House Floor Session, 5/16/26, 10:30am

Will the House please come to order? Will members indicate their presence by voting?

Will the clerk please tally the board? 39 Members present. 39 Members present. We have a quorum present to conduct business. Mr.

Majority Leader. Mr. Speaker, there are no previous excused absences today. And Mr. Majority Leader, you might as well remain standing because leading the invocation today is the Majority Leader. Will members please rise?

Right. Dear Heavenly Father, as we gather today in service of the people of Alaska, Please remind us of the promise found in the Epistle to the Romans, chapter 8, verse 28, where you say that in all things you work for the good of those who love you and are called according to your purpose. Lord, in moments of disagreement, please grant us patience. In moments of uncertainty, grant us wisdom. And in moments of fatigue at the close of long days and difficult debates, Please renew our sense of purpose and duty.

Help us remember that each one of us as members of this body to do our work in a way of recognition of the real consequences for families, workers, seniors, and future generations across this state. Let us lead with humility, speak to one another with grace and integrity, and seek common ground where we can. May we trust that even amid the challenge and division, good can still emerge through our honest service, thoughtful deliberation, and the way that we care for one another. Bless this chamber, every member here, our staff, and the people of Alaska that we are entrusted to serve. In Christ's name we pray.

Amen. Amen. Representative Schragg, will you please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Representative Story.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move and ask unanimous consent that the prayer be spread across the journal. Hearing no objection, the prayer will be spread across the journal. Will the clerk please certify the journal for the previous legislative days? I certify as to the correctness of the journal for the 116th legislative day.

Mr. Majority Leader. Mr. Speaker, I move and ask unanimous consent that the journal of the previous day be approved as certified by the chief clerk. Hearing no objection, the journal stands approved. Are there guests for introduction this afternoon?

Rep. Zaschwanki.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I'm very happy to introduce a longtime friend of mine in the gallery behind me, Taylor Gallery, if they'd stand, Dave Stanclyffe and his son Byron. Dave has a long history in this building. He's known me since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. He's a phenomenal musician.

You guys probably know him well. Son Byron is up visiting from Michigan. He was born and raised in Alaska. He is a retired Lieutenant Colonel out of the Air Force, and they are here touring the Capitol and trying to bring some much-needed guidance to us today so that we can finish and do some great work. Please help me welcome them to the Capitol.

I would like to say to my good friend Dave in the gallery, Dave, I hope you stay retired this time. This is retirement number 2. Byron, great to see you again. I hope your drive down was a good one and look forward to catching up with you guys later on. Not seeing any additional guests to be introduced this morning.

Madam Clerk, this afternoon. Madam Clerk, are there any messages from the Governor? There are no messages from the Governor this afternoon. Are there any messages from the other body? Messages dated May 15 stating the Senate has passed and is returning the following.

House Concurrent Resolution Number 17, suspend uniform rules for Senate Bill 86 and committee substitute for House Bill Number 221, State Affairs, Arts and Culture Day. The Senate concurred in the House amendments to Senate Bill Number 41, thus adopting Senate Bill Number 41, amended House, Public Schools, Mental Health Education. The Senate also concurred in the House amendments to Committee Substitute for Senate Bill Number 86, Finance. Thus adopting House Committee Substitute for Committee Substitute for Senate Bill Number 86, Finance, Money Transmission, Virtual Currency, title change SCR 17. The Senate passed House Bill Number 10, amended, effective date added with the following amendments.

Senate Committee Substitute for House Bill Number 10, Finance, add faculty member, University Board of Regents, and it is returned for consideration. The Senate also passed committee substitute for House Bill number 184, Community and Regional Affairs, with the following amendments: Senate committee substitute for committee substitute for House Bill number 184, Finance, ADA Finance Workforce Housing Development, title change SCR 24, and it is also returned for consideration. The Senate passed House Bill number 216 with the following amendments: Senate Committee substitute for House Bill 216, Community and Regional Affairs, Transfer of Railroad Land to Whittier, and it is returned for consideration. The Senate passed House Bill 314 amended with the following amendments. House Bill 314 amended Senate, Architecture Engineering Surveyors, Regional Interior Design, and it is returned for consideration.

The Senate has passed and is transmitting the following for consideration: Senate Concurrent Resolution Number 24 by the Senate Finance Committee, suspending Rules 24C, 35, 41B, and 42E, Uniform Rules of the Alaska State Legislature, concerning House Bill Number 184, relating to financing by the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority for Workforce Workforce Housing Development Projects. I have no further messages from the other body. Madam Clerk, are there any communications? There are no communications this morning. Any reports of standing committees?

The Community and Regional Affairs Committee considered House Joint Resolution number 46, Typhoon Halong Support Community Relocation, recommends it be replaced with Committee Substitute for House Joint Resolution number 46, Community and Regional Affairs with the same title. Attached one new zero fiscal note. Signing the report: do pass. Representatives Holland, Prox, Jean Elson, St. Clair, Hall, and co-chairs Hempschute and Mears. The resolution has no further referral.

The Judiciary Committee considered House Bill 222, Workplace Violence Protective Orders. Recommends it be replaced with committee substitute for House Bill 222, Judiciary with a new title, attached one new fiscal note and three new zero fiscal notes. Signing the report do pass: Representatives Mena, Eichide, and Chair Gray. No recommendation: Costello, Underwood, Vance, and Kopp. The bill has a further referral to the Labor and Commerce Committee.

The Finance Committee considered committee substitute for Senate Bill number 23 Finance, Civics Education, Recommends it be replaced with House Committee Substitute for a Committee Substitute for Senate Bill 23 Education with the same title. Attached one previously published fiscal note. Signing the report: do pass, Representatives Galvin and co-chairs Schraggi, Josephson, and Foster. No recommendation: Jimmy, Tomaszewski, Hannon, Moore, Bynum, and Stapp. Amend: Allard.

The bill has no further referral.

The Finance Committee considered Senate Bill number 29, Big Game Commercial Services Board, recommends it be replaced with House Committee Substitute for Senate Bill 29 Finance with HCR 23 title change forthcoming. Attaches one new fiscal note. Signing the report, do pass: Representatives Galvin, Tomaszewski, Hannon, and Co-Chairs Sharkey, Josephson, and Foster. No recommendation. Moore, Bynum, Stapp amend Allard.

The bill has no further referral. The Labor and Commerce Committee considered committee substitute for Senate Bill number 35, Labor and Commerce amended, delivery network companies. Recommends it be replaced with House Committee Substitute for Committee Substitute for Senate Bill 35, Labor and Commerce, with the new title change, HCR 25, forthcoming. Attaches one new zero fiscal note.

Signing the report: do pass, Representatives Freer and co-chairs Fields and Hall. Do not pass: Colon, Sadler. No recommendation: Carrick. Amend: D. Nelson. The bill has no further referral.

The Labor and Commerce Committee considered committee substitute for Senate Bill number 83, Health and Social Services, Telehealth Coverage Reimbursement Rates. Recommends it be replaced with House Committee Substitute for Committee Substitute for Senate Bill 83, Labor and Commerce, with the same title. Attached to previously published zero fiscal notes. Signing the report: do pass. Representatives Carrick, Freer, and co-chairs Fields and Hall.

No recommendation: Colon, Sadler, and D. Nelson. The bill has no further referral.

The Finance Committee considered Committee Substitute for Senate Bill 104, Finance. Vehicles, Boats, Transfer on Death Title. Attached one previously published fiscal note. Signing the report, do pass, Representatives Jimmy, Galvin, Hannon, Bynum, and co-chairs Sharagi, Josephson, and Foster. The bill is on today's calendar.

The Finance Committee considered committee substitute for Senate Bill number 140 Finance, Fire Station Grant Program. Recommends it be replaced with House Committee Substitute for Committee Substitute for Senate Bill 140 Finance with the same title. Attached one new zero fiscal note. Signing the report: do pass, Representatives Moore, Allard, Hannon, Tomaszewski, Bynum, and co-chairs Foster and Schrage. Do not pass: Jimmy.

No recommendation, staff, Galvin, and co-chair Josephson. The bill has no further referral.

The Resources Committee considered committee substitute for Senate Bill number 208, Resources Agricultural Land Leases. Recommends it be replaced with House Committee Substitute for Committee Substitute for Senate Bill 208 Resources with the same title. Attached: 1 previously published zero fiscal note. Signing the report: Do Pass. Representatives Fields, Mears, and Co-Chairs Dybert and Freer.

No recommendation: Calombe, Hall, Sadler, and Elam. The bill has no further referral. The Judiciary Committee considered Senate Bill 252, UCC-secured transmission electronic records. Attached one previously published zero fiscal note. Signing the report, do pass, Representative Vance.

No recommendation, Representatives Mena, Costello, Underwood, Eichide, and Chair Gray. The bill has no further referral, and I have no further reports of standing committees. Madam Clerk, are there any reports of special committees? There are no reports of special committees. Any citations or resolutions for introduction?

Honoring Kareen and James "Jamie" Marks by Senator Keel and Representatives Hannon and Story. Honoring Trooper Anthony "Tony" Beck by Senator Rauscher. Honoring Charlie Lampier by Senators Rauscher and Cronk. In memoriam Lonnie Ray Rollerson by Representative Allard. In memoriam Richard "Rich" Irvin Maurer by Senator Croch and Representative Story.

