person conference committee assigned to reconcile the different budgets passed by the House and Senate earlier this year.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, that committee closed out all but a handful of isolated elements. It had previously agreed to some less controversial departmental budgets but this week has begun settling the \u201cbig four\u201d departments that include most state spending.<\/p>\n
Those four departments \u2500 education, health, transportation and the University of Alaska \u2500 had been targeted for significant cuts by the Senate Majority. The House Majority had resisted those cuts but is now compromising.<\/p>\n
In one item approved Wednesday, the conference committee rejected a $16.2 million cut to the University of Alaska budget and instead approved an $8 million cut, half what the Senate had sought.<\/p>\n
Contentious items still remain to be considered, including how much money the state will give to oil and gas drillers in subsidy payments, but there are few of those compared to what has already been done.<\/p>\n
\u201cItems are getting checked off all the time, so we\u2019re getting closer all the time. There\u2019s not too many open,\u201d said Rep. Paul Seaton, R-Homer and House chairman of the conference committee.<\/p>\n
The conference committee is scheduled to meet at 10 a.m. Thursday to complete its budget work. If it settles the last remaining elements, the budget would then go to the full House and full Senate. Each body has scheduled a floor session on Thursday and could vote as soon as it receives the budget.<\/p>\n
The issue will then become whether there are enough votes to use the state\u2019s Constitutional Budget Reserve to cover the deficit. A three-quarters vote of the Senate and a three-quarters vote of the House is needed. In the House, the support of Millett\u2019s minority Republicans is required.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll caucus tomorrow and look at what gets closed out tomorrow in conference,\u201d Millett said, not making a commitment. \u201cAll 18 of our members need to understand what we\u2019re asking with that CBR vote.\u201d<\/p>\n
She\u2019d like to see her caucus vote together but understands that some \u201csuper-fiscal conservatives\u201d may not be willing to do so.<\/p>\n
In the end, how close are legislators to a deal?<\/p>\n
\u201cCloser than we\u2019ve ever been before,\u201d said Sen. Donny Olson, D-Nome and the Senate Minority member of the budget conference committee.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Contact reporter James Brooks at james.k.brooks@juneauempire.com or call 419-7732.<\/b><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Alaska Legislature is close to a deal to avert a statewide government shutdown, legislative leaders say, and an agreement could come as quickly as Thursday. \u201cI think we, the Senate, should be done tomorrow. If it hits the floor, we\u2019ll be done tomorrow,\u201d said Senate President Pete Kelly, R-Fairbanks, in a Wednesday interview with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"featured_media":8327,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[34,243,95],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-8326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-alaska-legislature","tag-alaska-shutdown","tag-alaska-state-budget"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8326","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=8326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8326"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=8326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}