Two chairmen of the Legislature's powerful Finance Committees -- the lawmakers with the key to the state's treasury -- are hoping for a buy-in from their colleagues and Gov. Sean Parnell to restructure the way Alaska puts its income, spending and savings down on paper.
Their plan would eliminate a series of funds -- holding an estimated $750 million -- where lawmakers historically stashed money for last-minute negotiations with each other, swapping needed votes for capital project funding. At the same time, it would put an end to the "dueling fiscal summaries" shot back and forth by lawmakers and Gov. Sarah Palin her first year in office, leaving a single presentation that gives the public a clear look at where the state's money is.
Rep. Mike Hawker, R-Anchorage, and Sen. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka, aren't looking for fancy reporting and more columns. Instead, they want simplicity and directness so lawmakers and the public better understand the budget's bottom lines.
Mostly, they're asking the financial folks to start calling it like it is. And they've got a name for this new philosophy -- Truth in Budgeting.
That is not to imply that anyone's been lying about the state's budget, Hawker emphasized. Instead, Truth in Budgeting is a more accurate and transparent way of showing what's where.
Here's the problem: Through the 1990s, a number of special funds were created that took general fund money off-budget, sheltering some funds outside of the big revenue pie that feeds the operating and capital budgets each year. The money didn't disappear, but was recategorized and tracked outside of the general fund. Those dollars still helped pay for government, but didn't show up as increases in agency operating budgets -- or as growing government.
"It was political maneuvering, in large part to give the appearance that we have less spending than we actually do," Stedman said. He noted that a number of former Finance chairmen liked the off-budget funds as a source for special project money that would go largely unnoticed.
And that, he and Hawker agree, is a misrepresentation of the state's real fiscal situation to the public, the media and even some lawmakers who don't look much further than budget summary sheets.
The actual changes proposed are in presentation -- not that big a deal. The fight is more likely to come in trying to trump political resistance, and in assuring politicians that the public will understand the alternations without jumping to a misleading conclusion. After all, the changes on budget sheets will make it look like the state is boosting general funding by around $750 million.
"Now is the time to see if we can overcome political inertia," Hawker said. "It is always easier for a politician to not make a decision."
The potential for a political landmine could be greatest for Gov. Sean Parnell, who inherited the job in July and plans to run for the office in 2010. If changes are made now, a cursory look at the state's budget summary sheets -- where most people go for the at-a-glance budget picture -- would make it seem as though state spending was ratcheted up by nearly $1 billion under Parnell. That's just not the case, though, the lawmakers said.
"Although it's not reality, it would appear that spending took a huge jump up when he became governor," Stedman said. "It might put him in an awkward position."
There's also the matter of time. Parnell's budget is due Dec. 15, which doesn't leave a lot of time to agree on reworking the summary sheets for this year and a couple of prior years, for comparison's sake.
Parnell's office didn't respond to a request for comment.
Now, those "other" funds -- rightfully belonging in the unrestricted general fund -- are lumped instead in a roughly $1.2 billion group that includes an estimated $500 million of truly restricted general funds. For example, restricted funds come from the head tax assessed on the cruise ship industry and from a tax passengers pay on tickets out of international airports. While the state has the right to implement the taxes, the federal government spells out exactly how the revenue generated can be spent. Lawmakers get no say in the matter, so the funds are legitimately off-budget, Hawker explained.
But the rest, lawmakers do have discretion over, even things like university receipts and the Permanent Fund's earnings, Hawker said. Each year, lawmakers make decisions about what to do with that money, but aren't bound to spending and saving habits not set in the Constitution.
"Discretion is measured in 21 votes in the House, 11 in the Senate, and the governor's signature," he said. "Our Constitution prohibits dedication of funds. You cannot legislatively say, this money is always going to go for this purpose. Every single year, that decision has to be made."
Fiscal presentation has weighed on other legislative decisions. Education spending appeared to double one year in the budget summary, which wasn't really a doubling, but forward-funding.
"We got harassed unmercifully that year," Hawker reflected. "There were legislators making decisions thinking about forward funding education based on the fact it was going to show up on this line and appear to be a doubling of expenditures. The format distorted the analysis behind making a good policy decision."
A legislator of the off-budget era recently asked Hawker how the state budget was looking, and Hawker explained his desire to revisit the "other funds."
"This legislator says, 'Well you can't do that. That takes away your ability to manipulate the budget presentation,'" Hawker relayed. "And my answer was, well, yeah, that's kind of the whole point."
Contact Rena Delbridge at rena_alaskadispatch.com.