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Session has been over for a little more than a week and I’m starting to feel like a normal human being again.
In this newsletter, I’ll tell you what happened briefly with the list of issues presented in the
last two newsletters. Since this was the second year of the 26th Legislature, all bills that didn’t pass died when the gavel fell.
In future issues, I’ll go into much more depth on some of the issues, what happened, why it happened and how the votes came out.
Thank you for reading my newsletter. I enjoy hearing from you, so please stop by the office, call, email or write.
Taking a “brief at ease” on the House Floor.
Money, Money, Money
Capital Budget
The final version of the
capital budget passed on the last night of session and had ballooned to just over $3 billion. Juneau’s portion was almost $70 million. Because the list is very long, click on
this link to see the list of Juneau’s projects along with key southeast and statewide projects that relate to Juneau.
Once the budget gets double-checked and finalized by the Legislative Finance Division, Legislative Legal Services, the Chief Clerk of the House of Representatives and the Secretary of the Senate, it gets sent
to the governor. The governor then has 20 days to exercise his line-item veto power.
Operating Budget
The operating budget conference committee ironed out the differences between the House and Senate versions of the budget and both bodies approved the report in the last hours of session. I was particularly
happy to see that the conference committee picked the better funding for the fetal alcohol syndrome program and youth courts. The final
operating budget was just over $8.2 billion and is also subject to line-item veto by the governor.
Supplemental Budget
The
supplemental budget for the current fiscal year originally included $234 million in operating expenses and $782 million in capital expenses. The operating expenses are mostly to cover additional costs for the office of public advocacy, the public defender
agency, inmate health and population management and Medicaid services. The capital expenses were all transferred to the current year’s capital budget.
There were two very important items in the supplemental budget. $1.1 billion was transferred to the Public Education Fund, which covers this year’s education budget (next year’s was included in the operating
budget). $401.6 million was also transferred to fully repay the Constitutional Budget Reserve, which has been used to make up the difference between revenues and expenditures in leaner years.
School Construction
SB 237 was modified and passed the
House in the last few days of session. The changes were agreed upon by the Senate unanimously and the bill has been transmitted to the governor. Not only does SB 237 provide more certainty in school construction funding, it also provides for the first time
a funding mechanism for school construction in the Rural Education Attendance Areas, which don’t have the bonding capacity to help build schools.
G.O. Bonds
HB 424, introduced by the House
Finance Committee (not the Governor as I previously said), will bring almost $400 million in construction bonds to the voters for approval. Of particular note for Juneau, there is $18.5 million in the bond bill for the State Library, Archives and Museum (SLAM)
Facility with an additional $1.5 million in state funds in the capital budget. I talked about the need for the SLAM project
last August, when the current archive facility flooded.
Education Funding
HB 317 would have continued improving
the formula used to fund education by adjusting for the Consumer Price Index and increasing the special needs funding factor and base student allocation. It unfortunately didn’t pass this year. However, there’s still time to pass continued increases next year
since we’re entering the third year of a three-year plan that started improving the funding formula.
Transportation Fund
HJR 42, which would establish a
transportation fund, just barely passed the House by a vote of 27-13 on April 12. Because it proposed a constitutional amendment, 27 votes were required to move it out of the House. After moving out of the Senate Transportation Committee, it was referred to
the Senate Finance Committee, but did not receive a hearing and therefore died at the close of session.
Postsecondary Scholarships
Instead of passing the Governor’s Performance Scholarships as proposed in
HB 297 and
SB 224, the Alaska Merit Scholarship Program was passed as included in
SB 221, which became a postsecondary education omnibus bill in the final days of session. The final version is similar to the governor’s proposed plan, providing scholarships on a stair-stepped scale based on high school performance. What SB 221 did not
do was provide a funding source for the program, which was estimated to cost about $400 million. Instead, a task force is established to identify a means to fund the scholarships.
Cruise Ship Head Tax
SB 312 reduced the cruise ship head
tax from $46.00 to $34.50 (and sometimes $19.50) per person and provided for a mechanism to distribute most of that funding directly to ports of call. Juneau will go from $8 to $13 per person. This was a complicated bill and I’ll talk more about the issues
and my vote in a future newsletter.
Crime Lab & Life Sciences Building
Even though the bills (HB 299 and
SB 226) to fund to fund a crime lab for the Department of Public Safety and a life sciences building for the University of Alaska didn’t pass, both buildings were funded elsewhere. The crime lab was funded through the capital budget to the tune of $75 million.
The majority of funding ($88 million) for the life sciences building was included in the general obligation bonds bill, with an additional $20.6 million in the capital budget to get the project started.
Speaker Mike Chenault came to the office to show me how he thought the governor would veto the budget – with a can of red spray paint rather than a red pen. Sometimes a little levity helps you get through the long days.
Other Bills
Energy Bills
SB 220, the Energy Omnibus Bill,
passed on the last day of session.
HB 306, which establishes a state energy policy, also passed that day. These bills represent a great step forward for energy conservation and alternative and renewable energy production in the state.
Legislation to establish the Greater Railbelt Energy Transmission Corporation (GRETC) did not pass.
Oil and Gas Bills
SB 305, which would separate oil
and gas taxes, passed the Legislature, but was
vetoed by the governor. I voted against decoupling because of the concerns I expressed in the
March 12 issue.
HB 280, the Cook Inlet Recovery
Act, was passed on the last day of session.
HB 369, to create a Joint In-State
Gasline Development Team, also passed and has already been signed by the governor.
SB 309, the Senate companion to
HB 229, which increases the corporate tax credit for gas exploration and development, passed.
HB 337, which would refine current
oil and gas taxes, didn’t pass, but two components of it were included in SB 309.
Increase Number of Legislators
SJR 21 passed, which puts the question
of whether or not to increase the number of legislators before voters.
Crime Bills
Both components (SB 222 and
HB 324) of the governor’s legislation package to deal with the epidemic of domestic violence and sexual assault in Alaska passed.
SB 241, which addreses the storage and
disposal of DNA material, was rolled into Senator Hollis French’s
SB 110, which revamped post-conviction relief procedures, including how to go about getting DNA evidence tested for possible exoneration.
Coastal Management
Neither
HB 74 nor
SB 4, both of which would improve our coastal management system, passed.
Campaign and Election Bills
SB 284 passed, allowing some
mitigation from the damages to our election system that will be caused by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to allow corporate campaigning.
HB 36, which would change the
initiative process, passed. I voted against it because it has the potential to seriously limit an individual’s right to participate in our constitutional right to have citizen-driven initiatives in our state.
I was honored to carry Senator Egan’s resolution declaring October 2010 Filipino American Month on the House floor.
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