JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) - A divided Alaska House adopted a take-it-or-leave-it approach on the state budget late Thursday, passing a cobbled-together spending plan - amid ongoing frustration with the Senate - and adjourning from the special session.
Senate President Pete Kelly called the House’s action a “betrayal” of efforts to reach a compromise and said the Republican-led Senate could not support the budget, setting the stage for another special session with the start of the new fiscal year just over two weeks away. The Senate is scheduled to meet Friday morning.
House Speaker Bryce Edgmon told reporters it was not an ideal way to end the session and fell short in achieving his House majority coalition’s goal of getting in place a plan to address the state’s multibillion-dollar deficit.
But he said, with the threat of a government shutdown looming, it was time to get a budget passed. The Dillingham Democrat said he hoped the Senate accepts the budget, “and we let the people get on with their business, and we can all move on with our lives.”
With just one day left in a special session marked by fits and starts, intermittent flurries of activity and rounds of finger-pointing, the House majority moved during a late Thursday floor session to rescind a prior vote on Alaska’s capital budget and advance a state operating budget as an 89-page amendment to that measure. Limits were placed on the time allowed for floor speeches.
Minority House Republicans fiercely objected, saying they had little time to review the budget proposal and warned the move could tarnish relationships among lawmakers.
“Is this how democracy works? In some African countries,” Rep. Lance Pruitt said in a floor speech, adding later: “You know this is wrong.”
House and Senate negotiators had been charged with hashing out differences on the operating budget, a process that had not been completed.
House Finance Committee Co-chair Paul Seaton said the operating budget items grafted onto the capital budget include provisions previously approved by the House, agreed to in the conference committee and in some cases negotiated but not formally adopted by the conference committee.
For months, the House and Senate have been at odds over the best path forward for the state, which has long relied on oil revenue to pay for government services and has been using savings to cover deficits amid low oil prices.
There’s general agreement that earnings from Alaska’s oil-wealth fund, the Alaska Permanent Fund, should be used to help cover costs.
But the House coalition, composed largely of Democrats, earlier this year conditioned its support for use of earnings and an initial limit on the size of dividend Alaskans would get from the fund on passage of a broad-based tax and an overhaul of oil tax and credit policies. They saw that as a more balanced approach.
The Senate rejected a House-approved income tax as unnecessary and potentially harmful for a state in recession. It also disagreed with the House on how much needed to be done this year on oil taxes and credits.
House leaders say the budget passed Thursday provides for a full dividend. It proposed spending $100 million from a budget reserve fund for oil tax credits but the House did not meet the vote threshold needed to tap the fund.
Gov. Bill Walker said he was surprised by the House majority coalition’s actions.
“They did not get the job done for Alaska,” he said in a statement. “A compromise is required to protect Alaskans and put the state on a stable fiscal path.”
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