Gov. Mike Dunleavy will unveil his FY 2026 budget on Thursday, in a press event that will be livestreamed on Facebook.
He said his budget priorities are public safety, education, energy, and affordability.
The event, to include the operating and capital budgets, will start at 1 p.m. in his cabinet conference room in Juneau, and on his Facebook page.
The budget process begins with the budget offered by the governor no later than Dec. 15, and then taken up in the House and Senate when they meet in January. Typically the budget is a several-month negotiation that ends with the governor’s vetos and signature no later than June 30.
This will be Dunleavy’s seventh budget since taking office in 2018, including the budget he cobbled together immediately after taking office and inheriting the Gov. Walker budget.
Last year, his budget proposal was for $13.9 billion, considering all sources. As enacted, the operating budget totaled $12.2 billion and the capital budget totaled $3.5 billion for this current fiscal year. The governor’s line-item vetoes reduced the operating budget by $105.7 million and the capital budget by $126.3 million.
At the same general time the budget is released, the state Department of Revenue typically releases the fall oil price and production forecasts, which predict how much oil revenue is expected to come into the state to pay for state services, as well as how much is expected to be transferred from the Alaska Permanent Fund to the General Fund.
At a minimum, these budgets need to be trimmed by … 25%.
State Guv’ment is way too big! We need to do more with less.