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Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Alaska Legislature finalizes $1,000 PFD; vote expected as soon as Tuesday
Members of the Alaska Legislature's budget conference committee are joined by Sen. Bill Wielechowski, D-Anchorage, as they discuss a budget amendment with aide Pete Ecklund, right, on Sunday, May 18, 2025. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon) This year's Permanent Fund dividend will be $1,000, according to a final draft state budget approved Sunday afternoon by six House and Senate negotiators. The dividend was among the biggest items in a $5.9 billion document that will fund state services from July 1 this year through June 30 next year. The draft approved Sunday is scheduled for a final vote as soon as Tuesday in the House and Senate and will advance after that to Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who may reduce or eliminate individual line items. He may not increase a line item. The Legislature's regular session reaches its constitutional limit on Wednesday. The latest forecast from the Alaska Department of Revenue expects significantly lower oil and gas revenue over the next year, and lawmakers significantly cut services and programs during the budget drafting process. Unlike in previous years, the amount of the Permanent Fund dividend was not a contentious issue for budget negotiators at the end of the legislative session. Rep. DeLena Johnson, R-Palmer, said on Sunday that lawmakers had already argued the issue earlier in the session, and even though she unsuccessfully voted for a $1,400 dividend on Sunday, she knew the $1,000 figure would be final. 'From my perspective, I already knew what this number was going to be,' she said. Compressing the dividend is the state's precarious budget situation. In December, Dunleavy handed lawmakers a budget draft with a $2.1 billion deficit and a $3,900 dividend; the budget will leave the Capitol with a surplus of about $55 million. Legislators expect that surplus will evaporate in the coming months — oil prices are running below the Department of Revenue forecast, and Republican members of Congress are planning to reduce the amount the federal government pays for major programs, including food stamps and disaster relief. The Senate approved a budget draft with deeper cuts than the final document, but during the compromise process, lawmakers added individual line items preferred by the House, which proposed higher levels of spending and a draw from the Constitutional Budget Reserve, the state's main savings account, to pay for that spending. The final version of the budget eliminates that draw from savings, except as needed to cover a deficit remaining in the current fiscal year. If lawmakers don't approve the CBR draw, money would be taken from the state investment bank — better known as the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, or AIDEA — and the state's education trust fund. That will put pressure on members of the House's 19-person Republican minority caucus, who previously voted against drawing from the CBR. Thirty votes are needed in the 40-person House to spend from the CBR. The final version of the budget includes an additional $13.7 million for child care programs, $5.7 million more for infant early learning programs and 15 new full-time positions to help process public assistance applications. The conference committee, in charge of negotiating the compromise budget, also approved a House proposal to increase funding for behavioral health services used by mentally ill homeless people by $13.75 million. 'The Alaska Behavioral Health Association made a strong case that they need that,' said Rep. Andy Josephson, D-Anchorage and chair of the conference committee. In future years, the state will try to obtain behavioral health funding through federal Medicaid grants. A $1 million grant to food banks — proposed by the House — was rejected in the final version of the budget, as was funding for public radio. There will be no new troopers for the Matanuska-Susitna Borough; the committee voted 4-2 to eliminate a section of the House budget that would have re-established the trooper post in Talkeetna. Sen. James Kaufman, R-Anchorage, and Johnson voted in favor of the addition. Sen. Lyman Hoffman, D-Bethel and a vote against the addition, said that the reopened trooper post was suggested by Gov. Mike Dunleavy who withdrew that proposal — and all of his other proposed budget increases — before the conference committee met. Johnson said the failure to include the troopers, who could be used to curtail the Railbelt drug trade, was 'probably one of the bigger disappointments for me in there.' The final version of the budget also eliminates a paragraph that sought to restrict gender dysphoria treatment, the kind used by transgender Alaskans. That paragraph was inserted by the House in its budget draft, but the Senate didn't include it. Conversely, a paragraph limiting abortion care, adopted by the Senate but rejected by the House, was included in the final budget draft. That paragraph has been repeatedly challenged in court, and the effect of including it in the budget is a small cut to Medicaid funding. Josephson said the result of the two decisions is a return to the status quo — the Legislature has included the anti-abortion language in its budget for years, and the anti-transgender language was new this year. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
