On the last business day of the fiscal year, Gov. Mike Dunleavy signed the 2025 state operating and capital budgets.
The operating budget is $12.2 billion, and the capital budget is $3.5 billion line-item vetoes reduced the operating budget by $105.7 million and the capital budget by $125.3 million.
A day earlier, the governor signed Senate Bill 22 in a private, unannounced ceremony, making June 19th a paid state holiday starting next year in honor of the ending of slavery in the United States. The cost to the state of Sen. Elvi Gray-Jackson’s signature legislation is nearly $1 million a year, mostly for overtime for public safety and other workers who must work on state holidays. State employees now have 12 paid holidays and most also have three weeks of personal leave.
The FY2025 budget funds state government from July 1, 2024 through June 30, 2025.
In the budget, there’s a $1,718 Permanent Fund dividend for every eligible Alaskan.
“The framers of Alaska’s Constitution codified a strong chief executive to ensure responsible budgeting. This budget reflects their intentions. By maintaining focus and fiscal discipline, this budget increases funding where it is needed most while at the same time reducing total Unrestricted General Fund spending,” Dunleavy said. “It provides additional funding to school districts needed to address the cost of inflation and provides additional targeted funding for programs that will improve student outcomes. We also are making essential investments in energy that will lay the groundwork for more reliable and affordable energy for Alaskans for decades to come. As has been the case every year I’ve been Governor, we are ensuring our Alaska State Troopers and Village Public Safety Officers have the resources they need to protect Alaskans, and through the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation we are helping more Alaskans be able to buy their own home and find quality housing.”
Vetoes include added funds for public broadcasting, marketing money for Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, and various other line items.
View the operating budget veto list here.
View the capital budget veto list here.
Key items in the FY2025 budget include:
Education
- $174.6 million one-time $680 Base Student Allocation (BSA) increase
- $7.3 million one-time Pupil Transportation increase
- $62.8 million for School Major Maintenance, Relocations, Renovations, and Replacements
- $87.5 million for University of Alaska operations and deferred maintenance
Energy
- $23.0 million for the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation Energy Efficiency Research and Energy Weatherization
- $10.5 million for the Renewable Energy Grant Fund
- $11.1 million to the University of Alaska Fairbanks for Alaska Railbelt Carbon Capture & Sequestration Project
Public Safety
- $3.5 million for ten additional Village Public Safety Officer (VPSO) positions and VPSO salary increases
- $700 thousand for investigations, outreach, and education on missing and murdered Indigenous persons
- $9.5 million for replacement of a patrol vessel for southeast Alaska to respond to emergencies, search and rescue operations, and enforce laws and regulations protecting Alaska coastline communities
Affordability
- $53.2 million for Alaska Housing Finance Corporation housing programs for home buyers, owners, and renters to provide safe, quality, affordable housing
- $2.8 million for the Alaska Addiction Rehabilitation Services residential expansion project
- $1.5 million for the for a Denali Commission housing program
Since FY2019, budget growth has averaged 1.2 percent annually, the governor’s office said.
Click here for Office of Management and Budget FY2025 budget documents.
$1,718
So once again, following in the tradition started by Bill Walker, they are simply stealing most of it, to spend on idiotic BS like “Alaska Railbelt Carbon Capture & Sequestration Project”
Yes we are being stoked from and are faces are rubbed in the excess budget.
The schools are almost last in the nation so let’s throw more money at it and the unions will reap the prize.
It’s been proven for years now money is not the answer to schooling.
I hope others are as mad as I over the state stealing from its citizens and then foolishly spend it.
PFD payment is a disgrace.
So, you send yours back?
Criminals and thieves. Unions taken care of and fake holidays, but dirt for the people. Our political class deserves our mockery and contempt.
$1700 APF, increased $ for a failing ASD? Throwing more money at a problem such as Anchorage’s school district will not fix anything. Giving Alaskans thier lawfull amount of money through the Alaska Permanent Fund will help all young and old!! Alaskans wake up, the APF $ is being stolen from us.
It’s good Juneteenth is a paid holiday. White people reaping the benefits of slavery again.
Oh. I must have missed the part where it said white people “only”….
White people and a small amount of Asians are the only net positive contributing tax demographic in America. It’s the same way in South Africa the 10% White farmers pay all the taxes .. also barely any whites owned slaves. During slavery a slave owner was legally obliged to care for slaves that were injured, old and infirm -also their families . (How do you think there were so many old slaves ?) failing to do so was legally murder. After reconstruction if you couldn’t work you couldn’t eat and better hope you had charitable family . Wage slavery was worse for many than old slavery.
“………The operating budget is $12.2 billion………”
OMG! That’s just to operate state government for a year for a state of 730,000 people?
That’s scary.
Every dollar taken from the pfd is used for gibs spending or the salary of someone associated with gibs.
Yes the unions are helping them self’s to the PFD and people don’t care if they get stoled from.
A long way from restoration of the statutory PFD. A longer way from fiscal responsibility.
Giessel neutered him in Wasilla and he’s been an empty suit since.
An education degree is the easiest one to get. Keep on virtue signaling with our money, schoolteacher.
Only government can have a failed product (Education) and throw more money at it.
I agree but to be fair so many teachers are dealing with ever increasing amounts of FAS/ drug baby kids and children from homes where literacy is non existent.
ASD needs an increase in BSA to keep the prize winning queer books coming from Amazon to line the shelves so deep with gender confusing material the children wont know biology from baloney
Seems like Dunleavy is just another Zio puppet politician these days. We had hoped we gained a real statesman.
It’s amazing how many people complain about the PFD. We don’t have a State income tax, sales tax and school tax. Yet we get $$ for doing nothing, wow. They would complain if the sun comes up too slow.
I’d get even more if I scammed the State and added to the billions in waste, fraud, and abuse.
It’s amazing how many complaints there are no matter what the governor does. The Alaska legislature is one of the worst in the country, but few complaints are seen about it here. How many people will vote for the opponent of Kathy Giessel when she runs for governor in the next gubernatorial election? Or will they forget how she stymied the governor at every opportunity? And the Walker gift to all was the legislature getting control over the PFD. Finally, re-read Robert Redlinger’s comment. It says it all. And remember that Dunleavy fought all of these taxes in a very hostile atmosphere. Masked Avenger, I still love your comments most of the time.
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