Gov. Mike Dunleavy called the Legislature into a second special session to pass a complete budget that will prevent a government shutdown.
The budget for the coming fiscal year that was passed by the Legislature this week failed to have a new effective date of July 1, and thus a partial government shutdown would occur until the 90-day effective date. That means the government wouldn’t be funded until September.
“The budget passed this week is constitutionally impaired if the goal was for it to take effect on July 1. This second special session affords the opportunity to remedy that problem,” he said.
Section 18 of the Alaska Constitution addresses the effective date of legislation and states that a bill does not take effect until 90 days after enactment unless two-thirds of the legislature “provide for another effective date.” According to the Department of Law, “expenditures of state funds provided under CCS HB 69 cannot be made until that bill becomes law which is 90 days after its enactment – with a very limited exception for spending that is necessary to meet constitutional obligations of the state such as maintaining the health and safety of its residents or to comply with federal requirements.”
The second special session begins at 10 am on Wednesday, June 23, in the Alaska State Capitol and directs the Legislature work on the following:
A bill similar to HB 69, the operating budget; making the operating budget effective immediately under AS.01.10.070 (c); making appropriations from the Earnings Reserve account, including for the payment of Alaska Permanent Fund dividends; and making appropriations under Article IX, Section 17(c), Constitution of the State of Alaska, from the Constitutional Budget Reserve Fund.
Read: Senate protest vote shows conference committee out of touch
Should have called them to convene on the Road System where we can heckle them in person.
I could care less if the government shuts down til Sept 1. The government workers never missed a check while we scrambled to survive.
I’m pissed the issue is the lack of a date on the paperwork instead of the legislature robbing us blind.
Find your spine, Dunleavy. Veto everything
not true, admins never worked from home
The legislature is a joke, unfortunately we are the ones paying for their shit show. We need to reign the clown in, and no per-diem, they haven’t even earned their salaries.
Keep em til Christmas, governor. We don’t want them coming back home anytime soon.
Options:
1. Pass the effective date – Dividend $525
1a. Pass the Reverse Sweep and the CBR Appropriation: – Dividend $1,100
2. Do 1. and 1a. AND raid the Permanent Fund – Dividend 2340???? $3,000???
3. Pass nothing and shut down the State Government July 1 – Dividend $0 until further notice.
Truly a case of Brinkmanship. Perhaps a lawsuit to come.
This entire fiasco is all caused by the Dividend – reason enough alone to end it.
Dunleavy has already lost his re-election. 100% of liberals and 50% of conservatives will not vote for him. His only hope would be to reverse course NOW so by 2022 voters will have faded memories and a kinder view of the new version.
How many sessions will it take for the legislature to do their job? How many per diems to be had….
Dunleavy needs to find the courage to risk his reelection, and do the right thing. Keep their feet to the fire, for as long as it takes. That may guarantee his reelection. Failure to do that may guarantee not getting reelected. There’s more of us than them.
Read the tea leaves Dunleavy. It’s getting close to pitchforks and torches time. The “deplorables” are angry, and itching for anything which will change the status quo. I suspect that even a military coup would be welcomed right now. We still trust our all volunteer military, our own relatives, to do the right thing by us.
Yes agree move the capital to the road system.
Yes keep them there until we get our Full PFD
Yes veto the whole thing.
Suzanne, your last paragraph “A bill similar to HB 69, the operating budget; making the operating budget effective immediately under AS.01.10.070 (c); making appropriations from the Earnings Reserve account, including for the payment of Alaska Permanent Fund dividends; and making appropriations under Article IX, Section 17(c), Constitution of the State of Alaska, from the Constitutional Budget Reserve Fund.”
I’m confused. So the budget that was passed is not the budget that the Governor is putting forward in this session, i.e. fixing the PFD aspect to the original Senate version?
Nyman,
You should have studied harder in high school, or wherever your education was cut-off. $81 Billion in the PF with no end in sight for growth and you are praising a measly dividend and announcing the end of Dunleavy? What happened to the Recall you so highly touted? Bud, go back to Economics 101 and Poly Sci 102 and study harder. We know your politics. You don’t know your economics or the will of the majority of Alaskans. Another wishful thinking Commie. Alaska seems to have a lot of these types living in government, smoking too much weed, and thinking they have a boatload of smarts (Too much weed).
This bunch of a—covering freaks want to use the PFD, rather than trim off the excess that we all know is there.
They also used a loophole to get paid 8k for this load of crap!
Chris Nyman obfuscates the real problem, which is the complete lack of motivation, or intent, of the legislature to address the overspending that has become the mode of packing their own wallets every year with the need for special sessions. And the PFD is not the problem, the failure of the legislature to follow the law is the problem.
Anthing in the budget about the PERS/TRS unfunded liability being paid down?
https://mustreadalaska.com/tick-tock-alaskas-unfunded-pensions-loom/
“An April 2018 University of Alaska ISER report estimates $10.815 BILLION in additional payments will be needed to eliminate the unfunded liabilities of PERS and TRS (the two largest Alaska state-sponsored retirement plans with slightly over 100,000 active and retired participants) under a 25-year amortization schedule the state adopted in 2014.”
(August 2018 article)
AK Fish – I believe at this point the PERS/TERS is about paid down. I’ll work on an update. -sd
The governor calls them back in, to do exactly what they couldn’t and/or wouldn’t accomplish during the normal session … WTF? Dereliction of duty could potentially be grounds for termination, at least in the court of public opinion, and we all know what the public thinks of their legislators!
One wonders if Chris Nyman has ever cashed his PFD check? Or has it been returned to the state every year on principle.
The statute regarding how the P- funds earnings are to be dispersed is fairly straightforward and discernible .However , our elected leaders instead choose to deluge us with their legal ” mumbo jumbo” in an attempt to distort and and confuse . The simple truth is the P-Fund was devised to restrain Government spending. It was never intended to fund Government. It was money reserved for the people.
My, how things have been turned upside down. Ask yourself this question, who does your elected official really represent? You or the kingdom of special interests locust devouring everything in sight?
Of course you can show us where it is recorded that PF was never intended to fund government! Heheh!
Take your time here.
“There were three main purposes or goals established for the Permanent Fund at its conception: to check wasteful government expenditures, to cushion the state from the “boom and bust” shocks of Alaska’s volatile oil economy, and to provide for the inevitable day when the state will run out of oil.”
You evidently stopped reading after the first main purpose, eh Robert????
If the Alaska legislature cannot manage to get their business done within the constitutional (but routinely flouted) 90 day limit, then they should receive no payment, compensation or per diem for any days that they go over that limit. That will focus their attention and their efforts!
Robert,
I think the truth lies in the middle. The PF was intended to help (key word) fund government. It was also designed to have limitations which have been ignored for decades.
Either way, what we have now had nothing to do with what Tony Knowles intended for us.
A definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result.
Original intent Billy Boy. Ask Oral Freeman, I did. Also the dividend came later, as a method to keep folks engaged, ask Jay Hammond. These men knew that State Goverment is a Garbage Bear. But then lefties like you kinda like that , right Billy? Rapacious plunder.
Ever punch a clock for the State? Hmm?
Caught with your pants down Bobby Boy and you double down and start name calling. You are quite the tool and expect us all to believe your recollection from speaking to a couple of those involved. Pretty clear your so biased in your beliefs that it’s not unreasonable that you have misremembered here. Heheh!
Death. Taxes. Special sessions to complete the work that should have been done during the regular legislative session. The entire legislature is a giant clown car. Lots of activity packed into a tiny space while accomplishing very little progress.
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