JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — The Latest on the Alaska Legislature’s special session (all times local):
3:15 p.m.
The Alaska Senate has approved paying residents a dividend of roughly $1,600 this year from the state’s oil-wealth fund and reversing many of Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s operating budget vetoes.
If the bill gets a final OK from the House, it will go to Dunleavy. He has supported a dividend payout in line with a calculation that critics say is unsustainable and would equate to checks of about $3,000 this year.
He can veto spending again, too.
Majority Republican Sens. Shelley Hughes and Mike Shower appeared briefly during debate before being shown as excused, without an immediate public explanation.
Caucus rules do not call for automatic removal of members who fail to support a majority budget but leave members open to consequences. Republican Sen. Lora Reinbold was the lone dissenter.
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12 p.m.
The Alaska House has passed a fully funded capital budget, a critical remaining piece in the special session.
Monday’s vote was the House’s third try this special session to pass a fully funded capital budget, which relies on funding from the constitutional budget reserve fund. That fund required 30 votes in the House to tap. The vote was 31-7.
Supporters of the bill had fallen one vote short of the threshold in the prior effort to pass a funded budget.
The bill also includes language intended to prevent various accounts, including those used for rural energy costs and student scholarships, from being swept into the reserve fund to help repay money that’s been taken from it.