House Concurrent Resolution Number 23 by the House Finance Committee, suspending Rules 24C, 35, 41B, and 42E, Uniform Rules of the Alaska State Legislature, concerning Senate Bill Number 29, relating to an executive administrator for the Big Game Commercial Services Board. House Concurrent Resolution Number 24, by the House State Affairs Committee, suspending Rules 24C, 35, 41B, and 42E, Uniform Rules of the Alaska State Legislature, concerning Senate Bill number 200, relating to municipal assessments of farm or agricultural land. And House Concurrent Resolution number 25 by the House Labor and Commerce Committee, suspending Rules 24C, 35, 41B, and 42E, Uniform Rules of the Alaska State Legislature, Concerning Senate Bill Number 35, relating to transportation network companies and delivery network companies, and relating to occupational accident insurance. I have no further citations or resolutions for introduction.

Are there any bills for introduction? There are no bills for introduction this afternoon.

This brings us to consideration of the daily calendar. At this time, I'm going to move Senate Bill 180 to the bottom of the calendar. Madam Clerk, please read the first item on today's calendar.

Committee— excuse me, House Bill number 193. By Representatives Hall, Fields, Carrick, Eichide, Hemmschulte, Hannon, Story, and Schraggy entitled An Act Establishing a Paid Paternal Leave Program Relating to Unemployment Benefits, Relating to the Collection of Child Support Obligations, and Relating to the Duties of the Department of Labor and Workforce Development. The Labor and Commerce Committee considered the bill, recommends it be replaced with committee substitute for House Bill 193, Labor and Commerce, with a new title. Attached 2 new fiscal notes and 1 new zero fiscal note. Signing the report, do pass, Representatives Burke, Carrick, and co-chairs Hall and Fields.

Amend, Calombe, and Sadler. The Finance Committee considered the bill, recommends it be replaced with committee substitute for House Bill 193 Finance with a new title. Attached 1 new zero fiscal note and 2 new fiscal notes. Signing the report, do pass, Representatives Jimmy and co-chair Foster. Amend, Galvin, Allard, Hannan, Tomaszewski, Stapp, Moore, Bynum, and Co-Chairs Schraggy and Josephson.

There are 2 committee substitutes. Mr. Majority Leader. Mr. Speaker, I move and ask unanimous consent that the Finance Committee substitute for House Bill 193 with the new title be advanced in lieu of the original bill. There is an objection.

Representative Hall, could you please read the changes in the committee substitute?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Permission to read? Permission granted. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So House Finance considered actually two versions of the bill.

The first version was a CS that was adopted and included technical changes, and those technical changes are as follows: all parts of the bill and statute found to be non-conforming with federal unemployment insurance law have been removed. Conforming changes to the newly created paid parental leave program are conditioned upon approval from the U.S. Department of Labor and the Unemployment Insurance Employer Rate Determination Statute, AS 23.20.20—290, subsection D. It extends participation in the program to reimbursable employers. These are government entities, federally recognized tribes, and nonprofit organizations that that do not participate in unemployment insurance but instead reimburse unemployment insurance 100% for UI benefits used by their employees. This arrangement will now be extended for the same entities' employees participating in paid parental leave. It provides an employer tax credit to offset the surcharge for paid parental leave similar to the existing credit process and statute used in the STEP program.

A previous draft of the bill reduced the employer UI contribution to zero The version before the body increased the employer UI contribution to 0.30%. Employers also pay 0.30% into the STEP program, 0.20% into paid parental leave, and 0% into TVAP. Employers currently pay 1% into UI, so this bill would reduce their tax by 0.20%. A previous version of the bill removed the employee contribution to UI. In the CS, employees pay 0.35% into STEP/TWEP and 0.15% into paid parental leave.

House Finance then considered amendments which produced the version before the body, and that is version S. Those changes were in policy and include the following: defining the average employer contribution to UI at no more than 6.5% and not less than 0.3%; reducing the amount of the weekly benefit from $817 $524 for UI and paid parental leave. Reducing the maximum duration of the paid parental leave to 8 to 12 weeks at the discretion of the Department of Labor and Workforce Development. Exempts the paid parental leave— or excuse me, exempt from the paid parental leave program are businesses with less than 25 employees, seasonal businesses, and employers offering benefits which are as good or better than those in paid parental leave. It also allows an opt-in provision for otherwise exempt employers to participate in the program. And it created a— they created a separate account in the Treasury in which to keep the paid parental leave fund instead of in the general fund in order to prevent the funds from being swept every year.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Not hearing further objection, the committee substitute is adopted. Madam Clerk, are there any amendments? Amendment number 1 by Representative Fields, beginning page 3, line 31. Representative Fields.

I move Amendment 1. There's an objection. Representative Fields. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This amendment ensures that all employees and employers who are paying into the paid parental leave fund can use that benefit.

I would say this was the— a key issue identified.

—Provide in finance. I appreciate the finance members for their diligence on the bill, and I believe that these small employers paying into the program should reap the benefits, and I'm happy to answer any questions and wrap up. Is there a debate on Amendment Number 1?

Not. Representative Hall. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just as the previous speaker mentioned, this came out of a lot of thoughtful dialogue in House Finance. And I view this as a friendly amendment.

Thank you.

Brief it is.

Will the House please come back to order?

Under debate on Amendment Number 1. Representative Ruffridge. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm going to object to Amendment Number 1. I think the— maybe the more diligent approach would be to just exempt employers with 25 or more employees from the entirety of the program, including them paying into the fund.

What we've seen, I think, over the course of a number of the last couple of years is this idea of running a small business in the state of Alaska is getting more and more and more and more difficult. There is more and more burdens placed on the employer from the state. I think that's a thing we should be careful about doing. I think one of the objections to the underlying bill was that employers with 25 or less employees would be required to have those, uh, funds still extracted from those employees into the UI or other, other entities, but then not be allowed to have any of the benefit. I think, um, the right way to do this is just to exempt them entirely, and that is currently missing in the underlying bill.

I think Amendment 1 maybe goes in the wrong direction, and I won't be supporting it.

Representative Stapp. Oh, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, Amendment 1, so I voted to not put this in the bill with the member co-chair for Anchorage. Obviously the first amendment is to reverse the change we made in finance that I voted to not do. So I'll probably support the amendment, although I will say the member from front of me and from Soldotna is correct.

Probably the better way to do it would be to exempt them entirely if they are opted out, unless they choose to opt in. But I, I think Amendment 1 kind of illustrates some of the complicated mechanics of the bill. If this amendment passes, Mr. Speaker, now the utilization burn on the UI capitalization changes quite dramatically because a lot more people are going to get the benefit. So you would effectively— although you'd be benefiting a lot more people I would expect the paid parental leave capitalization lever to basically run out much earlier than currently projected. And that's probably going to be a common theme of amendments to this bill.

We're going to talk about those things, and it's one of the reasons why I think the underlying bill, though it's a really good bill, it's got a lot of challenges to it. So that's what I have to say. If that sounded contradictory, it's because it was. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Representative Bynum.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm not going to repeat the items that were the comments that were just mentioned about objection to this. Mr. Speaker, when this was coming through finance, we had some major changes in this bill on a very short notice. And but one of this amendment was something that was talked about quite a bit. And the concern is, is that when we take a very small business and they're participating in this, this program can actually harm that very small business.

Now, there was a lot of debate on whether or not the number should be 50, 25, 15, 10. Uh, 25 was where we landed in finance. Was that the right number, Mr. Speaker? I couldn't for sure tell you that because I don't think we had enough time with the bill to really vet that. But I do believe that there needs to be some element of a threshold here and just fully removing it will harm, will harm, Mr. Speaker, my very, very small business, businesses in my community.

And so I won't be supporting the amendment as it is in front of us. And to address the issue about the taxes, there are, Mr. Speaker, I know amendments coming later that will specifically address that particular issue. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Representative Galvin. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I just wanted to add to the conversation that when this came up, we were trying to defer to what we've heard from various large groups of employers, including chambers and such. They were concerned, and so I'm kind of ambivalent about this particular amendment. But I also want to make sure that we note that the Department of Labor came in and did go over numbers for a lot of the period of time in finance to ensure that we were Understanding that given the current state of the UI, given the current state of what— how this bill has changed, it has become much more conservative and much more protective to ensure that it does not become insolvent. So I'm very supportive of the underlying bill, and for this amendment, I really— I'm not sure where I am because I think there is so much value in ensuring that everyone has the same opportunity. Thank you.

Representative Schraggi.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise briefly in support of this amendment. I want to acknowledge that the member from Fairbanks is correct. This would increase the utilization slightly, but when the department's modeled this, the drawdown rate is— it's a marginal difference. And I'd note that I believe there's an amendment coming later on that will extend out the start date of this program, creating more of a buffer so that there's more of a reserve to handle that increased utilization.

And if that increased utilization rate becomes problematic, we'll have more lead time on that. We'll be able to see that coming and make tweaks to the system in the future. I would just say that, look, we hear at all levels of government that we have problems with our replacement rate. Folks aren't having enough kids. We see it in our workforce.

