 Compromise, Goodwill Expected to be Key to Adjournment Budget Deal May 03, 2003
"We had a good meeting this morning [Friday] with the leadership in both the Senate and the House. It's been part of our ongoing dialogue between the governor and the
Murkowski said that the House-passed operating budget would spend $37 million more in General Fund dollars than his proposed budget, while the Senate's would spend $29 million more. But he said a combination of productive work in the Legislature's budget conference committee, plus passage of his user fee and tax proposals, should allow the Legislature to meet his targets of drawing no more than $400 million from the CBR and reducing General Fund spending by $55 million. He also noted that that increasing withdrawals from the CBR might bring a reduction in the favorable bond rating the state enjoyed for its recent sale of its school construction and maintenance bonds, which would raise the state's cost for future bond sales. "For the long-term fiscal health of the state and the budget reserve, I think we're making progress, but we simply have to hit these targets," Murkowski said. Addressing bills now in committee, he said he would support making the Longevity Bonus a needs-based program; reiterated his preference for a seasonal, not year-round, sales tax, and repeated his support for a package of user fees and smaller tax measures, as ways to hold the line on his budget targets. Murkowski declined to say if he would need to use his line-item budget veto power to meet those targets. "We're not talking about vetoes," Murkowski said. "Everyone knows the authority of the governor and the availability of the veto, but we're looking within the parameters of the targets, and we're looking at the goodwill that's been generated on both the Majority and Minority side, and we all want to do what's right for Alaska." According to information provided by the Office of the Governor, legislative leaders said they have enjoyed working with a governor who is more interested even than they are in reducing state expenditures. "We've been talking this way for years about how we should be reducing spending and about how we should be cutting programs, and how we should be managing our financial resources," said Rep. Bill Williams, co-chair of the House Finance Committee. "It takes good leadership to get us to where we 're going today and we do have a good leader up there saying this is how we have to go, if you want to save the state of Alaska, this is what we have to do." "The governor has given us these goals, and it's been good," said Senate President Gene Therriault (R-North Pole). "We probably haven't had as much direction to control spending since we had our Five-Year Plan (to reduce state spending)." Sen. Gary Wilken (R-Fairbanks) said, "The short-term goal is to work on the budget, for this year but the long term goal is the economic development that has to happen in Alaska. The way we have to do that is to restrain the growth of government. Whether it's reduction of spending within state government, or taxation, or user fees: we're trying to do our best to hold the line on spending." "As we were going through the meeting it occurred to me - and this is only my seventh year here, but - this is the first time that I've been around here that the Legislature is trying to spend more than the Governor," Wilken added. House Speaker Pete Kott (R-Eagle River) likened the budget process to a relay race. "We started off, we've jumped a few hurdles, we still have a couple more to get over. But at some point we're going to clear that last hurdle, and we're going to run to the finish line collectively, together."
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