The House finally passed an operating budget early Friday morning.
The budget includes 3.8 billion dollars to fund state government. That’s 283 million dollars less than the budget that passed last year.
Representative Seaton says the final vote supported House Finance’s decision to replace some funds originally cut out of the budget by subcommittees.
“House Finance restored a little over $2 million in public radio money and $450,000 increase for the senior and community based grants. There are a number of little changes but pretty much it’s exactly the budget that came out of House Finance,” said Seaton.
Seaton’s office reports a few more of the amendments approved by the House include: half a million dollars for public assistance services, 10 million dollars for the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation, 2 million dollars for the Renewable Energy Fund and 30 million dollars for a pilot program to fight substance abuse.
The House removed an amendment to replace 25 million dollars for the University of Alaska system. Now the two bodies can discuss the University’s appropriation when they resolve differences between their two budgets.
Senator Gary Stevens of Kodiak says the Senate could have a hearing on its budget as early as next week.
“Well I think probably the middle of next week. By Wednesday, hopefully, we should begin the process. It’s coming up fairly soon and once that’s done then we can get back to a lot of other business in the committees,” said Stevens.
The Senate and House will go to conference committee to work out differences between their two operating budgets before they send them to the governor.
In interest of full disclosure KBBI directly benefits from the appropriation to public radio discussed in this story, if it is ultimately approved by the Senate and Governor.
The legislature has until the end of the scheduled session on April 17th to pass a budget.