We see it in our school population and the number of students that are going to schools. All of that's declining. If we want to have more kids, more workers, more students in our schools, we need to make it easier for families to have kids and having parental leave available to more families helps make us more family-friendly and makes it easier for us to have more children, which is a good thing for our society. So I'll be in support of this amendment. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Representative Sadler. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The question before us is a matter of balance. I support the concept and the fundamental impetus behind this bill, but this amendment, if adopted, would burden small businesses below 25 employees. You know, holding a job open for a young mother, young father, assume they're young, could be adopted old folks, but open for weeks or months was going to burden those guys.

They have a job to do, they have a business to run, they may need to increase their staff, maybe pay more overtime, and it gets to be a cascading thing and it just makes doing business more expensive. This is a tremendous benefit for a lot of people, and I think you have to consider on balance what is good for the workforce and addressing the need to provide for parental leave for people. It's good, you know, some small businesses or family businesses who care a lot about their employees. And I know I've worked for small businesses, and there's some accommodation for employees. Not everybody is a hard-hearted corporate, you know, green shade guy.

An owner may say, you know what, sir, ma'am, we understand you have a new baby, we're going to work the schedule and make it good for you. But this would kind of take away that option. If this benefit's available, it will be used. It will cost more money, and it will make things a little more difficult for a small business. And on that ground, I cannot support it.

In wrap-up, Representative Fields. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Lots of good points. It is true that this is a complicated subject, so I want to express appreciation to the member from West Fairbanks and her predecessor. This bill is in development for 4 years.

It's important to understand the underlying bill cuts employer taxes by 20%. This bill cuts employer taxes, it cuts employer expenses regardless of disposition on this amendment. The reason, to respond to the, the statement of the member from House District 7, the reason that we can't just exempt entirely employers and employees for businesses under 25 is that the Paid Parental Leave program works in partnership with the unemployment insurance program. And if we have stress on the unemployment insurance trust fund from years of high uptake rate of unemployment, challenging market economics, What happens under this bill is the infusions into paid parental leave actually divert into UI. Now, what does that do?

It protects businesses from paying more taxes. So we can't just carve out this giant section of small businesses from paying into UI and parental leave together because that would endanger the solvency of the underlying UI fund. So the bill is very finely constructed so that we establish this very modest paid parental leave benefit, 8 to 12 weeks under the bill. We do so in a way that has a lot of safety valves so that there are no.

Circumstances in which we endanger the solvency of UI. So in making this policy choice where this amendment would say, hey, if you pay into the Paid Parental Leave Fund, you can use the benefits, we really don't have an option of just carving out all those businesses because that would harm the UI program. And, you know, that's just the reality of a limited number of choices that we have.

In closing, I want to note we have had declining workforce participation In Alaska and in America, our workforce participation is lower than most advanced countries, and it's pretty clear it's because we don't have support for families to stay in the workforce. So when we think about our labor force challenges, businesses having people who can go to work, the more that we support a mom or a dad having a baby and come back into the workforce, we are directly addressing our labor challenges. Thank you. Are you ready for the question? The question being, shall Amendment Number 1 pass the House?

Members may proceed to vote.

Will the clerk please lock the roll? Does any member wish to change his or her vote? Will the clerk please announce the vote? 23 Yeas, 17 nays. With a vote of 23 yeas to 17 nays, Amendment Number 1 is passed the House.

Madam Clerk. Amendment Number 2 by Representative Bynum, beginning page 1, line 1. Representative Bynum. Brikadis.

Brikadis.

Will the House please come to order? Under amendments to House Bill 193, Madam Clerk.

Amendment number 2 by Representative Bynum, beginning page 1, line 1. Representative Bynum. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move amendment number 2. There's an objection.

Permission to read. Permission granted. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Under this amendment, employers that do not, uh, participate in the paid parental leave program are allowed in the bill to no longer be mandated to specifically pay for the program. I think that was a concern, Mr. Speaker, under number— Amendment Number 1 when it was brought up.

For clarification, Mr. Speaker, we changed this bill in finance to divide the programs up so it's not all part of one program anymore. The paid leave program is a separate program that's being paid for through a separate tax. And what Amendment Number 2 effectively does is it did have an element in it that did exactly what Amendment Number 1 did, which is remove that language. But then it inserts the language in the bill that says an employer of 25, but then that employer that has less than 25 is not obligated to pay the tax associated with if they're not opted into the program. I look forward to any questions.

Representative Fields. Um, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don't support this amendment. This amendment would eliminate paid parental leave benefits for some employees of small businesses. I think it's important to note small businesses are the businesses that have the hardest time offering robust benefits.

Many large employers are able to do paid parental leave benefits right now. The essential purpose of this bill is to make sure those benefits are accessible. I think it's important to note, um, to the member from District 7's comment about the overall cost of doing business, the underlying bill reduces employer taxes by 20%. If we pass the underlying bill and reject this amendment, taxes will go down, but because the unemployment insurance trust fund is overcapitalized right now, we can actually expand benefits. That's a good thing, and it helps support families being here in Alaska.

In closing, I want to note When you look at outmigration, the group that has outmigrated the quickest are working-age parents. That is a huge demographic threat to our employers because these are the folks who need to fill jobs. So I would urge a no vote on this amendment. Representative Stapp.

Okay, uh, Mr. Speaker, I'm going to rise in support of Amendment 2, and there is A lot of things going on here in the amendment, but I'll try to keep it brief.

Okay, so honestly, it would be just easier if you just lowered the employer tax for the overcapitalization of the fund and rebate them for a program that's actually working. Mr. Speaker, you want the Amendment 2 to pass because you should have the program effectively only be applicable to individuals who are paying and don't have to pay in the event that they opt out. It's probably cleaner as a kind of a fundamental business practice. If you want to type and do these things, you should maybe make it an opt-in as opposed to a mandate. Mandates drive cost.

And even though that the initial UI employer cost is reduced. Keep in mind the bill, even as structured currently, still ultimately decapitalizes the available funding for the STEP and the TVIP and the, and the paid parental leave, and ultimately will all go back into the UI fund at some date in the future unless some sort of structural change is done to the bill. So yeah, I mean, I support the amendment. You should make it an opt-in with an exemption. Thank you.

Representative Ruffridge.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise in support of Amendment Number 2. This was the amendment I was speaking about earlier with Amendment Number 1. For all the reasons that were just mentioned by the member behind me, I think it's very important to discuss the dollars of this bill, one, and I think he does a good job at that. But what I want to talk about is something that was mentioned by the member from downtown Anchorage, which is the cost of doing business.

The cost of doing business, Mr. Speaker, is not just the employment tax rates, which under this bill, as he said, have the opportunity to maybe decrease a little bit. The cost of doing business is personnel. It's the number one line item in almost every single area. So if you have a small business, Mr. Speaker, and you have one or two employees, think about that for a second. If you offer this program and you lose a very key member of your employment team, under this, under this piece of legislation, you're saying that without an opt-out provision, which this amendment does— that's why I support it— without exempting some of the individuals who are businesses who are 25 or less, You're essentially saying you can't replace that person.

You cannot put another— you can't hire— if you do hire them for somebody to replace, you would have to hire a temporary worker potentially. Uh, you'd have to train somebody up that's new. I, I think that what we're doing here is functionally telling small businesses how they can and cannot do work, which is why small businesses in all of these types of legislation across the nation have typically been exempted. Because it's almost impossible to function when you have an empty space that is being held for an individual and that individual cannot be replaced, uh, under, under this underlying piece of legislation. So then there is a cost to doing business, which means now you have to replace that person with a third position.

Let's say you had two employees and you have one out on paid parental leave, you'd have to replace that with a third position. So that the second position is left open for when the person returns back to work. That is a cost of doing business, and that cost is going to go up. This bill, as it is written right now, will be an increased cost to small businesses in the state of Alaska, bar none. That is a true statement.

If we pass Amendment Number 2, I think that there is a benefit that is going to be supplied and the risk will be reduced to small businesses. And that's why I'm in support. Thank you.

And Representative Hall.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In addition to the reasons that the member from Downtown Anchorage mentioned, I also have to rise and urge a no vote on this amendment. There is a provision, I believe, in this amendment that prescribes how an employee is supposed to use their vacation time, paid sick time, etc. And the way that the bill is written right now, it allows for maximum versatility for the individual employee when it comes to how they choose to use their leave when it comes to short-term disability or their vacation time or their paid sick leave or the paid parental leave. So I urge a no vote.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

In wrap-up, works every time, uh, Representative McCabe. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just because you can't see all the way over here, it's not my fault.

So, Mr. Speaker, in negotiating union contracts, there is a, uh, there's an adage or a, uh, sort of a rule You never want to kill the golden goose. So in a very small business, as Representative from Soldaten was talking about, it would be very easy for this, which is focused on the employee, which we want to focus on. We're sort of dealing with the same thing in this event as a union negotiator would. He would be focusing on what's best for the employee.

