There will not be an immediate vote to overturn Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s decision to veto half of a significant but temporary funding boost to Alaska’s public schools.
The result of an Alaska Beacon poll of all 60 legislators and interviews with leading members of the state House and Senate show insufficient support to call a brief special session that would be necessary for a quick override.
Alaska’s constitution requires support from 40 of 60 legislators in order to convene a special session, and actually overturning a veto requires 45 votes.
“I don’t see that there are enough numbers to get to the two-thirds, so therefore you obviously wouldn’t get to the three-quarters,” said Speaker of the House Cathy Tilton, R-Wasilla, on Thursday after polling House members.
At the start of this week, Dunleavy vetoed about $87.5 million from a proposed temporary $175 million boost to K-12 public school funding. The money had been sought by local administrators and education advocates.
With the veto, some school districts, including the one covering Alaska’s capital city, need to make immediate budget cuts. Others, which used savings to balance their budgets this year, will need to make steep cuts next year.
Members of the Alaska Senate’s coalition majority, including Senate President Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak, and the House’s predominantly Democratic minority caucus, are backing an immediate special session.
But thus far, they’ve been stymied by the opposition of lawmakers who sit in the predominantly Republican House majority caucus, plus three conservative Republicans in the Senate.
Informal polling indicates between 21 and 26 legislators oppose an immediate special session. Not all legislators responded to the Beacon’s informal poll, and Tilton declined to share the precise results of her calls with legislators.
“It’s not really close,” she said.
The governor’s vetoes, including the reduced education funding increase, reduced the Legislature’s proposed $6.2 billion budget to just under $6 billion in general-purpose spending. The budget now results in a surplus of about $300 million, if state revenue forecasts — based in part on oil prices and production — hold firm.
Sen. Shelley Hughes, R-Palmer, opposes an override and said the governor’s budget vetoes “are not extreme, considering the Senate Majority has not been willing to buckle down and move linked components of a fiscal plan through the legislative process.”
She speculated that the vetoes could compel legislators to take serious action on a plan that would bring state revenue and expenditures into line over the long term.
Rep. Ben Carpenter, R-Nikiski, and another supporter of the vetoes, expressed a similar view in an op-ed published by the Anchorage Daily News that called on Dunleavy to call a special session later this year on a fiscal plan.
Rep. David Eastman, R-Wasilla, said he’s skeptical that there will be a special session, saying that the vetoes didn’t go far enough. The $200 million vetoed from the budget is high by historical standards but the fewest Dunleavy has signed since he took office in 2018.
“The paucity of vetoes indicate that there will be no special session,” Eastman said.
“I don’t think the governor went far enough,” said Rep. Kevin McCabe, R-Big Lake. “This is the least amount he has ever vetoed. We need to find a way to reduce agency operations and restore responsible fiscal management in Alaska. For instance, since 2018, we have been using portions of the people’s (Permanent Fund) dividend to fund agency operations.”
Two members of the House majority — Democratic Reps. CJ McCormick of Bethel and Neal Foster of Nome — said they support an override.
“I’m disappointed and disturbed,” McCormick said.
“Our state is going to suffer without the funds he vetoed. It was going to be difficult even with what was originally in the budget. They feel indifferent to the lives of regular people,” he said of the vetoes.
Even if lawmakers don’t meet in a special session this year, there could still be a vote to override Dunleavy’s veto next January.
The Alaska Constitution permits lawmakers to call for a veto override “no later than the fifth day of the next regular or special session of that Legislature.”
Alaska Beacon is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alaska Beacon maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Andrew Kitchenman for questions: info@alaskabeacon.com. Follow Alaska Beacon on Facebook and Twitter.
