Alaska lawmakers are racing against the clock this week with the Legislature’s regular session set to end by Wednesday night.
Over the weekend, leaders in the state House and Senate worked out a compromise on the state budget and decided on $1,200 in payments to Alaskans this fall. That’s a $1,000 Permanent Fund dividend and a $200 energy relief payment.
The budget also includes up to $144 million in one-time funding for public schools. Much of that depends on the price of oil remaining high. House Finance Committee co-chair Andy Josephson, an Anchorage Democrat, said school districts would get the full amount if oil prices average over $98 a barrel from now until the end of the fiscal year.
“Finance officers for school districts, they’re gonna be tracking like mad the price of Alaska North Slope crude ’til the end of June,” he said.
The budget still needs a final vote in the House and Senate. It’s typically one of their last items to pass before adjournment.
The Legislature has also pushed a number of bills over the finish line as the deadline approaches, from adding a faculty member to the University of Alaska’s board of regents to expanding a program for children with developmental delays.
But lawmakers have not acted on the governor’s number one priority, a large property tax cut for the Alaska LNG project. On Sunday, House Majority Leader Chuck Kopp, an Anchorage Republican, said he was negotiating with the governor’s office and other stakeholders on an acceptable version of the bill. He declined to describe the negotiations.
Meanwhile, Dunleavy has until midnight Monday to decide whether to veto a key priority for Kopp. That’s House Bill 78, which would reinstate public pensions for state and local government workers.
As the House adjourned Sunday night, Kopp said Senate Bill 180, which could serve as a vehicle for the Alaska LNG tax proposal, would be the first item on lawmakers’ agenda this morning.
“Our goal is to get the bill over tomorrow, so the Senate can concur with it. What the Senate decides to do, it’s what they decide to do, but the House will have done their part,” he said.
Since an earlier version of that bill without the LNG tax proposal has already passed the Senate, senators would have little opportunity to modify it. They’d have two choices: send the bill to the governor or reject it and set the stage for a conference committee.
That’s causing some heartburn in the upper chamber of the Legislature. Sen. Bert Stedman, a Sitka Republican, said he thinks lawmakers shouldn’t rush the process.
“You don’t circumvent the finance committees and play gamesmanship on a multibillion dollar project and inject uncalculable risk to the investors just for some political gain on a deadline for the next two days,” he said. “That’s crazy. I think they’ve done a lot of damage playing around with this sleazy politics.”
Dunleavy said at a news conference earlier this month he’d call lawmakers into special session if they didn’t pass an acceptable tax cut for the gas pipeline project.
