House members clash over future of budget, PFD

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - Can the House’s budget possibly make it to the Senate next week? And if so, what might it look like?

That depends on whom you ask.

House lawmakers on Tuesday shared conflicting opinions on the condition of the budget — which currently includes a full statutory dividend at around $3,900, and a deficit of approximately $1.9 billion — and what next steps could look like as the Senate awaits the legislation’s arrival to its chambers.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we’re all in a pickle,” said House Speaker Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham. “It’s not just the House Majority. It’s the House Minority, it’s the governor, it’s the Senate Majority, it’s the Senate Minority.

“We are doing our best in the House to put forward a budget that is balanced,” he said, “that meets all those essential services, that provides a meaningful BSA (Base Student Allocation) that accounts for the fact that our schools are under-resourced. And it’s very difficult.”

The budget bill that advanced from the House Finance Committee last week has stoked further discord between House lawmakers. Minority members claimed a press conference Tuesday morning that the bill could be altered substantially by the Rules Committee, something Majority members disputed in their own press conference Tuesday afternoon.

“Instead of going directly to the floor,” said Minority member and Rep. Cathy Tilton, R-Wasilla, “the Majority is considering taking this bill to Rules — to make changes in Rules — which would be an unprecedented move. Because, you know, the budget bill has gone to rules for minor changes, but to make any substantive changes in a rules committee is just an unprecedented, unprecedented event.”

Rep. Louise Stutes, R-Kodiak, said during the House Majority Coalition’s afternoon press conference that she doesn’t plan on letting the budget go to the Rules Committee for intensive changes.

“I want to be very clear,” she said. “There is currently no anticipation of having a Rules Committee meeting on the budget. The budget has not been transmitted from the (House) Finance Committee, and our finance team is working diligently on a compromise for a balanced budget before the bill hits the floor.”

However, Stutes called the circumstances “extraordinary” and said that while a Rules Committee hearing isn’t planned as of now, all options are on the table.

“We are dedicated to getting a balanced budget over to the Senate by any and all means possible,” she said.

At the same time, several other lawmakers commented on the irritation they’ve been feeling over the state of the budget to this point.

“I think there’s an incredible frustration that we’re this far along in the session, and what we’re looking at is a massive, unfunded budget coming out of the House Finance Committee,” said Rep. Mia Costello, R-Anchorage. “We’re then left with, what, writing a budget on the floor? Or even worse, in Rules, which, again — Rep. Tilton mentioned — is the first time in the state’s history that we would be taking a budget, or they would be, into a committee to rewrite after their group sent it out of the finance committee.

“It’s very frustrating, and concerning,” she said, “and should be concerning to the public.”

The Permanent Fund dividend remains a point of fierce contention, with lawmakers sharing differing views on what they see as possible with this year’s budget.

“Let’s talk about, just, bills with large fiscal notes,” said Rep. DeLena Johnson, R-Palmer. “That seems a little preposterous when we have a $1.9 billion deficit. There’s a lot of things that happened in this budget that are preposterous.

“Is it just the PFD? Absolutely not,” Johnson said. “There’s plenty of things that we should be looking at carefully, and evaluating, and so to pick just the dividend out and say, ‘That’s the preposterous thing,’ I think is a mistake.”

Rep. Will Stapp, R-Fairbanks, has different opinions from Johnson on the PFD, though both also pointed to the issue of passing an unfunded budget along to the Senate.

“Here you are, the budget’s supposed to go on the floor, and there’s a $1.9 billion deficit, and guess what?” he said. “You don’t have $1.9 billion. By the way, there’s no funding source in this budget. There’s no CBR (Constitutional Budget Reserve) draw in this budget What does this actually mean? It means it’s a big red number, folks, a big red number.”

The only thing truly funded in the budget as of now is the PFD, Stapp said.

“There’s literally nothing that the state relies on to fund government, funded in this budget right now,” he added. “At the end of the day, you either believe that you have a constitutional obligation, or you don’t.”

Rep. Andy Josephson, D-Anchorage, sponsored an amendment — which eventually failed in the House Finance Committee — that would’ve dropped the PFD to $1,000 for 2025. He said in part that he’s “very sympathetic to the disparity in income,” but said the cost-cutting is “our new reality.”

“I’m not saying that people who who want the PFD in its entirety aren’t speaking to a set of values,” he said. “We just have a significant math problem.”

Edgmon said that “there are a number of pathways forward,” but “the time is very limited,” and implored the governor’s office to “step up” and work with lawmakers.

“We’ll get through this,” he said, “but if you leave us to our own designs, we’ll be stuck in this morass that unfortunately is going to carry us forward into what none of us want, and that is a special session.”

It’s unclear when the bill might next be taken up on the House floor, but lawmakers maintain the transfer of the legislation to the Senate could happen as early as next week.

See a spelling or grammatical error? Report it to web@ktuu.com

Copyright 2025 KTUU. All rights reserved.