18-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Most state services will see no new funding in final Alaska state budget draft
The Alaska State Capitol is seen behind a curtain of blooming branches on Saturday, May 17, 2025. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon) There will be no extra money for the University of Alaska's sports teams, its effort to become a top-tier research university or its attempts to hire and keep staff. On Friday, the legislative committee assigned to write the final version of Alaska's state operating budget axed all of those items — and many more — from its in-progress draft. Alaska is facing a severe budget crunch, thanks to low oil prices and reduced federal spending, and lawmakers are eliminating almost every previously considered addition, even before Gov. Mike Dunleavy gets a chance to use his veto pen. Flat funding, combined with inflation, means cuts for most state services. The Permanent Fund dividend isn't immune, either. It's expected to be about $1,000 this year, the lowest figure in state history, once adjusted for inflation. 'It's just a really challenging time, and there's a lot of volatility, and Alaska's heavily dependent upon federal funds,' said Sen. Scott Kawasaki, D-Fairbanks. 'We don't have that huge buffer of oil and gas funds that we once did.' Rep. Will Stapp, R-Fairbanks, appeared resigned to the decisions when asked for comment. 'It is what it is,' he said. Among the university's budget cuts is $150,000 for a staff member to help the university's efforts on diversity, equity and inclusion. The University's Board of Regents voted earlier this year to cancel DEI efforts, including those intended to help Alaska Native students. 'We obviously are cut down to the bone if we're talking about individual, singular positions in the budget, and the board of regents has taken a position that's alternative to what I think the UA community broadly wants to see happen, so it puts our Legislature as an appropriating body in a really difficult position making those kinds of decisions,' said Rep. Ashley Carrick, D-Fairbanks. The budget maneuvering isn't restricted to the University of Alaska. At the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, legislators have cut road maintenance spending and have requested a report on the feasibility of turning the Dalton Highway — Alaska's overland link to the North Slope — into a toll road. A plan to put more Alaska state troopers in Kotzebue to fight child abuse crimes was only partially funded, and $2.3 million for additional trooper overtime was trimmed to $1 million. The conference committee, in charge of combining different budget drafts approved by the state House and Senate, may also cancel plans for additional state and wildlife troopers in Talkeetna. Legislators are asking DPS to begin meeting with the Kenai, Fairbanks and Matanuska-Susitna boroughs about setting up local police in those areas in order to replace troopers. 'It is the intent of the legislature to direct public safety funds to areas of the state that do not have the tax base to provide needed policing services to their communities,' the latest budget draft states. A few budget increases remain — $250,000 more for maintenance at the state's trial courts, $292,000 more for security screening of legislative mail, and additional state funding for Alaska's forestry program as part of an effort to increase logging. For the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development, the conference committee approved backstop funding for public schools in case Dunleavy vetoes House Bill 57, which would permanently increase the state's per-student funding formula. The backstop language includes a one-time bonus that's slightly smaller than the increase included within HB 57. That increase is itself lower than the rate of inflation. The committee declined to increase funding for special education, child nutrition, early education, and state libraries, archives and museums. But lawmakers did approve an increase for career and technical education initiatives. They temporarily postponed a decision on items related to foreign teacher recruitment and training, at the request of Sen. James Kaufman, R-Anchorage. Those may be taken up as soon as Sunday. The committee approved $5.5 million for child advocacy centers, which support child victims of physical and sexual abuse. That money was added after the federal government cut funding for the centers. For the state prison system, the budget directs the closure of part of Spring Creek Correctional Center and directs the Alaska Department of Corrections to prepare a report for the Legislature evaluating which prisons would provide the most cost savings if closed. Budget negotiators also rejected increased funding for vocational training programs intended to aid Alaskans who leave the prison system. Several items are still being debated, and the conference committee was scheduled to meet at 1 p.m. Sunday to finalize the compromise budget draft. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
