The Senate on Friday passed a $5.7 billion operating budget that was less than Gov. Sean Parnell sought or some minority Republicans pushed for, but Senate budget writers said its most prominent feature was the amount it saved for the future.
“It’s absolutely the most dedicated commitment to savings that I’ve seen,” said Sen. Lyman Hoffman, D-Bethel, co-chairman of the powerful budget-drafting Senate Finance Committee.
“I think we made some good decisions,” said Sen. Dennis Egan, D-Juneau.
Adding in federal and other funds, the total budget is about $9 billion.
Unless the House agrees to the Senate’s budget, a conference committee will merge the two budgets.
The first order of business was to set aside $1 billion in savings, before other work was done, Hoffman said.
The Senate is controlled by a Republican-led, majority Democrat, caucus. Four Republicans, led by Sen. Huggins, make a separate minority caucus.
Among the budget changes debated on the Senate Floor Friday was a request by Sen. Charlie Huggins, R-Wasilla, to begin opening the new Goose Creek Prison in the Mat-Su Borough. The Senate’s budget withholds money to begin using it due to concerns over cost overruns and Department of Corrections disregard of legislative instructions.
Huggins said the building is complete, and the state needs to begin using it while it is still under its one-year warranty
A budget increase sought by the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission for additional office space, storage and a conference room was pared back by the Senate. Sen. Cathy Giessel, R-Anchorage, another minority Republican, sought to restore the money.
Sen. Johnny Ellis, D-Anchorage, said the commission’s request for two new staff was deemed necessary and approved, but a conference room of its own wasn’t absolutely necessary.
“Every agency of government, almost every one, would like their own conference room,” Ellis said.
Huggins said the Legislature was willing to expand its own space.
“We bought a whole new building next door,” he said, referring to the Legislature’s newly acquired Thomas Stewart Building.
“Let’s just practice with others as we practice with ourselves,” Huggins said.
The Stewart building, actually purchased by the city and provided to the Legislature, was remodeled at a cost of $5.5 million. It includes a hearing room.
Both the Goose Creek and AOGCC changes were voted down, largely along caucus lines.
Notable parts of the budget that didn’t get floor debate included setting aside $60 million to help build a new Alaska-class ferry, now under design.
Hoffman said the Senate has also added money for a variety of other programs, ranging from $380,000 for the Best Beginnings early education program and $400,000 to help with quickly processing oil and gas permits.
There was also $2.7 million added to the wildlife management budget.
“I wanted to spotlight this because we have a Constitutional responsibility to manage our resources on a maximum sustained yield basis,” Hoffman said.
The additional wildlife appropriation comes after as similar boost to fisheries last year and aims to end lawsuits over scarce resources, he said.
“What we are trying to do with these appropriations is trying to get back into a situation were we are not fighting about the resources, but get them as abundant as possible,” he said.
Egan said that among the issues he was proud of was restoring $2 million in funding for pre-kindergarten pilot programs that had been cut by the House.
“We put those back,” Egan said.
• Contact reporter Pat Forgey at 586-4816 or at patrick.forgey@juneauempire.com.
Comments (2)
Add commentConservative math
We did not budget for Goose Creek therefore we saved $ 80 million in this budget.
NONSENSICAL political rhetoric.
Goose Creek
The sad part of all this started several years back, the New prison started with the Murkowski administration, Mark Antrim Commissioner, Donald Stalwortly/Leitoni Tupou Deputy Commissioner, Mike Addington Director for the Department of Corrections. From 2003 to 2006 the department spent a hundreds of thousands of the tax payer’s money flying different DOC employees all around the lower 48 states looking at prisons, most of them not even involved with the project. (Just out to have a good time) The department even rented the old morgue in Palmer for a few years spending yours and my tax dollars under the pretence of calling it “business” if you were to ask me it was money spent foolishly. They came up with several plans that cost hundreds of thousands of your and my tax dollars besides the lower 48 trips on engineering. They even pulled several employees out of the facilities giving them special titles to accommodate them into the position and to justify the higher pay they were getting, Let’s take for example Mr. Sherman given a special assignment to the new prison project (something) at payed at a higher range because he is related to then governor Palin.
When Joe Schmidt Commissioner came to office the special assignments didn’t stop there, he followed in Mr. Antrim’s footsteps but had Sara Palin’s endorsement to continue as before. Sure the department of Corrections knew about the water, sewer, electric, gas and the large expense to operate a facility at the end of Point Mackenzie that is going to cost the state millions in the future, with transportation of inmates to medical, courts and releases but they were willing to put that cost on the tax payer’s back. Another reason the cost to operate the prison is so high is the wages of the correctional officers. Commissioner Schmidt and his team sit down with the ACOA union and gave the farm away with their contract, maybe someone other than the Department of Corrections officials need to step in and negotiate the Correctional Officers contract, I mean where else can you get a 10% pay increase of three years and with a increase in personal leave and a recruitment incentive, “Yes” a recruitment incentive for the new prison, 20 hours for a referral and another 20 hours if they pass their probation. (That’s our tax dollars at work through DOC), average wage for a Correctional Officer is around $32.00 an hour you do the math when it comes time to cash in unused leave.
Here is an eye opener for all the family out there with members incarcerated in DOC. Even if, the prison is completed and opened the State of Alaska will always have an outside contract to houses our loved ones “Alaska Prisoners Outside”. A 1250 bed prison is not going to take care of the problem of overcrowding. (If you hear anything else it’s a smoke screen).