The Alaska Senate approved a budget that would require the state to dip into savings to cover $5,500 in cash payments to Alaskans, even as the state faces a revenue windfall due to high oil prices.
The Legislature has until May 18 to pass a budget, or lawmakers may be forced into a special session.
The cash payments approved by the Senate include $1,300 in one-time energy relief checks and a full statutory $4,200 Permanent Fund dividend. That would amount to $2.7 billion in state spending on the dividend and $840 million on energy relief checks. If the budget remains unchanged, the state would use the Statutory Budget Reserve to cover spending that exceeds the state’s revenue. The most recent revenue forecast predicted that the state would have $8.3 billion to spend in the coming fiscal year. The Senate appropriated around $9.3 billion — meaning around a billion could come from state savings if the oil prices hold steady.
“No one can predict the price of oil,” said Sen. Natasha von Imhof, R-Anchorage. She was one of five senators who voted against adoption of the budget. “To create a budget that depends on $100 per barrel in my opinion is reckless.” Over the course of budget debates, Stedman again and again pointed to the dangerous prospect of spending down the state’s savings.
Senators voting against the budget were Begich, D-Anchorage; Lyman Hoffman, D-Bethel; Jesse Kiehl, D-Juneau; Josh Revak, R-Anchorage; and von Imhof, R-Anchorage.
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