newsminer.com

Sen. Bert Stedman of Sitka today refused to disclose the Senate majority’s spending plans for the capital budget, or even to say whether the group had set a limit.

He was asked multiple times by multiple people (including me) at this morning’s news conference and after. Stedman, who is one of the co-chairs of the Finance Committee, and Senate President Lyda Green, both defended the concept of having a big capital budget in years when you have high revenues, like this year.

“A vigorous capital budget is what we need right now,” said Green.

Stedman also said it was hard to set a dollar figure limit when he and others were still considering all the funding requests submitted by individual lawmakers for projects.

But Stedman flatly refused to say whether the majority had set a limit, let alone to share what it was. I don’t know whether limits were always set in years past, but this year seems different. Gov. Sarah Palin and members of the Senate minority have been repeatedly calling for some kind of limit, and the potential to spend is high because of the huge budget surpluses expected.

Stedman said later that the “limit” was the amount of money available after savings, although it’s unclear how much the majority aims to save. He added that he liked the idea of the state saving twice as much as it spends.