Alaska Legislature to face familiar challenges this year

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — The Alaska Legislature convenes for a brand new session Tuesday with a bipartisan coalition controlling the Senate for the primary time in over a decade, a divided Home struggling to prepare for the third straight time period and a newly reelected Republican governor who stated he’s involved in working with lawmakers and “downside fixing.”

There’s additionally a big freshmen class, and a listing of acquainted challenges: Dwindling financial savings. Oil costs effectively beneath heights reached final yr. Unresolved questions on what measurement dividend needs to be paid to residents from Alaska’s nest-egg oil-wealth fund, the Alaska Everlasting Fund.

For years, lawmakers have stated decision is required on the dividend to allow them to flip higher focus to different points affecting the state. Looking for settlement on the dividend is a precedence for incoming Senate president Gary Stevens, who’s a part of a 17-member caucus of 9 Democrats and eight Republicans within the 20-person Senate.

Stevens, a Kodiak Republican, stated there’s curiosity, too, in delving into the problems of schooling funding and pension and retirement issues for academics and different public workers. He stated he was hopeful his caucus would “agency up” its objectives when all of the members get to Juneau.

The Senate has seven new members, a gaggle that features Republican Cathy Giessel, a former Senate president who misplaced a reelection bid in 2020 and returns to the chamber after a profitable marketing campaign final yr, and Republicans Kelly Merrick and James Kaufman and Democrat Matt Claman, who beforehand have been within the Home and efficiently ran for the Senate final yr.

The 40-person Home has 19 new members, two of whom — Republicans Craig Johnson and Dan Saddler — are former representatives returning to the chamber after a number of years away.

In 2019 and 2021 — the beginning of the previous two legislative cycles — it took till February for the Home to elect a speaker. Caucuses don’t at all times neatly kind alongside occasion strains in Alaska, the place personalities and coverage positions usually think about. Lawmakers hope to keep away from a drawn-out battle this yr.

The final bipartisan coalition within the Senate was in 2012. Within the years following, there have been Republican-led caucuses that included one or two Democrats.

Rep. Cathy Tilton, a Wasilla Republican, stated she sees work on a state fiscal plan as crucial, with a revised spending restrict a key piece. Whereas lawmakers have lengthy talked in regards to the want for a fiscal plan to maneuver away from yearly budgeting across the volatility of oil, they’ve struggled to coalesce round what a plan ought to embody.

For instance, how ought to the dividend be dealt with? Ought to there be new or larger taxes, and what would these be? Alaska has no statewide gross sales or private revenue tax, and has lengthy relied on oil.

There’s a yearly utility course of for dividends, and residency necessities to satisfy. This system dates to the early Nineteen Eighties.

In 2018, amid deficits, lawmakers started utilizing everlasting fund earnings historically used to pay dividends to additionally assist pay for presidency, they usually sought to restrict how a lot is drawn annually from earnings. A longstanding system used to calculate dividends was final utilized in 2015. That outdated system has been seen by many lawmakers as unsustainable, however efforts to provide you with a brand new one have faltered. Lawmakers have typically simply been setting a yearly quantity.

Dunleavy in his price range proposal known as for a dividend according to the outdated system, which his workplace stated can be round $3,860 an individual this yr. He stated he may also press lawmakers to think about his proposal to pursue carbon markets as a strategy to generate income for the state.

Lawmakers final yr authorised paying residents $3,284, which included a dividend and a $662 one-time vitality reduction fee. The checks have been authorised when oil costs have been round $115 a barrel. Just lately, they’ve been round $80 a barrel.

A spike in oil costs final winter and spring, amid Russia’s warfare with Ukraine, have been accompanied by rosy state income projections which have since been revised down.

Dunleavy, who had an at-times rocky relationship with lawmakers throughout his first time period, stated when he was sworn in final month that his aim is to “work with all people to create an Alaska for the subsequent 50 years.”

Stevens stated he believes the administration is “keen to take heed to us and work with us.” However he stated he thinks the dividend that Dunleavy has proposed is “not doable.” Stevens stated to keep up state providers, “we merely can not have a dividend that prime.”

NEA-Alaska, a serious academics’ union, sees schooling funding as a number one matter this session. Its president, Tom Klaameyer, stated the union needs to see a “significant” enhance within the state’s pupil funding system.

Dunleavy, a former educator, in an interview stated he’s keen to debate college funding however stated there additionally needs to be discussions round efficiency and outcomes.

“I believe we’ve to have a dialogue about the place we wish our instructional system to be,” Dunleavy stated.

Klaameyer stated there’s an “educator scarcity disaster” and that faculty districts are reducing packages and struggling to fill jobs or retain educators.

He additionally stated he believes that “when you present these assets for college students, you present the most effective educators in each occupation within the faculties, that you just help children, then the outcomes will come. They’ll be there.”