The Alaska Legislature is planning to take the most extreme option from the budget-cutting menu covering the University of Alaska system.
On Thursday evening, the House and Senate conference committee working on the state budget voted 5-1 to remove $50 million in funding from the UA system, an action that is expected to result in the loss of 400-500 jobs if approved.
“At some point, this has to be a state where people want to live in, and I think this goes in the wrong direction,” said Rep. Les Gara, D-Anchorage and the sole vote against the proposal.
Sen. Pete Kelly, R-Anchorage and a member of the conference committee, issued a statement after the vote.
It said in part: “The action you saw in conference committee today was proof in these challenging times that everything is on the table. … I don’t like the circumstances we face, but we face them nonetheless. This is what it looks like when you have to make difficult choices.”
Before being elected to the Senate, Kelly was the university system’s director of state relations, effectively the UA system’s lobbyist in Juneau.
The conference committee, which consists of three members from the House and three from the Senate, is designed to reconcile the versions of the state budget passed by the House and Senate. Earlier this session, each body passed a different version with differing amounts of cuts intended to address the state’s $4.1 billion annual deficit.
Gov. Bill Walker had suggested a $335 million budget for the system. The Senate suggested a $325 million budget, and the House offered a $300 million budget.
During a University of Alaska Board of Regents meeting last week, system president Jim Johnsen said the House figure would entail a loss of 400 to 500 jobs, and he anticipated a tuition hike of 15 percent.
The conference committee will continue work to reconcile other differences in the budget, and the final version must then be approved in separate votes of the House and Senate to become effective.