Employees, at some point that will kill the golden goose. That will kill your employer. It could, if it was a small coffee shop that had 2 or 3 employees, 4 employees, you gotta let one of them go. The other ones either have to suck it up and take his shift, his or her shift, or you have to hire somebody else. It is a cost, it will harm businesses.

So at some point, As legislators, we need to decide what that tipping point is, what that balance point is. What are we doing to small businesses as well as what are we doing to employ or for employees? Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In wrap-up, Representative Bynum. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Just wanted to clarify that there was some question about utilization of the leave, and I would point that Section 1 of the amendment points to the utilization. That is already in current law. So I'm not asking to change that at all. But that provision needed to have some minor changes in it, and you can see those on line 15, page 1, line 15, and on page 2, lines 4 and 5. And then some other minor cleanup.

But this was just a conforming change in law that LegiLegal did. It doesn't change— I'm not changing how those uses are supposed to be. They're already in law. And I did also want to point out that when we talk about, Mr. Speaker, there was this mention of reducing taxes. And it is true that when we look at the tax rate table in the bill that currently right now the tax is slightly reduced.

But, Mr. Speaker, those rates can change depending on the necessary need of the programs involved, meaning that if they become undercapitalized, that we would need to make a change. But I'd also like to point out that in Section 10 of the bill, pages 15 through 21, what we are doing in the bill is that we are changing the thresholds on which income applies. So when you do the math, really the tax rate might slightly be going down, but we're actually taxing it on a higher income amount. So the amount of taxes paid are actually going up, not down. So I think that the— that is something definitely important to point out.

Again, this is to protect the small, small businesses. If we don't like the number 25, that's a conversation that we should have. But we shouldn't impose upon my very, very small businesses in my communities of Ketchikan and Wrangell and over on Prince of Wales that they are then forced to do this like the member from District 7 had said. I think this is a wonderful program, but we also need to make sure that we are going to protect those very small businesses which are vital to my community. I urge yes vote.

Are you ready for the question? The question being, shall Amendment No. 2 Pass the House? Members may proceed to vote.

Will the clerk please lock the roll? Does any member wish to change his or her vote? Will the clerk please announce the vote? 20 Yeas, 20 nays. With a vote of 20 yeas to 20 nays, Amendment No.

2 Has failed to pass. Madam Clerk. Repeat, please. Repeat, please.

Come back to order, Madam Clerk. Amendment number 3 by Representative Bynum, beginning page 3, line 31. Representative Bynum. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move Amendment 3.

There's an objection. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This amendment requires that an employee must have worked for an employer for at least 13 weeks or 91 days to be eligible to receive the benefit under the Paid Parental Leave program for that employer. Effectively, what this does is that means that if I hire an employee that's otherwise eligible, because there are eligibility requirements for prior, prior months of employment, that they have to actually work for me for at least 13 weeks and then they would be eligible for this program. I think that's a fair ask of an employer and an employee to have that ability that they can come on board, become part of my business, and then they would be eligible for this.

The objection has been removed. Not hearing additional objection. Is there an objection? Representative Stapp, do you wish to speak to your objection?

Um, can I have briefities, Mr. Briefities?

Will the House please come back to order.

Debating Amendment Number 3, Representative Stapp. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'll withdraw my objection. So the objection has been withdrawn. Not hearing additional Any additional objection?

Amendment number 3 has been adopted. Madam Clerk.

Amendment number 4 by Representative Colon, beginning page 2, lines 25 through 26. Representative Colon. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move Amendment 4. There's an objection.

Representative Colon. So Amendment 4 basically deletes foster care children, children placed in foster care, which might seem strange since I was a foster parent, There's some issues with that. I think eventually maybe we could come to that, but you can foster multiple children, and I think there need to be some guardrails. Also, foster parents get stipends, and even with childcare, the Department of Health have been paying their share of the childcare. They have a lot of supports, they're usually in Denali Kid Care.

They have a lot of supports already, and so I thought that might be problematic, problematic, especially because we've been talking about making it last in the capitalization of the fund. So I thought this might be something that maybe we need to deal with another time.

The objection has been removed. Not hearing additional objection, Amendment Number— do we have it up on the board? 4? 4? 4?

Amendment Number 4. We don't have it up on the board, but—.

What? Brief biddies.

Amendment number 4 has been adopted. Madam Clerk, amendment number 5 by Representative Colon, beginning page 1, line 1. Representative Klobuchar. I move amendment number 5. There's an objection.

Permission to read. Permission granted. All right, so amendment 5 is basically HB 161. And before you say this needs to be a bill, not an amendment, it is a bill. We did get a hearing on it.

But the biggest difference is that I reduced the number of employees from 50 to 20. 10. And so 161 addresses some issues that came up with Ballot Measure 1 that was passed in 2024. The measure increased minimum wage from $13, $14, and this year, and $15 next year. And it mandated paid sick leave for 50 employees or fewer.

You can accrue 40 year— or 40 hours, and more than 15 employees was 56 hours. It also said that you didn't really need any documentation for your absence until 3 consecutive days of missing work. Includes part-time, full-time. And the paid sick leave rolls over unless front-loaded. So there were some issues and got a lot of feedback from my businesses.

When the bill was first written, we picked up a legal memo because we know we can amend ballot measures, but it needs to be very careful. You can't take the heart of the ballot measure out. You can't repeal it for 2 years. And so the, the main issue that Legal said was that, that it was 50 employees, because about half the businesses are under 50 employees. And so this amendment reduces it down to 10.

These are our smallest businesses. These are our coffee shops and restaurants and gift shops. And there's been a lot of discussion about, you know, preserving small business. We've got a lot— they have a lot coming at them right now, especially new.

Small businesses. And so when you, when you're asking them to pay for all these benefits, it's not that they don't want to give benefits to their employees, because a good business person knows if you have good benefits, you compete for good people. And so if they can do it, if they can make the, the business keep running, they'll do it. But this statewide initiative was a— it was for all businesses, 15 and fewer and 15 above. The state is telling them what to do with paid sick leave.

So we know, we know paid sick leave, all the big guys are already offering that. It's not about that. It was trying to get people in smaller businesses to be, to get paid sick leave. But there's a problem. Part of it was the ballot measure didn't get any input from business, came from an outside group, and that was a problem.

'Cause I think that prob, we probably could have crafted something that would work for the employee and the employer, but they didn't have that input. And I think if we continue to burden small businesses, 10 employees or less, we're going to find that people are going to start closing their doors and people are going to lose their jobs, which we're already seeing. So just a reminder, so when 161 originally had its hearing, we got letters of support from the Fairbanks Chamber, the Anchorage Chamber, the State Chamber, which is the number one priority. For the State Chamber, the Ketchikan Chamber, Alaska Miners Association, the travel industry, Northern Industrial Training, Associated General Contractors of Alaska, and I'm sure a lot of us got a visit from the fish processors who are very concerned about the seasonal employee mandate because they, they need more flexibility. There's short periods of time they work and it was very, very expensive for the processors.

Now if I may just share a couple letters. The Alliance says members would not be able to implement their required policy without significant financial impact to their business, the need to reduce staff, and the need to reduce the other benefits offered. The travel industry says it would— 161 would allow smaller and seasonal businesses the flexibility to attract a strong workforce while ensuring businesses can operate and thrive in a healthy business environment. The Duck Inn in Soldotna, Alaska said, "All small local businesses are already struggling to find the balance between rising costs of labor and goods while still making a cheeseburger affordable to the public." We've got Ship Creek Lodge. This says, "The mandatory sick leave prevents us from affording to hire part-time employees, forces us to lay off staff for the winter." Prevents us from hiring employees under 18.

Prevents us from raising wages to a sustainable amount. Wrangle, Alaska. Small business in Wrangle, Alaska. With the changes to the minimum wage sick leave, I will not try to expand my business to include employees. It would be a break-even deal that is not worth the effort nor financial responsibility.

So I've got letters here, probably 30 of them. From all over the state, and it's all small businesses, very small. You know, the little gift shops that you guys go to, the little restaurants, the coffee shops, the kiosks. This is— they've clearly said this paid sick leave is going to put them under. There's no— they don't even delineate a new business.

So even a brand new business with one 2 employees has to comply. And actually mid-sized businesses that already have a paid sick leave have to change their accounting and everything to comply with the state. This is an unnecessary burden. It keeps the ballot measure intact. All it does is says those really small businesses, little fledgling businesses, we're going to give them time to grow before that mandate hits them.

One of the other things with the 161 that had been an issue was there was an option to employees to cash out their paid sick leave. But I looked up the regulations from Department of Labor. They're allowing that anyway. So there's no incentive to go to work sick and cash out. It just can't be mandated.

It's just an option. So that's a that's already been resolved in regulations. So I hope we can have a good debate and not throw our small businesses under the bus. Some of the conversations that I've had and some of the testimony was that employers wanted their employees to go to work sick. That's— I mean, come on.

If you've run a business, you know it's a numbers game. And so a lot of these, these small businesses, these letters that we have, they are trying to do the best they can with their employees. And I agree, if you want to compete with employees, you better address childcare, you better address paid sick leave, you better address paid parental leave. But when we do these big state mandates, you're just crushing businesses than allowing the market to just push them in that direction. So looking forward to the debate.

