In Ketchikan, Dunleavy presents arguments for big budget cuts

Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s Monday visit to Ketchikan included a 90-minute question-and-answer session with residents. Outside about 30 demonstrators picketed the venue.

One of the picketers standing in the cold and blowing rain was Frankie Urquhart. Her handmade sign read: Fund Our Future.

“My concerns are that the Alaska that we know and love and the reason that we all have chosen Alaska as our home is not going to be the home that any of us recognize or will be able to live in anymore,” Urquhart said. “And the governor needs to know this.”

Inside the Sunny Point Conference Center, about 150 attended the lunch event hosted by the Ketchikan Chamber of Commerce. The governor started with a history lesson.

Read more: https://www.alaskapublic.org/2019/04/09/in-ketchikan-dunleavy-presents-arguments-for-big-budget-cuts/




House Finance budget includes cuts, but less than the governor’s


The Alaska House Finance Committee has proposed a budget that reduces state spending by $314 million, less than a third of Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s proposed cut of $1.03 billion.

The committee finished its work on Friday, proposing cuts that are much greater than those proposed by House subcommittees.

The largest single cut was $68 million, by eliminating the debt service the state has provided municipalities to build and repair public schools. The Legislature had at least temporarily stopped doing this for new bonds four years ago. But this latest action would affect all existing debt service. That’s directly going to lead to property tax increases in much of the state.

Along with that reduction, the committee’s budget would also spend $40 million less on school construction in the schools that are in the Unorganized Borough.

Read more: https://www.alaskapublic.org/2019/04/09/house-finance-budget-includes-cuts-but-less-than-the-governors/