Governor Sean Parnell approved the capital and operating budgets without vetoing any items, stating to the Anchorage Rotary Club earlier this afternoon that the Legislature met his spending limit.
In addition to reducing spending by $1.1 billion, the Legislature passed House Bill 385, the governor’s legislation to pay down Alaska’s unfunded pension liability by infusing $2 billion into the Teachers’ Retirement System and $1 billion into the Public Employees’ Retirement System from the Constitutional Budget Reserve Fund.
Gov. Parnell spoke about the pension liabilities before the bill passed.
Gov. Parnell: “The rising payments on the unfunded pension liability not only squeeze the operating budget, they’re unsustainable. It’s also wrong, because it leaves a sizable debt for our kids and grandkids to pay off. We should not put this debt off on them. We should do what we can with what we have now to pay it down.”
The passage of the capital budget moves forward multiple projects in Kenai which Finance Director Terry Eubank outlined.
Eubank:” I believe we have $1.9 million in there for the construction of a equipment storage building. It will go on the same site as the new City Shop that was just built. There’s $1.9 million in for construction of an alternate access point for accessing the South Beach. There’s $250,000 in for improvements at the Kenai Recreation Center, there’s $400,000 in there for the purchase of a new fire engine tanker/pumper, and there’s $200,000-$250,000 in for some design work for improvements at the sewer treatment plant for some energy upgrades and such.”
The budgets will go into effect July 1, 2014.