Representative Fields. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think it's very problematic to substantially gut a ballot initiative less than 2 years after it was passed by voters. I want to emphasize there were more than 100 Alaska small businesses involved with passing this ballot initiative. So there were way more businesses involved with passing the ballot initiative than have ever weighed in asking us to gut it.

Polling during the ballot initiative showed that sick leave was the primary motivator of voters. As you know, the minimum wage provision, you know, is a nice floor, but frankly doesn't affect a lot of workers. The sick leave was the major provision of that ballot initiative. I do want to note that this amendment before us does exempt businesses under 10 employees, but to me, the more harmful part of it is that Section 4 on page 5 exempts seasonal workers. So I guess I would ask, um, do we really need to exempt all the employees of massive multinational businesses like Holland America Princess?

You know, I have a fantastic business in my district, 49th State. They have almost 500 employees. They have a lot of seasonal employees. They're very successful. I'm a huge supporter of that business.

I don't think they need to be exempted from sick leave, and I don't think that we want sick people showing up to make burgers and serve drinks at the multiple restaurants owned by that business. I want to note, after the initiative passed, I went around my district and talked to small businesses, and it was really interesting because a lot of them told me, you know, Zach, we've— we have— we pay sick leave. These are businesses with under 10 employees, and they said, if you as the legislature go repeal this ballot initiative, you're putting me as a business that does the right thing at a competitive disadvantage to those businesses that don't provide sick leave. I urge my colleagues to support those businesses who are doing the right thing. Keep a level playing field.

When we have a tourism-dependent economy, it is not in our interest to push sick people to come to work when they're serving food, when they're doing hospitality. That's not the environment that we want to provide for tourists visiting our state. I strongly urge a no vote on this amendment. I would say this amendment is so sweeping that if this passed, on balance, this entire bill would become net negative for working people and I don't know at that point whether I would even want to proceed further with the bill. Thank you.

Representative Stapp. Oh, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm going to rise in strong support of this amendment to this bill. It's actually been my number one priority since I got back here this year to hopefully we could fix the ballot measure that passed last year or two years ago, Mr. Speaker. I'm going to have some, I think, fairly weighty disagreements to the member of Downtown Anchorage.

So when I, um, When I talk to my constituents, my small business owners, Mr. Speaker, after the ballot initiative passed, they said, hey, Will, what's up with this paid sick leave thing I gotta do? And then I asked them, I said, hey, did you vote to raise the minimum wage? And they all said, well, yeah, I already pay my employees more than $15 an hour, Mr. Speaker. So I would highly dispute the fact that most people who voted to pass this ballot initiative did so because they thought paid sick leave was the primary basis. Mr. Speaker, most people voted for the ballot initiative because $15 an hour is not a big wage in Alaska, and they thought people should get paid a fair wage.

Mr. Speaker, I support this amendment wholeheartedly for a lot of reasons. The main reason is actually Section 4 of the amendment, Mr. Speaker. That is the exemption to seasonal workers. Mr. Speaker, make— seasonal temp employees are typically not benefited employees, all right? They're typically not offered health insurance.

They're typically not offered benefits. They're typically not offered sick leave. And the reason is because there's a practical implication. Mr. Speaker, your district, it's a commercial fishing hub. The biggest challenge that the commercial fishing industry is having with this ballot initiative that would be fixed by Section 4 of this amendment is at the end of the season, half the workforce walks off the job and takes paid sick leave, Mr. Speaker.

So you have a short window of time in which you have a small construction season or a fishing season or a tourist season, and the employees know that, hey, they don't necessarily have to be sick to get paid to leave, and they leave their place of employment, Mr. Speaker. That is creating a workforce crisis at the end of the season that is going to progressively get worse and worse and worse for our fishing industry, for our tourist industry, for our construction industry, because.

Guess what, Mr. Speaker? People are people, and we have loopholes that individuals can craftily exploit, as we know from procedural motions on the House floor. People are entitled to do that, and they probably will, Mr. Speaker. I sat at the ATIA forum last year with the member from— co-chair from Anchorage, and the number one priority of the folks at the travel industry was getting this exemption to seasonal workers, Mr. Speaker. Number one priority of the Alaska State Chamber is getting this exemption for seasonal workers, Mr. Speaker.

Number one priority, construction industry. Number one priority of the fishing, the seafood processors. We've heard from them all this year, Mr. Speaker, is they said, hey guys, this provision is crushing our ability to run a successful business in Alaska because it has this adverse effect. Mr. Speaker, if you were to pass this amendment in the underlying bill, you would maintain the bulk of the paid sick leave provision. Mr. Speaker, paid sick leave is a good thing.

And to small businesses who say, well, you know, if you exempt them from this provision, they're going to be at a competitive disadvantage, guess what, Mr. Speaker? You can still offer your employees the employee benefit without the government mandate. Hey, that's like a novel concept, isn't it, Mr. Speaker? You can actually offer benefits without the legislature actually forcing you to do things. And you know what happens to companies, Mr. Speaker, who offer better benefits and better pay?

They retain people better. Okay, so you should adopt this amendment, Mr. Speaker, because it fixes unintended consequences of a bad initiative that are crushing Alaskan businesses, small and large alike, especially if they're seasonal. And ultimately, we want our folks to have a, have an effective summer construction season, effective fishing season, effective tourist season, and not to be burdened by regulations from government mandates. So I ask the members to vote yes. Representative Schraggi.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise in opposition to this amendment. I've already talked about the need to support workers and to support families, but I just wanted to quickly offer some anecdotal experiences that I've had. My wife is a CPA. She works with a number of businesses, small and midsize, in Anchorage.

And frankly, in many of those businesses, when this ballot initiative passed, expressed many of the concerns that we heard highlighted by the District Member 11. Member from District 11, excuse me. But despite those concerns, after they worked to establish the program, they found that it did not cost what they expected it to cost and that their workers were much happier. So I understand that there's a lot of concerns. The reality is the system is not that complicated to implement.

It is not expensive to implement. The bookkeeping is not that complicated. I understand when you change things, there's a lot of fear. Change is hard for folks. But I think in reality, on the ground, when you implement a system like this, you get better retention, healthier families and workers, and it's good for business.

It's good for the population. I'm going to oppose this amendment because it's really not that hard to implement. In my experience, both my own and through my wife, are that many of these businesses are able to implement this without the trouble that's been expressed today. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Representative Vance.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise in strong support of Amendment 4 because the The vast majority of businesses in my district fall under this amendment. The top employer in my community is the hospital. Hospital and the school. Every other business is a small business that this will impact.

We have fishing, tourism, healthcare, and government jobs in my community, and you're telling me we can't pass this I have strong opposition to using the word that this guts the ballot initiative. What it's doing is gutting the small businesses in my community. The seasonal jobs that keep tourism going is what provides for college students to have a job. They aren't concerned about having paid sick leave. They want a good paycheck so that they can squirrel that away to be able to have money to get them through college.

This, this is impacting all of the small town Alaska in a significant way. I don't have the businesses the size of the 49, you know, has more than 500 employees. It simply does not exist in my community. But what does is a whole lot of hardworking Alaskans that fall under having 10, under 10 employees, and a whole lot of them are seasonal. Because we have the highs and lows through summertime.

And this, this is what's going to keep them alive. We need to be listening to our business community right now. So many of them come to them and said, we need help. This one provision in Section 4 that exempts seasonal workers is significant because if these businesses can't have the flexibility to keep keep the workers. They can't employ more workers because they're going to be burdened with making sure that they have the paid sick leave.

And as the member from Kenai already said, when you're missing a person, that changes everything in a small business. We can't keep making excuses and ignoring that, saying, oh, it's not that big of a burden. Surely it's not as complicated. They just need a little help with accounting. That may be the case in those specific instances of those businesses that were communicated with.

But I tell you, in the, in the businesses and communication happening in my district is saying we need this exemption so that we can stay alive. This is what keeps our small communities going, are the dollars in the economy and our small towns going from business to business, making sure that we have an opportunity to have our young people be able to get good jobs so that, that they can make big plans for the future, Mr. Speaker. My 16-year-old has her first job this year. Do you think she's concerned about paid sick leave? She wants to make sure she can have a good paycheck to pay for the high price of gas right now and to save up for ground school to be a pilot.

I want her to do that. I want her to be able to have a job from a small business. This is the amendment that helps make that happen.

Rickities.

Please come back to order. Mr. Majority Leader, I call the question on Amendment Number 5.

There is an objection. Is the brief at ease?

Will the House please come back to order? I realize that we are missing a few members.

The objection to calling the question has been removed. Therefore, brings the motion before the body to vote on. But I'm still seeing a couple of members not here.

We have very fast sprinters in this caucus.

Question before the body: Is Shel Mevet number 5 passed the House? Members may proceed to vote.

Will the clerk please lock the roll? Does any member wish to change his or her vote? Will the clerk please announce the vote? 22 Yeas, 18 nays. With a vote of 22 yeas to 18 nays, Amendment No.

5 Has passed the body. Madam Clerk. Amendment number 6 by Representative Stapp, beginning page 4, line 26. Representative Stapp.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move Amendment 6. There's an objection. Okay, this is going to sound a little probably unhappy, Mr. Speaker. Amendment 6 basically deletes 8 to 12 weeks of paid parental leave and replaces that with 4 to 8 weeks.

