The Alaska House is poised to vote this week on whether to approve nearly $500 million in state funding to cover expenditures in the current fiscal year, amid opposition from House Republicans.

The spending bill, which was requested by Gov. Mike Dunleavy, is intended in part to make up for tens of millions of dollars in cuts Dunleavy made to last year's budget when he vetoed parts of the Legislature-approved spending plan.

"One way or another, we're going to have to pay these bills," said Rep. Calvin Schrage, an Anchorage independent who co-chairs the Finance Committee.

To fund the additional expenses amid limited revenue, majority lawmakers are looking to draw from a $3 billion state savings account known as the Constitutional Budget Reserve. But to draw from the account requires a three-quarters vote in the House and Senate, rendering the 21-member majority dependent on the minority to implement the spending bill.

Republican minority members in the House have so far indicated they oppose the supplemental spending package as written, reasoning that the vote on the bill has been rushed and that the bill includes expenditures that should be moved instead to next year's spending plan.

House Speaker Bryce Edgmon, a Dillingham independent, said that his caucus is seeking a draw from savings now to avoid the need for a three-quarters vote in the final days of the legislative session.

"If we can't get a three-quarters vote now, we get a three-quarters vote in the fog of war at the very end of May. Experience would tell you that the ante is up considerably, and it's going to be more difficult," Edgmon said on Friday.

House Minority Whip Justin Ruffridge, a Soldotna Republican, said that the minority could support a draw from the Constitutional Budget Reserve if the bill is amended to be more tailored to include only budget items that require immediate attention.

"The votes are there to get something passed, there just needs to be a conversation that happens," said Ruffridge.

In an initial House floor debate on the spending package Wednesday, minority Republicans repeatedly attempted to amend the bill to excise parts of it and diminish the needed draw from savings. Their amendments failed 21-19, along caucus lines. A final amendment seeking to add to the bill a statutory Permanent Fund dividend payout — at a cost of more than $2 billion — failed in a 28-12 vote, with several minority members joining all majority members in opposing it.

Ruffridge called the minority's amendments on Wednesday the "throw-the-spaghetti-at-the-wall-to-see-what-sticks approach."

"I think we do have an obligation to discuss what is truly a fast-track supplemental and what is not," said Ruffridge.

House majority members repeatedly said to their GOP colleagues that the supplemental funding request has come directly from the governor's office, with minimal changes from legislators.

"All the screaming and shouting about how it's the largest ever and we can't afford this — you have to pay that bill from the administration. Those are costs we've incurred. We owe that money," said Schrage.

It is not unheard of for the Legislature to approve large supplemental budget bills. As recently as 2022, the Legislature approved a supplemental budget totaling nearly $1 billion in state funds, amid an unexpected windfall in oil revenue.

But this year's budget is unique in that most items in the supplemental budget are described by lawmakers not as discretionary, but as essential for government function.

The supplemental budget includes allocations to cover costs for disaster relief, fire suppression, road maintenance and Medicaid services. It includes a series of executive branch requests that Dunleavy administration officials say are needed to provide adequate state services. It is also expected to cover a shortfall, to the tune of roughly $50 million, that arose in the current year's budget from lower-than-expected oil prices.

House Majority Leader Chuck Kopp, an Anchorage Republican, called the minority's amendments to the bill "very performative."

"We were completely caught by surprise that this was going to devolve into an amendment show on the floor, rather than focus on what's really unifying Alaska right now — the need to pay these bills," said Kopp.

Ruffridge, meanwhile, accused the majority of failing to engage the minority in a discussion that could bring about consensus on the bill.

"Doing it through the means by which we're doing it now — that's probably the definition of performative," Ruffridge said. As of Friday afternoon, Ruffridge said there had been no conversations between the minority and the majority on the contents of the bill, but "we have a whole weekend to discuss."

Lawmakers have in recent years often delayed the approval of supplemental funding to the end of the legislative session. This year, majority members say the funding must be expedited to meet demands from the construction industry. A broad coalition of industry groups earlier this year urged lawmakers to quickly approve tens of millions of state transportation dollars, to leverage what is expected to be hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds.

The supplemental item is needed after Dunleavy last year vetoed lawmakers' attempt to reappropriate transportation funds from what lawmakers had said were stagnant projects. Dunleavy opposed the reappropriation effort, saying the funding that lawmakers had sought to redirect was already obligated.

Dunleavy's veto caused widespread concern among lawmakers and in the construction industry, which argues the funding must be replaced as soon as possible to avoid losing out on nine federal dollars for every state dollar appropriated. But Dunleavy's transportation officials have argued that no federal funding will be lost, as long as lawmakers approve the funds by June.

If the House is successful in advancing the budget bill, it will head next to the Senate, where bipartisan majority members have indicated they are largely in agreement with the House majority on the need for the fast-tracked spending.

What's in the bill?

—The transportation department is asking for $70 million in state match funds in order to secure hundreds of millions of dollars in federal highway and aviation grants. The request comes after Dunleavy vetoed lawmakers' re-appropriation of tens of millions of dollars from old projects. Lawmakers said those old projects had stalled; Dunleavy claimed the money that lawmakers wanted to reappropriate had already been obligated.

—Dunleavy is asking for $40 million to be deposited in the state's disaster relief fund. In a small adjustment, the House majority wrote into the bill contingency language that would allow the disaster relief deposit to increase in case the Dunleavy administration is unsuccessful in its efforts to convince the federal government to foot 90% of the bill for recovery from recent storms in Western Alaska. In June, Dunleavy vetoed $10 million that lawmakers had sought to appropriate to the disaster relief fund.

—The bill includes a $55 million deposit into the fire suppression fund. Dunleavy has since said the state would need an additional roughly $40 million, bringing the total needed in the fund in the current fiscal year to nearly $100 million. In June, Dunleavy vetoed more than $26 million that lawmakers had sought to appropriate to the fund.

—Dunleavy is asking lawmakers to send just under $130 million back to the Alaska Higher Education Investment Fund, after lawmakers allowed funding from the account — which pays for university scholarships — to be used to cover a deficit in the previous year's budget. In an unorthodox move, lawmakers turned to the fund last year after House Republican minority members blocked an effort to draw from the Constitutional Budget Reserve.

—The Department of Corrections is asking for over $24 million in additional funding to cover its operations. Corrections officials say their higher-than-anticipated costs are driven in part by a reliance on overtime staffers. The department spent more than $22 million on overtime pay in 2025.

—The Department of Health is requesting more than $36 million in state funding to cover Medicaid costs, after underestimating the funding it would need last year.

—The Division of Public Assistance is asking for over $11 million to pay for new software maintenance and licensing. The division, which oversees Medicaid, food assistance and other programs, has struggled to address an application backlog for years, despite appropriations from the Legislature totaling tens of millions of dollars to purchase and implement new application processing technology.

The division is also asking for $1.5 million in state funds to maintain a virtual call center — staffed by Lower 48 contractors — that lawmakers attempted to eliminate in last year's budget. Division leaders have said that eliminating the call center would exacerbate the existing assistance backlog.

—The Office of Public Advocacy has requested $3.3 million to hire private attorneys in order to keep working on a yearslong backlog in Alaska's criminal justice system. The backlog originated during the coronavirus pandemic.

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