This is our weekly newsletter from reporter Nathaniel Herz in Juneau. Sign up to have it delivered to your in-box each Monday morning.
Good morning from Juneau, where I just returned after a three-day weekend and a trip to Skagway for a ski marathon, the Buckwheat Ski Classic. I finished sixth, which sounds good until you learn there were only 13 people who raced and that my back was so sore Sunday morning that I needed help putting my Xtratufs.
An aside: Yesterday's ferry back to Juneau was filled with European extreme skiers who seemed intent on testing the Alaska Marine Highway System's policies on marijuana and alcohol consumption. They were on their way back from a competition, the Freeride World Tour in Haines — read a recap by my colleague Beth Bragg here.
Today is Day 70, which should mean three weeks until the end of the legislative session. In reality, the prospect of an on-time adjournment on Day 90 appears increasingly remote. The House and Senate haven't yet begun negotiations to reconcile differences between their two budget proposals, since the House only just sent its spending plan to the state Senate on Friday and the Senate hasn't finished its own.
There are even fewer indications of how the two chambers will resolve their diverging visions about how — or if — oil taxes, income taxes and the Permanent Fund should be used to fix Alaska's deficit. The outlook is bleak enough that one of my Capitol press room colleagues is spending this week on a break back in Anchorage, "because this feels about like the halfway point."
Here's a recap of our coverage from the past week:
—On Monday, the House, after a full week of debate, passed a budget proposal that was ever-so-slightly higher than Gov. Bill Walker's. The bill was held up on reconsideration, however, and didn't go to the Senate until Friday. Also on Monday: the Senate Education Committee, chaired by Palmer Republican Shelley Hughes, introduced legislation to create a virtual education hub, and to cut spending on health care and school buses.
—On Wednesday, the House Republican minority introduced a deficit-reduction bill that would use Permanent Fund earnings to help pay for government but largely spare residents' dividend checks from deep cuts — instead relying largely on budget cuts and withdrawals from state savings.
—On Thursday, we examined how legislative inaction on new federal official identification requirements called Real ID could cause problems for Alaskans who travel or work on military bases. Also Thursday, the Senate passed a bill to open the state to transportation companies like Uber and Lyft.
—On Friday, Sitka Democratic Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins introduced legislation to tax opioids, the addictive painkilling drugs, which he says could raise $5 million a year and help pay for treatment.
—The House Finance Committee spent the week debating oil taxes; columnist Dermot Cole gives a snapshot here.
—On Sunday, we looked at how state government has changed as lawmakers have tried to reduce it over the past two years — and examined how much room is left for further cuts.
This coming week, the Senate is expected to dig into the House's budget proposal, with Senate Finance Committee hearings scheduled all week, including Saturday morning.
Two big unanswered budget questions for the Senate's Republican-led majority are how members will address the schools budget, and where it will find another $100 million in cuts to hit its $300 million target. The answers are likely related, as Senate leaders have warned that they're considering an education cut of about 5 percent.
The House, meanwhile, has scheduled four days of hearings on House Bill 115 — its legislation to levy a statewide income tax and restructure the Permanent Fund, reducing dividends in the process.
House leaders last week unveiled a substitute version of the legislation that pegs the income tax to adjusted gross income rather than to a percentage of the federal tax rate, as they previously proposed. The new proposal produces no meaningful change in taxes owed by most groups under the initial version, and it would leave Alaska's tax more stable if federal tax law ends up being adjusted, according to an analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Public testimony on the bill is set for Wednesday.
One big unanswered question for House leaders is what's happening to their oil-tax bill. After last week's hearings culminated with public testimony Saturday, the legislation, House Bill 111, has disappeared from the agenda of the House Finance Committee, with no meetings scheduled on it this week.
As always, send me story suggestions, questions and your best guess of the date the legislative session will finish: nherz@alaskadispatch.com, @nat_herz on Twitter and 907-793-0312 — a phone number that will also work with the encrypted messaging app Signal.
Have a great week.
—Nat