So the reason I offer this amendment, Mr. Speaker, is structurally the paid parental leave section of the bill and the kind of the other ways that the, the money flows ultimately decapitalize the fund, and all of the money that's being collected from contributions will inevitably go back into just paying for UI. And the issue I have with the structure of the bill, Mr. Speaker, is That's like a bad way to set policy. You can't offer a benefit, which is what this paid parental leave would do. We offer benefits to all these employers for their employees, and we know based on our own modeling that there's not enough revenue being collected under this thing to sustain this in perpetuity. So at some point, somebody's gonna get rug pulled on their parental leave benefits because the current revenue structure doesn't actually pay for the benefit in a sustainable way.

So in order to fix that, you got to either increase the amount of money you're taking from employers to pay for it— employees to pay for it— or you got to reduce the amount of benefit offered. Those are like your two big levers to try to make this plan more sustainable, Mr. Speaker. And though it's unfortunate that you got to ratchet back the amount of paid parental leave time that you're going to do, it's already been ratcheted back in the Finance Committee. We reduced it from 28 weeks. In order to have this sustainable for the long run, you're going to have to ratchet it back even more, Mr. Speaker, and honestly, you'll probably have to increase the contributions to it to make it sustainable too.

So I offer the amendment to try to make the underlying paid parental leave a little bit more fiduciary sound because you just shouldn't be in a place where you're going to offer individuals benefits that you know are not sustainable and you either got to rug pull them later or you got to increase the tax contribution later. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Representative Fields. Uh, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I oppose the amendment.

The member's characterization that the benefits are not sustainable is simply inaccurate. This has been modeled extensively by Department of Labor actuaries for 2 years as it's gone through the committee process. I want to note here that we're talking about benefits for both mothers and fathers. The current benefit in the bill is between 8 and 12 weeks. That is extremely modest.

Short, actually. If this amendment was adopted, the benefit would be between 4 and 8 weeks. There are many mothers who can't even carry their own child after having a cesarean. Normal period in recovery from a cesarean section goes up to 6 weeks. So are we really going to implement a so-called paid parental leave program and not even give mothers enough time for them to carry their own baby?

I strongly oppose this amendment. Representative Hall. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I echo the comments from the member from downtown Anchorage. Additionally, when the— for lack of a better term— snapback language kicks in in the bill as it's currently crafted, the employer contributions, instead of going to step into the Paid Parental Leave program, do go back into UI to protect the solvency of the UI trust fund.

However, the employee contributions continue going into the paid parental leave fund. And based on the modeling that has been discussed thus far, it's at about the year 2040 is when you start to see a reduction in the capitalization of the paid parental leave program. And just like with many statutes and many of the policies that we pass in this body, we continually go back and we refine these policies to shore them up. Based on the environmental conditions that are changing at the time.

Additionally, the previous version of the bill, um, that one of the previous speakers mentioned did not have a range of 8 to 28 weeks. It was a range of 8 to 26 weeks. The bill before the body is a range of 8 to 12 weeks. The national average for paid leave of this nature is 12 weeks. That, and that is the recommendation that comes from the Disability Management Employer Coalition, also known as DMEC, which specializes in helping businesses administer leave programs.

So with that, I am a no vote. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Representative Ruffridge.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, I think it's interesting that we're talking about actuaries and solvency of the fund and all of those things. And, and we're making a lot of assumptions about that fund that are difficult to make. Uh, we're assuming actually that the fund is solvent based on the trajectory that it's on currently. However, not that long ago, that fund was actually decapitalized to a very significant degree, at which point we'd actually have a whole lot of issues, uh, with, uh, this bill.

If that were to happen. And so I think we do need to be very cautious about what we do and how we do it. Some of these things are better off maybe implemented incrementally. I, I think that that would be a wise approach, and, uh, every action that we take here is going to have an effect, again, with the underlying bill, on how employers are able to retain people. I think that there is a cost to this, and we don't really know what that cost is going to be.

If the fund starts to become insolvent, the only place to get dollars for that is to tax employers at a higher rate, and I think that that would be a bad decision. Thank you.

Representative Sadler. Yeah, Mr. Speaker, I support this amendment as well. You know, I have a heart for young families and believe we should support them. But you know, what happens if we pass a very generous benefit package here in the legislation we're contemplating here, and a young family decides in a year or two or three that, boy, they've done their finances and they've checked their budget, they can afford another baby. But then a couple months, the legislature meets and realizes that the overly generous benefits we've promised do not— you know, the money we have does not allow us to afford to pay those benefits and we make a decision necessary, uncomfortable, and appropriate to cut that back, that same young family may now find that their reliance on paid parental leave was unjustified, unfounded, and they find themselves in dire financial straits, and that's not something I wanna do.

You know, I don't wanna pull the rug out from under future generations of Alaska parents. Benefits cost money, and benefits are good, but they gotta be paid for somehow, and if we go draw from the well too much, the well can go dry. You know, we must be generous of heart, and I think we demonstrate by considering this bill we are, but we must be prudent with our pocketbook and our resources. I think this amendment reflects that balance, and so I think it's a good amendment. We should support it.

Representative Schwocke. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise in support of Amendment Number 6. I myself went back to work in less than 8 weeks after I had my son. I did because my supervisor asked me to come and assist, and I felt that I was needed, and I decided I would do that and do my job, and I was able to raise my son just fine doing that.

I heard a couple things here I want to address. Number one, that we can shore up the program later, and then number two, the UI fund will be insolvent at such a date. Mr. Speaker, this body has a history of creating legislation where funds become insolvent, and I hope that we do not repeat that again today.

In wrap-up, Representative Gray, before wrap-up. Thank you. Sorry, Mr. Speaker, I was just going to comment on the comments from the member from House District 24 stating that folks might be encouraged to have more children if the bill as it is stays the way it is, and if we pass this amendment that limits the amount that people might— oops, I shouldn't have had that kid because now these benefits that we're encouraging to have more, more children is gone. And so I think we should keep the bill as it is and encourage Alaskans to have more children. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Representative Tomaszewski. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise in support of this amendment. You know, the fund right now is little more overcapitalized than what they would normally want to keep in that fund. They want to keep about $500 million in that fund.

Well, it was just a few short years ago, Mr. Speaker, that that fund dipped down to almost $250 million. And so we don't know what's going to happen. We can't determine what the future is. We should have a fund that actually pays for itself as it goes along, and that's why I will be in support I'm in favor of this amendment.

Wrap up, Representative Stepp. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Um, so like, I, I didn't offer this amendment because I don't want people to have like longer paid parental leave, Mr. Speaker. The, the bill sponsor basically proved my point when she said the modeling starts to decapitalize the benefit in 2040. Mr. Speaker, like, we have a history so far this year of passing stuff that we have not been able to tell the voters how we're going to pay for, and now we're talking about starting a new program that our own modeling says, based on our current fund trajectory, will ultimately run out of money.

Mr. Speaker, I'm reducing the benefit in the amendment to avoid setting up a new program that isn't paid for in a sustainable way. So like, you can go the other way, Mr. Speaker. You can increase the employee or the contributions, whether it be employee, employer, to the program as a whole, and that would ultimately result in making the new program sustainable. But we can't be in the practice of setting up new programs that our own modeling tells us will ultimately fail, Mr. Speaker. That's bad policy.

We shouldn't do it. The member from downtown Anchorage talked about C-sections and for pregnant women. I agree with him. The range on the amendment, 4 to 8 weeks. Ideally, the department would give some sort of latitude there based on how long someone was out for that type of procedure.

That's typically how disability policies for pregnancy work on pregnancy disability. They give longer length of paid disability time depending on procedure. But again, Mr. Speaker, I'm not like doing this because I don't like paid parental leave. I got 3 kids, Mr. Speaker. I would love to have some paid parental leave.

I'm doing this amendment because like if you're gonna bring new programs online, you gotta make sure that they're actually gonna be funded in perpetuity. Otherwise you're just leaving it up to a future legislature either rug pull the benefit or tax somebody else later. And it's just bad policy. So I ask the members to just vote yes on the amendment. Thank you.

Are you ready for the question? The question being, shall Amendment No. 6 Pass the House? Members may proceed to vote.

Will the clerk please lock the roll? Does any member wish to change his or her vote? Will the clerk please announce the vote? 19 Yeas, 21 nays. By a vote of 19 yeas to 21 nays, Amendment No.

6 Is Failed to pass. Madam Clerk, amendment number 7 by Representative Stapp, beginning page 10, line 29. Representative Stapp. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move amendment 7.

I am not hearing an objection to amendment number 7. I'll object to say what it is, maybe.

Uh, there is an objection. Representative Stapp. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. All Amendment 7 does is the reporting requirements. It just says that legislature, the Speaker, and the Senate should get them too, because we don't always communicate that well between the different branches, Mr. Speaker.

And that's it. So I'll remove my own objection. Thanks.

Representative McCabe, do you object? Just wish to rescind action on Amendment 1. So I move to ask you to finish this, uh, Motion before the body.

