Alaska House presses plan to reject Gov. Mike Dunleavy's budget
JUNEAU — The Alaska House of Representatives will begin debate Tuesday on an alternative to Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s state operating budget after the House Finance Committee discarded most of the cuts proposed by the governor. The alternative is a plan that preserves state services at the cost of the Permanent Fund dividend.
With the Legislature unlikely to advance new taxes, this year’s budget debate is a binary one: Preserve state services such as education and health care at the cost of the dividend, or reduce the dividend in favor of those services.
The proposal in front of the House this week is for a $10.22 billion state operating budget plus a Permanent Fund dividend of about $1,300-$1,400 per person, according to figures from the nonpartisan Legislative Finance Division. Thus far, the House has not explicitly stated its dividend proposal, but the unappropriated amount of money in the budget equates to that level of dividend, said David Teal, director of the finance division.
The governor’s proposal was for $8.8 billion in spending (according to the finance division) plus a dividend of about $3,000 per person.
Read more: https://www.adn.com/politics/alaska-legislature/2019/04/09/alaska-house-presses-plan-to-reject-gov-mike-dunleavys-budget/