Most members of the Alaska House minority disappeared from the state Capitol Wednesday during a dispute over education funding.
The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.Basically, members of the House minority — a group of Democrats, independents, and one Republican — walked out of the state House and have effectively vanished. And they did that in order to avoid a vote on a controversial amendment to an amendment dealing with public school funding.
So when that amendment passed, it increased the deficit to a little under $600 million. The state’s primary savings account, the Constitutional Budget Reserve, would be used to pay for that deficit. And that’s what today’s argument was about. Members of the minority didn’t want to be forced to vote for this funding from savings in order to get the education funding that they support.James Brooks:
There is not an easy option. Except — and this isn’t all that easy — except overspending from the Permanent Fund. Because each year there is a limit on the amount of money that’s transferred from the Permanent Fund to the state treasury, specifically, to prevent situations like this, where lawmakers might be pressured to spend beyond what’s sustainable from the Permanent Fund.Right. And I guess I can see how differing ideologies might be at play here.
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