Thanks to slumping oil prices and dwindling savings, lawmakers are preparing for severely reduced budgets, which means a whole lot less money for projects — such as turf fields, schools and fire trucks to name a few — throughout the state.
Fairbanks Rep. Steve Thompson, who will co-chair the House Finance Committee and will be in charge of the capital budget for the House, agreed this upcoming year is going to be tough for everyone.
“It’s going to be ugly, but I don’t see how we’re going to be able to do a lot of priorities. The first thing that will happen is the capital projects gets hit first,” Thompson said, which he said is unfortunate, because “it’s the capital projects that build infrastructure and creates jobs.”
By one tally, the Interior had amassed nearly half a billion dollars in capital appropriation requests for the upcoming session with projects including air quality programs, energy projects and expansions for transfer sites.
This week, the Municipality of Anchorage submitted a wish list that broke the $600 million mark.
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image credit Erin Corneliussen NewsMiner