Well, you lifted your mic as if you wanted to speak to the current amendment. So Amendment Number 7 has been adopted, given that the objections have been removed. Representative McCabe. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move and ask unanimous consent to rescind action on Amendment 1.

There is an objection. We'll take a quick second here to get the board configured.

Are you ready for the question? The question is, shall previous action on adopting Amendment Number 1 be rescinded? Members may proceed to vote. Will the clerk please lock the roll? Does any member wish to change his or her vote?

Please announce the vote. 19 Yeas, 21 nays. With a vote of 19 yeas, 21 nays, the motion to rescind previous action on Amendment Number 1 has failed to pass. Madam Clerk. Amendment Number 8 by Representative Stapp, beginning page 22, line 25.

Representative Stapp. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move Amendment 8. There's an objection. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Amendment 8, kind of similar to my Amendment 6, just kind of a different angle here, trying to make this a little more fiduciary sound. It gives the, uh, the flexibility to the department to reduce allowance for dependents to help maintain fund solvency in the event that capitalization starts to drop. Basically, it reduces the allowance for dependents to $24 a week for each dependent, with the total allowance for dependents paid to individuals not to exceed $72 dollars a week per dependent for unemployment. If that sounds complicated, Mr. Speaker, it's just a way of taking a lever and ratcheting that lever down to make the fund sustainable in the long term. Probably won't be that popular either, but I— we, uh, sometimes we just promise people things we can't deliver on, I guess.

So thank you, Mr. Speaker. Representative Fields. Uh, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I oppose this amendment. Again, extensive modeling by the department over 2 years of work on the bill shows that it is very sound.

Um, in referencing the actuarial soundness of the bill, I think it is important for members to understand that the Department of Labor has actuaries who are looking at the rate of unemployment insurance usage every year and the rate of incoming contributions. So if we are seeing the funds overcapitalization diminish, that is something the Department of Labor will monitor very closely. Any prospective diminishment of overcapitalization would be something that we would have ample opportunity to respond to. And then I want to look at why this amendment would be a bad way of preemptively maintaining overcapitalization of the fund. So both maximum weekly benefits in UI and the dependent benefit— dependents as in children— have not been increased in over a decade.

The current dependent benefit, in other words, for children is $24 per child per week. I mean, I would ask my colleagues.

Colleagues, just contemplate what a tiny benefit that is for a child. I looked— $24 doesn't even buy you a case of diapers, much less food. Um, you could not feed a child and put diapers on them if you bought the cheapest food available in the state of Alaska, or if you went out and you caught it yourself. So one of the important adjustments in this bill is to update the dependent benefit reflecting inflation, and I would urge members not to reverse that very important inflationary adjustment in the bill. Representative Ruffridge.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, uh, would like to rise in support of the amendment, but in actually quite a bit of disagreement with the comments that we just heard. I don't think that Amendment Number 8 seeks to reverse anything. I actually think it gives the department— says, uh, on line 2, the department may reduce That's, that's a very significant, uh, difference there, Mr. Speaker, than, uh, reversing the underlying, uh, component in Section 11 of the bill. This is saying that you give the department an option.

If the underlying bill has a, uh, a benefit that is to be expected and to be put forward in perpetuity, then you have to have some sort of levers within the department to make sure that if the fund is not solvent at some point, which we did hear in testimony that there is a possibility that that happens. Also, Mr. Speaker, we are again taking a great, um, I guess, chance that something does not need to use the UI benefit at some point between now and the future. So the question really for the maker of the amendment and for the maker of the underlying bill, uh, we hear over and over that the actuaries are sound, and I think that we're missing a key element here. They're sound unless And my question is, is what happens when the UI or this entire program becomes underfunded? I'd like to know the answer to that.

I think I know what it is, but I think it'd be helpful to hear that here on the floor today. Because if the actuaries say that they're sound, we should be able to say, well, what happens if the UI becomes underfunded? What happens if the parental leave program becomes underfunded? What do you do then? Well, Amendment Number 8 gives you an option for that.

It says, well, rather than take away the paid parental leave or adjust that on some sort of level, we might have to revert back to this dependency issue as a way to help retain some of the solvency of the fund. I think it's a good way to do it and keep the paid parental leave program intact. Thank you.

In wrap-up, Representative Staff. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just point the members to the end of the amendment. It says if the department determines that reducing the allowance for dependents will help maintain fund solvency. Mr. Speaker, again, the fundamental issue for the underlying bill is, though I really like the concept, our own modeling says ultimately these things that we're adding will go away.

Ultimately, right? So this amendment allows the department to have a lever where they can start to ratchet back some of the benefits in the event that the fund starts to be decapitalized, Mr. Speaker. And if you don't want to add any of that type of the things to the bill, I understand, Mr. Speaker, because they're, you know, they're diminishing the basically value benefits in the bill. But I would just ask members to think about, like, what are you going to tell future legislature to do? We passed this thing and now we got to either tax people more or reduce the benefits later.

It's just bad policy, Mr. Speaker. You should put the mechanics in the bill to actually allow for those things that are planned for, especially when we know that ultimately, um, you know, the state training employment surcharge and even the paid parental leave fund will be start to diminish their capitalization over a certain amount of time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Majority Leader. Speaker, I move and ask unanimous consent that the House set an amendment deadline for committee substitute for House Bill 193 Finance at 3:30 PM today.

There is a motion before the body to set an amendment deadline At 3:30, amendments delivered to the Chief Clerk's Office.

Are you ready for the question? Very brief.

House, please come back to order. Minority Leader Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to, um, I offer a friendly amendment to change that time to 4:30 PM. There's an objection to the amended deadline, which originally was 3:30 PM and now would extend it to 4:30 PM.

I think it's going to take us just a moment here to get the voting board to reflect that.

Are you ready for the question? The question is, shall the amendment deadline be amended to 4:30 PM today? Members may proceed to vote.

Clerk, please lock the roll. Does any member wish to change his or her vote? Will the clerk please announce the vote? 19 Yeas, 21 nays. By a vote of 19 yeas to 21 nays, motion to amend the amendment deadline has failed.

Briefies. Briefities.

Will the House please come back to order? Are you ready for the question? The question being, shall the amendment deadline be set at 3:30 PM today for House Bill 193? Members may Proceed to vote.

Will the clerk please lock the roll? Does any member wish to change his or her vote? Will the clerk please announce the vote? 20 Yeas, 19 nays. With a vote of 20 yeas to 19 nays, The amendment deadline will be set at 3:30 PM for House Bill 193.

Madam Clerk. Amendment number 8. Brevities.

Brevities.

Will the House please come back to order?

Are you ready for the question? The question before the body is Shell Amendment Number 8. Brief at ease.

House, please come back to order. Motion before the body is Shell Brief at ease.

Will the House please come back to order for the third time? The amendment before the body is Amendment No. 8. Members may proceed to vote.

Will the clerk please lock the roll? Does any member wish to change his or her vote? Will the clerk please announce the vote? 17 Yeas, 22 nays. By a vote of 17 yeas to 22 nays, Amendment Number 8 has failed to pass.

Madam Clerk. Amendment Number 9 by Representative Stapp, beginning page 24, line 31. Representative Stapp. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Move Amendment 9.

There's an objection. Brief at ease. Brief at ease.

Will the House please come back to order? We are under Amendment Number 9. Representative Rep. Stapp. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move Amendment 1 to Amendment 9.

Hearing no objection, Amendment 1 to Amendment 9 has been adopted. So amended number 9 before the body. Rep. Stapp. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yeah, Amendment 9 as amended basically just deleted the last 2 sections of the bill.

All this does now is push out some of the effective dates of the bill, which is fairly similar to the next amendment from the bill sponsor. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Representative Hall. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the speaker before me mentioned, it, it does push out the start date of the paid parental leave benefit, and I see that as a very friendly amendment.

Amendment number 10 actually suggests doing the same thing, and I appreciate the amendment to the amendment. Because in the original Amendment Number 9, the proposed changes that were removed have to do with ensuring that we have approval from the U.S. Department of Labor when it comes to the changes that we are making to UI in this bill. And additionally, the, the last part of the original Amendment Number 9 actually would have put out extended the start date of when the UI, the important UI updates in this bill would have taken effect. And so I appreciate the amendment to the amendment. I am in strong favor of Amendment Number 9, and I appreciate your indulgence, Mr. Speaker.

Is the objection been removed?

I remove the objection. We have the maker removing it. Any objections to his own amendment?

So Amendment Number 9, as amended, is adopted. Madam Clerk.

Amendment Number 10 by Representative Hall, beginning page 24, line 31. Mr. Speaker, I withdraw Amendment Number 10. Amendment Number 10 has been withdrawn. Madam Clerk. Amendment Number 11 by Representative Bynum, beginning page 3, line 27.

Representative Bynum.

Mr. Speaker, I move Amendment Number 11. There's no objection. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Permission to read. Permission granted.

