Alaska News

House Democratic leader says Alaska budget negotiation needs change

Alaska's House Democratic leader says he has reached an impasse in his budget negotiations with his Republican counterpart, and he plans to propose a new framework for discussions that could include an outside mediator or bringing in Gov. Bill Walker.

Rep. Chris Tuck, D-Anchorage, said in an interview Tuesday that a series of meetings with House Speaker Mike Chenault, R-Nikiski, has failed to bridge their differences over issues like education funding and pay raises for state employees — and a new approach is needed.

Tuck's call for a shakeup came as leaders in Chenault's caucus took initial steps Tuesday toward a new budget package that could be passed without the Democrats' support.

"Mike and I talking one on one isn't that effective — we need to open it up and bring more people in," said Tuck, who's worked on contract negotiations in his other job as a business agent for a labor union. "We definitely need to have a different process to resolve the situation that we're in right now."

Alaska is facing a multibillion-dollar budget deficit this year following a crash in the price of oil. Revenues from oil taxes and royalties typically pay for most of the state's expenses, but this year the Legislature will need to pull money from a state savings account to cover the budget gap.

Accessing that savings account, the Constitutional Budget Reserve, now requires a three quarters supermajority vote from the state Legislature, which means that the House Republican majority needs support from Tuck's caucus for a final budget deal.

Tuck and Chenault have been trying to negotiate a package since the end of the Legislature's regular session in April. But discussions have dragged on for an extra month, through the end of the regular session and a first special session in Juneau called by Walker.

ADVERTISEMENT

The Legislature last week convened a second special session in Anchorage but has made little public progress since then. Walker has warned of a government shutdown if lawmakers don't agree on a deal by the start of the state's fiscal year, July 1, and has told state employees they could be temporarily laid off.

One alternative to the negotiations could be contained in a new budget bill introduced Tuesday by the Republican-controlled House Finance Committee. The bill would allow the Legislature to access the money in the Constitutional Budget Reserve savings account with a simple 21-member majority in the House, rather than the three-quarters vote that would require Democratic support.

But a six-member moderate faction of Chenault's 26-member caucus rejected that plan last week, raising doubts about whether there's enough support to pass it.

Tuck said he planned to present Chenault with several options to mix up the negotiations — some of which have already been proposed by Walker, Tuck said.

One would involve three House members on each side of the negotiating table.

Tuck and Chenault would be present, and would each pick one of their colleagues to bring along. Then, the two leaders would each select a member of the other's group to be included as well.

Another option, Tuck said, would be to convene two members from the Republican-led majorities in the House and Senate, two members from Tuck's Democratic minority, and Walker himself. A third is bringing in an outside mediator.

Chenault said in an interview Tuesday afternoon that he was waiting to hear back from Tuck after the two met Sunday night. Asked whether a mediator could be useful, Chenault suggested that hiring one could delay negotiations.

"The problem is if you start getting more people involved, then what you do is start back at ground zero and you go through the whole thing again," Chenault said. "And that takes time."

Chenault said he planned to continue negotiations with Tuck. Asked if a different process could be useful, he responded: "Negotiations are not supposed to be easy."

"If they were easy, then you really wouldn't need to be negotiating," Chenault said. "I think we can get there, if people just want to work."

The competing plans and the slow pace of negotiations have left even top lawmakers unsure about when a deal would emerge.

Senate President Kevin Meyer, R-Anchorage, said in an interview that he first thought a package could be negotiated in "just a matter of days" after the Legislature's second special session convened last week in Anchorage.

Now, he said, "it's not looking good."

Meyer said his caucus could support the alternative budget plan introduced Tuesday by the House Finance Committee. And he said he hasn't been invited to the meetings between Chenault and Tuck, and has concerns about whether the package that's being negotiated in the House would be acceptable to the members of his Republican-led majority in the Senate.

The Senate proposed the sharpest reductions in this year's budget process, pushing for a 4 percent cut to the state's per-student education funding formula, as well as canceling planned raises for state employees.

The cut to education was reduced to close to 1 percent in a preliminary budget deal agreed to by the Republican majorities in the Senate and House.

ADVERTISEMENT

"I think Mike knows that we gave up a lot just to get the House majority in alignment with us," Meyer said, referring to Chenault. "So, we're reluctant to give up a whole lot more."

Asked whether Walker would get involved in the Legislature's negotiations after Tuck described the impasse Tuesday, the governor's spokeswoman, Grace Jang, responded in an emailed statement that "Gov. Walker himself has been in more than a dozen meetings with legislators."

Jang added that Walker introduced his own budget document at the start of the first special session "that comes closest to a compromise for both parties."

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

ADVERTISEMENT