{"id":2217,"date":"2012-04-04T17:40:04","date_gmt":"2012-04-05T01:40:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/?p=2217"},"modified":"2012-04-04T17:44:26","modified_gmt":"2012-04-05T01:44:26","slug":"operating-budget-passes-senate-adds-billions-to-state-savings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/?p=2217","title":{"rendered":"Operating Budget Passes Senate, Adds Billions to State Savings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today the Alaska State Senate unanimously passed the fiscal year (FY)\u00a02013 Operating Budget, (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.legis.state.ak.us\/basis\/get_bill.asp?bill=HB%20284&amp;session=27\" target=\"_blank\">House Bill 284<\/a>). In my role as Senate Finance Co-Chair,\u00a0I have worked with colleagues to ensure the Senate\u2019s mission of \u2018Savings before Spending\u2019 is implemented this session.\u00a0 Since 2007, the Senate has chosen to save first, then spend, adding $10.4 billion to state savings before capital and other expenditures.<\/p>\n<p>I have been a strong proponent of increasing state savings while ensuring Alaska\u2019s infrastructure and public service needs are addressed.\u00a0 I plan to do whatever I can to promote responsible management of the state\u2019s wealth.<\/p>\n<p>The FY2013 Operating Budget totals $9.5 billion, including $7.25 billion in general funds and $2 billion in federal funds.\u00a0 The Senate Finance Committee has set aside $3.1 billion in savings.\u00a0 $2 billion will go into the Statutory Budget Reserve (SBR).\u00a0 $500 million will go towards paying down the unfunded liabilities in the Alaska Public Employees\u2019 Retirement System (PERS), and another $500 million will go into the Alaska Teachers\u2019 Retirement System (TRS).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Paying down the state\u2019s retirement debt now will save the future generations of Alaskans hundreds of millions of dollars.\u00a0 This is a huge step in reducing the state\u2019s $11 billion in unfunded pension liabilities.<\/p>\n<p>The Operating Budget pays for the state\u2019s operations and important public services such as law enforcement and education.\u00a0 I was glad to see the Senate held spending growth in the Operating Budget to 3.6% this year.<\/p>\n<p>For a full breakdown of the Senate\u2019s version of the Operating Budget, click <a href=\"http:\/\/www.legfin.state.ak.us\/BudgetReports\/LY2012\/Operating\/SenateCS\/DisplayReports.php\" target=\"_blank\">here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today the Alaska State Senate unanimously passed the fiscal year (FY)\u00a02013 Operating Budget, (House Bill 284). In my role as Senate Finance Co-Chair,\u00a0I have worked with colleagues to ensure the Senate\u2019s mission of \u2018Savings before Spending\u2019 is implemented this session.\u00a0 Since 2007, the Senate has chosen to save first, then spend, adding $10.4 billion to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[128,129],"class_list":["post-2217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-operating-budget","tag-savings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2217"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2222,"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2217\/revisions\/2222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}