Alaska lawmakers settle on roughly $1,650 PFD, energy relief amount

Budget negotiators in the Alaska Legislature have settled on the amount of this year’s Permanent Fund dividend and energy relief check. Alaskans would receive approximately $1,655 this fall if approved by the House and Senate in a final up-or-down vote expected Wednesday, the final day of the legislative session.

The dividend payment of roughly $1,360 represents 25% of the Legislature’s annual draw on the Permanent Fund. That’s the figure passed by the Senate as part of what Senate Finance Committee chair Sen. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka, called the “living-within-our-means budget” when it passed the upper chamber on May 1. An energy relief check of $295, meant to offset high costs, rounds out the total.

The House advanced a higher figure — roughly $2,275 — when it passed its draft of the state’s operating budget in April. But Stedman warned that the House’s budget would require a draw from savings after accounting for capital projects, bills passed this session and other expenses.

In the end, the Senate figure won out. But House Finance Committee co-chair DeLena Johnson, R-Palmer, underscored that this year’s payout will be higher than last year’s $1,312 dividend.

“I do think that Alaskans recognize that this is a solid dividend this year,” Johnson told reporters after House and Senate members wrapped up their work on the budget’s conference committee.

Johnson said the budget would also sock some money away in savings, though final figures were not immediately available.

“We put out a healthy dividend, and we had a good capital budget,” she said. “There’s money going into savings, and it’s a balanced budget.”

The budget also includes $175 million in one-time funding outside the traditional formula for public schools, roughly equivalent to $680 in base per-student funding. Dunleavy can reduce or zero out items in the budget with a line-item veto, but he indicated earlier this month he would not veto the increase in education funding.