JUNEAU -- The Alaska Legislature reached the end of its 90-day session Sunday with its work on top priorities, including education funding, unfinished.
An extra 91st day was enough to push two ballot measures, one aimed at raising the minimum wage and the other hoping to legalize marijuana from the August primary election ballot to the November general election ballot. Lawmakers denied that was the intent of the extended session.
Legislators spent Easter Sunday working at a lackluster pace and were nowhere near completing their work on key bills when the official end of the 90-day session came and went at midnight.
Shortly thereafter, into the day beyond the statutory 90-day session, Senators voted unanimously to continue the popular Senior Benefits program, which would have expired without renewal. While a state law, passed by initiative, limits legislative sessions to 90 days, that law is unpopular with many lawmakers, who prefer the maximum 120 days in the Alaska Constitution.
Sen. Lesil McGuire, R-Anchorage, called it "unfortunate" that the Legislature went beyond the 90-day limit, but said it couldn't be helped. "It certainly would not have been my choice. I respect the people's vote on that," she said.
But what was really holding up lawmakers was disputes between the House and Senate on House Bill 278, which began as Gov. Sean Parnell's omnibus education bill, but which has since had added additional school funding to it.
Members of Great Alaska Schools, a grassroots school advocacy group, sat in the Senate's public gallery until 3 a.m. Monday morning, waiting for the Senate to take up the school funding issue.
But by 4 a.m. the Senate called it quits for the day shortly after beginning work on the education bill.
McGuire said the Senate had hoped to power through, but as dawn neared it became clear that wasn't a good idea, she said.
"It's not good decision making when people are tired," she said. For the complex and important education issue, McGuire said they wanted to be at their best. "We have old members, you can just kind of see people's energy levels lower and we're not as sharp as we should be," she said.
She said lawmakers regretted going past the 90-day session, but with important work yet to be completed there was little choice. The Senate will convene at 1 p.m. Monday, while the House will begin work at 2 p.m.
The deadlock with the education bill revolves around the base student allocation, the per-student state funding for local school districts. Getting not just additional funding but additional funding into the BSA was a top priority for Great Alaska Schools, its members said.
Gov. Parnell recommended a small BSA increase, the House of Representatives proposed a larger one, while the Senate complicated things with an even larger total dollar increase, but all of it outside the BSA.
McGuire said there's now an informal agreement that some of the increase should be inside the BSA and some outside, but those amounts have yet to be negotiated. On Monday, the Senate will hear -- and likely make changes to -- the current version of the education bill, which will end up different from the House version.
Then, a conference committee will be appointed to work out the differences, with the final deal needing to be ratified by both bodies.
Among the issues still in play in addition to money is a House provision to make getting tenure in the state's larger cities a lengthier and more difficult process. That change was added by the House, but removed by the Senate.
While teachers oppose the measure, McGuire said there was strong support for it in the House. But opposition in the Senate on the issue remained a sticking point.
Moving the two ballot measures from the August primary ballot on which Alaskans will also be asked to decide whether to repeal last year's oil tax cut may limit turnout and make that measure easier to defeat. But McGuire said such political considerations played no role in the Senate delay, though she suggested they may have in the House.
The House has also introduced a bill that would adopt the minimum wage increase contained n the initiative-created ballot measure. Under state law, enacting equivalent legislation will remove an initiative from the ballot.
A measure adopted by the Legislature can be repealed whenever it likes, but one adopted by the voters can't be changed for two years.
Oil companies that are campaigning hard against the repeal of the oil tax cut may want it off the ballot, but McGuire said that played no role in the Senate.
"Not on our side," she said. "I can't speak for the (House). There was speculation early on that some in the other body wanted to go over the deadline for that reason," she said.
Contact Pat Forgey at pat(at)alaskadispatch.com.