The Alaska Permanent Fund dividend would be $1,100 under an amendment a committee passed on Tuesday.
The House Finance Committee voted 7-4 to reduce the amount of the PFD from what Gov. Mike Dunleavy proposed. He put forward a $2,350 dividend in the bill that the committee amended.
Committee members said they don’t want to draw more than is outlined under a law that limits how much the state spends in permanent fund earnings each year.
Fairbanks Democratic Representative Adam Wool sponsored the amendment.
“It’s an amount that won’t require an overdraw, which I think is really the main point,” Wool said.
Dunleavy has proposed drawing $3 billion more than planned from fund earnings — half to pay for this year’s dividend and the other to cover the gap between what the state spends and what it raises over the next few years.
The $1,100 amount could be changed again as it moves through the legislative process.
Nearly half of the money would be paid from a reserve fund that’s separate from the rest of the budget. In an earlier budget bill, drawing this money required support from three-quarters of both chambers of the Legislature. A similar vote failed in June.
But Wool noted a recent ruling by a judge that said that money in separate funds aren’t subject to the vote. Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration hasn’t said how it will interpret how the ruling affects the fund — known as the statutory budget reserve — that would pay for nearly half of the money under the amendment.
Public testimony earlier in the day favored a larger dividend amount by a wide margin. Many of those testifying said the state should pay PFDs under the formula in state law. The last time the formula was followed was in 2015. The formula would lead to a roughly $3,800 dividend this year, which would equal 82% of the amount being drawn from the permanent fund.
Anchorage resident Noria Clark was among the supporters of the higher amount. And she told the committee that state government should spend less.
“The problem with taking the PFD away from people is you’re taking [the] ability and rights away from them to be able to pay for things that their family needs. Or people want to go blow the money: Who cares? That is not your problem. The problem is that you guys, and I use ‘you guys’ collectively, keep wasting money,” Clark said.
The committee passed the bill on Wednesday, sending it to the entire House for a vote.
The Senate could pass its own version of the bill, which would require the two chambers to work out their differences. Or it could pass the House version and send it to the governor’s desk.
Wednesday is the 10th day of the special session, which can last until Sept. 14.
This story has been updated.
