Blog: Capital Focus
The budget: Where is everything?
Published Friday, March 28, 2008
I got a call this morning from a state employee asking if I knew about the capital.
The capital city or the capital budget? I asked. (It was early.)
The capital budget.
Apparently there isn’t much state stuff in the version rolled out yesterday afternoon. The department of fish and game got five things. The departments of health and environmental conservation got one each. The department of public safety, as far as I can tell, got nothing.
The whole budget process is a little puzzling, but here’s what I know.
A few weeks ago, the Senate Finance Committee -- specifically co-chair Bert Stedman, who handles the capital budget -- pulled out about half of the capital budget, leaving state money just where it was needed to leverage federal money.
Then the departments came in and went line by line explaining each of the projects the governor had asked for and the committee had stripped. Stedman, when asked about the so-called “discretionary spending” lawmakers are often allowed, said he considered everything “discretionary,” including the governor’s requests.
The assumption, I think, was that most of the governor’s stuff would get put back in. The way I understand it, the governor’s requests are different from lawmakers’ requests in that they represent what state agencies need to do their jobs -- from pipeline oversight and road paving to prison maintenance and caring for seniors. Lawmakers’ requests might be just as valid, but generally represent what individual communities need and want.
For instance, Gov. Palin asked for $3 million for annual maintenance and repairs at department of corrections facilities. The committee gave her $72,000 for laundry equipment for a prison employment program. The governor asked for $19.5 million “to meet safety and security needs” at the McLaughlin Youth Center in Anchorage. The committee gave her $1 million for “information services security enhancements” statewide.
It’s unclear what’s going on here, but it could be that lawmakers are playing hardball with Palin, who has the state’s supplemental budget on her desk and is considering vetoing projects she vetoed last year and lawmakers put back in. Or it could be that they want to paint the governor as the one responsible for growing the budget (when she comes to ask for some of the funding back). Or they could really think the Sitka Pioneer Home doesn’t need a new roof (another of Palin’s requests).
As for overall size, the budget is actually smaller than Palin’s original request, but doesn’t include a good chunk of her projects. [CORRECTED]
One other tidbit -- there’s at least one project that’s funded both in the supplemental budget lawmakers already passed and the capital budget they’re now considering. Try figuring out the politics behind that one.
OK, so I just talked with someone in Stedman's office. Here's what he said.
Yes, most of the governor's general fund requests are missing, but that doesn't mean they're gone for good. There will likely be another version of the bill out this weekend or early next week.
He also added another possible explanation for the omission -- work flow. There's lots of stuff to handle, and the committee is just taking things bit by bit.
Once again the co chairman Stedman and Hoffman double talk their way through the state budget. I call on them to quit putzing around and pass one budget one time and stop nickling and diming the people of this states time and money. Do your job pass a balanced budget, give the people what they need and work with our govenor. If you can't; go home. Stop playing politics and do the job you were sent to Juneau for and it wasn't to stone wall the govenor or play games with the budget.
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