The Legislature has several big issues to be resolved this last week of its session, which adjourns on Sunday. The Budget. Medicaid Expansion. Confirmation Hearings. And the Gas Pipeline. The Juneau Empire lays out a good synopsis of each of them, all of them contentious.
One of the more contentious issues as House and Senate negotiators work to reach agreement on the state operating budget appears to be education funding.
The House agreed with Walker’s proposal to forward-fund education for 2017 at 90 percent, but the Senate did not forward fund for 2017 and proposed cutting $47.5 million in school funds for the next fiscal year, which starts July 1. The would be on top of proposed cuts to the state education department and the possible elimination of one-time funds approved by lawmakers last session, of $52 million between next year and 2017, that Walker initially proposed.
Walker, who took office Dec. 1, made expanding Medicaid a priority. But that got off to a rocky start when he initially refused legislators’ calls to lay out his plan in bill form rather than have expansion-related provisions sprinkled throughout the operating budget. He introduced an expansion bill last month that included proposals aimed at helping to contain and reduce costs in the existing Medicaid program. The current program is widely seen as unsustainable.
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