Alaska News

Impasse continues in Juneau over school funding and employee pay

JUNEAU -- Alaska lawmakers on Saturday made little headway on their final budget differences over school funding and state employee pay, even as they moved an array of other bills like a long-awaited sexual abuse prevention measure and another naming the state library after a Russian Orthodox priest.

With just over 24 hours to go before the scheduled adjournment of their 2015 session, legislative leaders said late Saturday that action on a final budget package was awaiting the results of negotiations between the Republican-dominated House majority caucus and a Democratic minority suddenly empowered by a provision requiring a three-quarters vote to access a state savings account called the Constitutional Budget Reserve.

Even as the House and Senate passed more than a dozen bills Saturday, the discussions between the House Republican and Democratic caucuses left lawmakers, lobbyists and activists waiting for details of an operating budget expected to be close to $4 billion. That's down about $500 million from last year, with lawmakers making sharp cuts to help close a multibillion-dollar deficit created by a drop in the price of oil, revenues from which fund the vast majority of state government.

A key committee charged with resolving the roughly $100 million in differences between the House and Senate budgets met Saturday afternoon and resolved only a few points of disagreement, including restoring some proposed cuts to the state's ferry system.

Still pending at 9 p.m. Saturday were the fate of a $47 million cut to the state's per-pupil funding formula and another $30 million reduction that would come from canceling raises that are contractually due to unionized state employees.

Meanwhile, focus appeared to shift away somewhat from the dispute between House Speaker Mike Chenault, R-Nikiski, and Gov. Bill Walker over a bill from Chenault that seeks to stop Walker from changing the plans for a state-controlled natural gas pipeline from the North Slope.

Walker vetoed the bill Friday, setting up a potential vote by the Legislature to override him. But both Walker and Chenault said Saturday they were still discussing a compromise to avert that showdown, which has also threatened to affect confirmation votes on Walker's cabinet and board appointees currently scheduled for Sunday afternoon.

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"I still don't think the door's closed," Walker said in a news conference Saturday afternoon. "No meeting has ended with, 'We're done with this discussion.' They've all ended with, 'We'll get back to you.' "

Most of the tension Saturday appeared to stem from the budget discussions between the House Republican and Democratic caucuses.In an interview as he emerged from an evening floor debate, Anchorage Democratic Rep. Chris Tuck, the House minority leader, said he was pushing for funding for education and labor in his negotiations with House Republican leaders, as well as for ferry funding, expansion of the state-federal Medicaid program, and smaller items.

"All the way to getting a trooper in Wrangell," Tuck said, referring to the Southeast community.

Democrats haven't held this much leverage over the budget process since 2012, when they controlled the Senate in a bipartisan coalition with Republicans.

"It's a good feeling to be working side by side with people instead of underneath them," Tuck said.

Speaker Chenault wasn't available for an interview late Saturday, a spokesman said. But Tuck said he was trying to work out a deal with House Republicans before a midnight deadline that would allow the Legislature to follow a rule requiring the budget package to sit on lawmakers' desks for 24 hours before a vote.

The Senate's Republican majority -- an exact three-fourths of the upper chamber -- also has to sign off on the budget plan, and members were largely left watching Saturday evening as their Republican counterparts in the House try to work out an acceptable package with the Democrats.

"As far as the three-quarters vote goes, it's a House thing," Senate President Kevin Meyer, R-Anchorage, said in an interview. "We have the three-quarters vote over here."

Sen. John Coghill, the Republicans' majority leader, referred to the House negotiations slightly differently.

"We're kind of at their mercy," he said.

The budget negotiations Saturday took place out of public view, sparking abundant speculation about when a package would emerge and what it would look like. And legislators and staffers were preparing for the session to continue beyond its scheduled conclusion Sunday night.

"I'm pretty much resigned to staying here as long as it takes," said Rep. Scott Kawasaki, D-Fairbanks.

Meanwhile, the Legislature busied itself with bills large and small. The Senate took votes on two different pieces of marijuana legislation, passing one. It approved another postponing the expiration date of a midwife licensing board. And it passed a contentious bill repealing raises for non-union state employees.

The House passed legislation opening a right-of-way for a North Slope natural gas pipeline through four state parks and recreation areas. It approved another bill ending the state's film production tax credit. And it sped through a stalled measure requiring school districts to teach students about sexual abuse and prevention, though it changed the name of the bill from "Erin's Law" to the "Alaska Safe Children's Act" and added a section allowing parents to hold their children out of the curriculum.

As those measures moved forward, lobbyists, activists and others in the Capitol were left anxiously waiting on the high-profile budget items still pending in the budget package.

One education advocacy group, Great Alaska Schools, organized a sit-in Saturday that supplanted the lobbyists who usually line the Capitol's second-floor benches. Instead, the seats were filled with parents, teachers and children reading books and playing with Legos.

The group is pushing for the restoration of a $30 million school funding cut proposed by Gov. Walker and another $47 million in the per-pupil funding formula proposed by the Senate, said Mary Hakala, 57, one of the group's organizers.

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"We're trying to have people sit where the high-powered lobbyists normally do -- displace the big-money lobbyists with people," Hakala said. "We're trying to remind legislators of all the students and parents and teachers back at home."

The lack of public progress on the budget left some members of Hakala's group frustrated. So were some House Democrats who criticized a decision by the House Republican leadership to allow roughly an hour of debate and a vote Saturday on a resolution that rebukes Washington state and the Seattle City Council for opposing the sale of Arctic drilling rights.

The resolution passed 25 to 14, over objections from Kawasaki, who asked in a floor speech: "What's the message that we're sending to the folks in the gallery behind us?"

Rep. Craig Johnson, R-Anchorage, who chairs the rules committee and decides which bills to allow on the floor, responded in an interview that the Legislature was in a "seesaw game" trying to work out its adjournment package.

"It's all timing -- there's nothing insidious," he said. "I think it's important that we send a message."

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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