Alaska News

Alaska legislators' own budget avoids deep cuts

JUNEAU -- A House committee Thursday approved a plan to cut the Legislature's spending by 1.7 percent, well short of the reductions proposed by Gov. Bill Walker to state agency budgets under his control.

In a three-minute meeting with no discussion, a subcommittee chaired by Rep. Mark Neuman, R-Big Lake, voted unanimously to accept a plan that cuts about $1.3 million from the Legislature's $75 million annual spending plan.

The subcommittee is made up of the House's most prominent leaders, including Neuman, who is co-chair of the Finance Committee; the other co-chair, Rep. Steve Thompson, R-Fairbanks; Speaker Mike Chenault, R-Nikiski; Majority Leader Charisse Millett, R-Anchorage; Rules Committee chairman Craig Johnson, R-Anchorage; and two members of the Democratic leadership, Anchorage Reps. Chris Tuck and Max Gruenberg.

Their plan calls for reductions of close to $1.5 million from the Legislature's Budget and Audit Committee. It increases the legislative operating budget by about 2 percent, or $440,000.

Neuman said in an interview afterward that the Legislature is "no different than the rest of government."

"We're looking at downsizing us too," he said, but added that he didn't know if the spending plan approved by his committee Thursday would cut any legislative staff.

The proposal heads next to the full House Finance Committee and ultimately to the Senate, and Republican leaders said more cuts could materialize.

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The 1.7 percent in savings is well below the 5.8 percent cuts to executive branch state agencies proposed by Walker. That's after Thompson, the Finance Committee co-chairman, said this month that he wanted to see cuts to agency budgets go "a little farther" than the ones Walker proposed.

In a news conference later Thursday, Chenault said legislators were negotiating other potential savings related to staff and salaries. The Legislature also needs contingency money in the event of a special session or a natural disaster that required an unexpected meeting, he added.

"We're looking at all those aspects and trying to figure out how we try to reduce our budget very similar, if not more, than other departments," he said.

He added that legislators don't have a particular percentage of savings they're targeting.

In an interview, Tuck, the Democratic leader, said he thought the committee's cuts to the Legislature's spending plan were "not fair" and too small in the context of the cuts being made to state agencies.

"It's inconsistent with what we're doing to the budget overall," he said.

But Tuck added that he didn't object to the proposal during Thursday morning's committee meeting because legislators in the Democratic minority already have less money to spend on staff than those in the Republican majority.

"Those cuts, unfortunately, go disproportionately from the majority to the minority," he said. "I don't want to see our staff take any less."

A spokeswoman for Gov. Bill Walker didn't immediately respond to inquiries about the Legislature's spending plan.

Nathaniel Herz

Anchorage-based independent journalist Nathaniel Herz has been a reporter in Alaska for nearly a decade, with stints at the Anchorage Daily News and Alaska Public Media. Read his newsletter, Northern Journal, at natherz.substack.com

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