Sen. Fitzgerald doubtful budget will be resolved by Oct. 15
Seante Minority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, said this morning he doesn't see how the state budget can be done by Oct. 1, and he urged Senate Majority Leader Judy Robson, D-Beloit, to schedule votes for the school funding and local government aids bills passed by the Assembly two weeks ago.
Pointing to a letter Robson sent on Friday to DPI Superintendent Burmaster urging her to use the school funding numbers from the Assembly bill, Fitzgerald said Robson is are now engaged in "partisan politics and hiding behind process."
Fitzgerald said the letter shows Robson "is not taking this second deadline seriously," referring to the Oct. 15 date when Burmaster must certify school funding numbers before sending them off to local school districts.
"Her members of her caucus are now fully aware that there is no reason that these two bill should not be completed," Fitzgerald said. "And if they are not passed in the Senate and put on the governor's desk, it will result in a $600 million property tax increase."
Should that tax increase come to pass, Fitzgerald said, it should be clear who's to blame, and it's not the Assembly or Senate Republicans.
Fitzgerald warned that the Legislature may eventually be in the position of trying to pass each portion of the budget individually with separate pieces of legislation. The governor and his cabinet members will be out telling "Chicken Little" stories about the ramifications of not passing a budget, he said, but doubted the sincerity of that message.
"If the governor continues to maintain that he will not sign those separate pieces, it's pretty hard for me to believe that he really in the end cares what those specific items are that his cabinet is out talking about right now," he said.
See more in today's PM Update.
