Alaska Legislature: Senate Finance, 4/16/26, 9am

Good morning. I will call to order the Senate Finance Subcommittee of the Whole on the University of Alaska's operating budget. With me this morning at the table, let's see, it is 9:02 AM. With me this morning are Senators Steadman and Olson, Senators Merrick, Cronk, and Kaufman. Welcome.

Our purpose this morning is to provide our closeout recommendation to the full Finance Committee on the University of Alaska budget. I'd like to thank our LIO moderator, Zach Lawhorn, who's got folks on the phone from across the state. And in the room I see we have some folks from the university in case questions pop up. I'd like to bring my staff, Ella Atkisson, to the table to run the subcommittee through the recommended closeout report.

Welcome, Ms. Atkisson. Thank you, Mr. Chair. For the record, Ella Atkisson, staff to Senator Kiel. The Senate Finance Budget Subcommittee for the University of Alaska submits the following fiscal year '27 recommendations to the Senate Finance Committee.

A budget with total funds of $1,169,962,000. Of that, unrestricted general funds represent $364,134,700. Designated general funds are $322,750,800. Other funds are $253,245,300.

And federal funds represent $229,831,200. For position count, we are recommending a total of 4,108 positions. 3,838 Of those are permanent full-time and 270 are permanent part-time. The Senate Finance Subcommittee accepted all items requested in the governor's amended budget, including $2 million in university receipts to develop a land sale in Cordova and $48 million in various receipt authority adjustments to better align with FY25 actuals. After careful consideration, the subcommittee report recommends the following changes: adopting one-time increments to fund the most essential elements of the Board of Regents' request to fund student recruitment with a total of $1,213,000 in unrestricted general funds and $1,037,000 of university receipts spread across the 3 main universities.

Subcommittee also recommends funding $1,800,000 in unrestricted general funds to fund healthcare cost increases. And lastly, funding $2,423,900 of unrestricted general funds, $970,100 of university receipts, and $68,800 of statutory designated funds to pay for non-union employee compensation increases. The report further recommends an additional $4,467,600 of unrestricted general funds $1,914,800 of university receipts be added to the language section of the operating budget to fund the same compensation increase for recently unionized university employees contingent on agreement between labor and management. That's all I have, Mr. Chair, and I'm happy to take any questions.

Thank you, Ms. Adkisson. Are there questions on the closeout report? Senator Cronk. Thank you, Mr.

Chair. I just have a quick question. When you're looking at the recruitment part of it. I'm looking at UAA has 375 general funds, 375 university seats, but then UAF would have a lower amount of general funds and a higher amount of university seats. And then likewise with Southeast.

Is there a reason for that? [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Thank you, Senator Cronk. This report does not recommend funding the full Regents request for any of the 3 universities. In narrowing it down to $750,000 total at each. We applied the same proportion between UGF and university receipts at each university.

So the Regents' request was for 50/50 at UA. The Regents' request for, I think, for 40% GF, 60% receipts at Fairbanks. I don't remember the Juneau, but those percentages are still reflected in this one-time item. Thank you. Other questions?

Senator Steadman, do we have a motion? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move the attached budget action report from the Senate Budget Subcommittee for the University of Alaska. I further move that the subcommittee authorize Legislative Finance and Legislative Legal to make any technical or conforming changes as necessary. You've heard the motion.

Is there objection? Seeing none, the motion carries. I want to take just a moment to thank Legislative Affairs Agency Ledge Finance Budget Analyst Michael Partlow, who was extraordinarily helpful to my office in working on this budget and put in some extra hours when I made mistakes. My thanks to the university staff, both those in the room and those at Fairbanks, who were transparent and responsive to every request. And then also my thanks to Ella Atkinson of my staff.

There being nothing for— further to come before the subcommittee, we are adjourned at 9:07 AM. Thank you.

Good morning, everybody. I'd like to go ahead and call the Senate Finance Committee to order. It's Thursday, April 16th, 2026, about 10 after 9:00 a.m. I am joined today by Chair Olson, Senator Kiel, Senator Merrig, Senator Kaufman, Senator Senator Cronk, myself, Steadman. Senator Hoffman is excused and will not be attending this morning.

We have one item on the agenda. We're going to take a look, quick look at HB 78, which is the retirement system defined benefit option plan that we've been working on for a while.

The retirement system dealing with the state and most of the communities around the state. We have a motion to adopt the CS. Senator Keehl. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that the Finance Committee adopt Senate CS for CS for House Bill 78 Finance, version T as in Talkeetna, as our working document and bring it before the committee.

I will object for discussion. I ask Ms. Liz Harpold to come forward. She's staff to Senator Olson and the lead aide for legislation at the Finance Committee. Can you please walk us through what's in front of the committee today? Thank you.

Good morning. For the record, Liz Harpold, staff to Senator Olson and the Senate Finance Committee. The CS before you, version T, incorporates amendments that were adopted during last week's meeting to version H. Of the bill. We've had a few versions before us now, so just want to make sure we're all playing from the same sheet of music. The amendments adopted, um, the first one raises the upper limit of Public Employee Retirement System, or PERS, defined benefit employer contribution rate from 22 to 24%.

This change is found in Section 70. The second amendment adds a new requirement that a member of the Teachers Retirement System, or TRS, or a member of PERS who reaches retirement age with at least 10 years of experience must be an active employee for at least the 12 months immediately before applying for retirement to receive medical benefits. These changes are found in Sections 33 and 92.

And the third amendment that was adopted allows the Alaska Retirement Management Board to adjust the contribution rate of TRS or PERS Defined benefit plan participants to a rate above 12% but not less than 8%. This change is found in Section 865. And that concludes my explanation of changes. Okay. And I will go ahead and remove my objection to the adoption of the changes.

Anybody has further objection to adoption of the changes? Seeing none, we will go ahead and adopt the CS as our working document, what we are What we're trying to do today is get the current version of the legislation on the table so communities and other interested parties can, when they testify coming up, we'll have a public testimony period where they can call in and support or not support portions or all of the bill. So they're speaking to the right version of what's in front of the committee. Because there's been these changes. We have any further comments from the committee?

Any questions from the committee? Okay, we'll go ahead and set this bill aside. We will work with the bill sponsor and the communities around the state on notification of when we're going to have that hearing. It'll most likely be next week. So it's not just for the, you know, planning purposes.

Probably the middle part of next week or at the end of next week, I would think, depending on the schedule and all that. So with that, if there's any other comments, concerns, OK, we'll finish up this meeting today. Our next meeting— look at the script, I guess.

Scheduled for Monday, 9:00 AM. We'll see everybody back Monday at 9:00 AM. We are adjourned at 9:15. We are adjourned.