Mr. Speaker, this amendment would increase the employee's eligibility threshold for paid parental leave benefits under this bill by replacing the bill's flat $2,500 wage requirement with a workforce attachment standard tied to Alaska's minimum wage. Under the amendment, an employee would need to earn wages during the base period equal to the Alaska minimum wage by— multiplied by 32 hours per week for 26 weeks, while still requiring the wage to be earned in at least 2 calendar quarters of the base period. The amendment preserves the bill's existing unemployment insurance style eligibility structure while requiring more sustained work force participation before benefits become available and allowing the threshold to automatically adjust as minimum wage adjusts over time. Mr. Speaker, what this does is if you go look in the bill, you'll see that the eligibility period just simply says that over a 26-week period, or in this case it says 2, 2 quarters, that an employee only needs to earn $2,500 to become eligible for this plan. Then that employee, through a period, will go work for an employer, be get hired for an employer, and they will be eligible for this paid leave plan under the employer's paid requirements.

So I potentially, Mr. Speaker, could be working over a full, full year, only work for 2 quarters and only earn $2,500 during those 2 quarters, and then go work for the new employer and be eligible under my new employer's pay contribution rates. Meaning I could barely be working, Mr. Speaker, work in very short period of time, become eligible for the program, go work for a new employer, and become eligible under the new employer's wage paid in proceeds from the program under the formulas established in the bill. The bill is using the workman's comp unemployment tables and the employer's pay rate into those tables to establish the benefit, not the employee's actual wages. So this is just aligning that employee to say you worked minimum wage job, you worked at least 32 hours a week for at least 2 quarters. Representative Fields.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have to speak in opposition to this amendment. First, it's I think bureaucratic, arguably unworkable. I would note that amendment, with Amendment 3, this body has already adopted an amendment saying that the employee has been working for that employer from which they're taking leave for at least 13 weeks. So we already have a standard where an employee has to have been working for an employer for a meaningful duration of time.

I wanna note that the amendment before us, which is apparently not written by Ledge Legal, also has a standard that the employee is working for an employer of 25 or more employees. So if we adopt this, then those smaller employers are going to pay into paid parental leave, but their employees will not get the benefit. For that reason alone, we should vote down this amendment. In addition to that, I don't think it's a wise idea to direct employers and the department to be monitoring this rather complicated calculation of working 32 hours per week for 26 weeks and these other conditions. Um, so this is excessively bureaucratic.

It's not written by ledge legal, and it carves out a giant chunk of the workforce that would pay into a benefit they cannot receive. For those reasons, I would vote no. Representative Hall. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In addition to the comments from the member from Downtown Anchorage, The paid parental leave program as written in HB 193 largely mirrors the way that the unemployment insurance trust fund in the system works, and that was intentional, and that was to streamline the administration of a new program.

And this amendment to me appears to, yes, add bureaucratic, bureaucratic potential chaos. And I think what we should be doing is ensuring that we are keeping things as simple as possible. The Department of Labor and Workforce Development already knows how to administer the unemployment insurance program, given that $2,500 of wages earned over 2 quarters. And I urge a no vote on this in order to simplify the process for the department. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

And wrap up. Representative Satter. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do rise to support this amendment, and I just have to smile because I've heard the criticism that this is excessive bureaucracy. This is one paragraph.

It's 8 lines. Mr. Speaker, we swim in bureaucracy. We breathe bureaucracy. We eat bureaucracy. We create new bureaucracy.

This one-page, one-paragraph bill is not excessive bureaucracy.

All right, in wrap-up, Representative Bynum. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The member made the comment that it, that it isn't drafted by legislative legal, and that is true, Mr. Speaker. However, the amendment does keep the full intent of that section, doesn't change that. It just changed the definition from $2,500 to a definition that applied minimum wage.

And I think that it's appropriate, Mr. Speaker, that we would apply in the criteria that the person is at least making minimum wage and they at least work 32 hours a week to be eligible.

Again, the eligibility in here when it talks about the 25 employees, Mr. Speaker, the amendment was turned in and drafted before Amendment 1 passed. So I would I'd like to have a brief at ease if I could talk to the clerk for a moment to find out if there's a conforming change that's appropriate. Brief at ease.

Will the House please come back to order.

Representative Bynum. Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. After consultation with the clerk, I appreciate her time calling alleged illegal. I'm going to, because of a passage of a prior amendment with a 13 work requirement, I'm going to withdraw Amendment Number 11. Amendment Number 11 has been withdrawn.

Madam Clerk, Amendment Number 12 by Representative Bynum, beginning page 4, line 26. Representative Bynum. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move Amendment Number 12. There's an objection.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Amendment Number 12 attempts to do what my friend from Fairbanks earlier tried to do by moving the lower threshold from 8 weeks to 6 weeks. But still retaining the 12 weeks of opportunity in the program. This will give the department a little bit more flexibility when they go to look at those actuarial tables, the funding of the— the capitalization of the fund in determining where they need to set these benefits. This is a new program, Mr. Speaker, and I think there should be some level of flexibility for us to be able to see how this program functions.

This does provide just a little bit more flexibility to the department without removing the upper end. So, uh, I look forward to any questions. Representative Fields. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I oppose this amendment.

This bill has been extensively modeled through multiple committees. I don't know why we would go through that process and then arbitrarily change what works on the floor. I would note that 8 to 12 weeks is extremely, extremely short parental leave already and do not support shortening it further. Representative Stapp.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise in support of the amendment. It is a far more generous version of the one I offered earlier. Um, in the event that the fund is fine on capitalization, Mr. Speaker, they're still going to get the full value. I assume the department would make that determination.

12 Weeks is 3 months. It is a lot of time, Mr. Speaker, to be off of work. I have 3 young children, you know, obviously, you know, I didn't take that much time off work, but my spouse certainly did. But I would just say like, look, you need to give the department tools in order for them to be able to make necessary adjustments in the mechanics of the bill, or you need to put the bill forward that you know is sustainable throughout the lifetime of the fund. So I'm gonna vote yes on this amendment.

In the event that everything works out with the extensive modeling, they'll stay at 12 weeks, Mr. Speaker, and they won't ever reduce benefit to 6. So thank you. Representative Schwanke. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise in support of this amendment.

It makes really good financial sense, good fiscal policy, and I, I would be remiss if I did not point out the irony here that we are spending a tremendous spent a tremendous amount of time talking about the actuaries and what makes sense for the capitalization of the UI fund, but there's been no mention of actuaries on what this underlying bill or this amendment would do to small businesses.

Representative Bynum, wrap-up. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am just simply trying to provide additional flexibility to the administration when we're developing this program. It was mentioned, Mr. Speaker, that there was a lot of modeling done on this, and that is true, Mr. Speaker. There was previous modeling done on this.

We significantly changed this bill in finance less than— I think it was less than a month ago. And so at that time when this bill significantly changed, we'd asked for updated information. The bill sponsor was very, very responsive to that. I appreciate that. But one of the things that we have not— that I've not had come to us yet.

It's not come to the Finance Committee that I'm aware of, is updated modeling on how the bill was changed. So the bill was changed, it was changed significantly, and we were asking from the department about updated data and modeling, looking at the fund capitalization, how was it going to respond to the changes in the bill. And we've not had that, Mr. Speaker. So what we're doing is, is we're depending upon this bill leaving this body and that work to be done outside of here. It was the primary reason why I, when this bill moved out of Finance, that I said that I didn't think it was ready.

I didn't say not to move it because I don't support the concept of this program. I think it's very valuable. It's very valuable to our working families and Alaskans, but we have to do our due diligence. We have to make sure we have all of the updated data information on a bill that significantly changed. Less than a month ago.

So I think this gives us more flexibility, ensures the safety of the program. I urge a yes vote. Are you ready for the question? The question being, shall Amendment No. 12 Pass the House?

Members may proceed to vote.

Will the clerk please lock the roll? Does any member wish to change his or her vote?

Will the clerk please announce the vote? 19 Yeas, 21 nays. The vote of 19 yeas to 21 nays. Amendment number 12 has failed to pass. Madam Clerk, are there additional amendments?

I have no further amendments, Mr. Speaker. Repeat, please.

Will the House please come back to order?

Madam Clerk.

I have no further amendments, Mr. Speaker. There are no further amendments, so I'll turn to the Majority Leader.

A little bit of drama is good. Mr. Speaker, I move and ask unanimous consent that the Finance Committee substitute for House Bill 193 be considered engrossed, advanced to third reading, and placed on final passage. Hearing no objections, so ordered. Madam Clerk, please read the title for the third and final time. Committee substitute for House Bill number 193, Finance, by the House Finance Committee, entitled an Act Establishing a Paid Parental Leave Program Relating to Employer Surcharges Relating to Employment Assistance.

And training program account relating to unemployment benefits, relating to the collection of title support, child support obligations, relating to employee unemployment tax credits, relating to employer contributions to unemployment, relating to the duties of the Department of Labor and Workforce Development, and providing for an effective date. Representative Hall.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Permission to read? Permission granted. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the opportunity to bring HB 193 regarding paid parental leave and updating unemployment insurance benefits before the body.

HB 193 does two things. It updates Alaska's unemployment insurance benefits and creates a modest paid parental leave program. The unemployment insurance system receives payroll tax contributions from employers and employees. These percentages have not changed since 2009, nor has the weekly benefit, which has led to the Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund becoming overcapitalized. This legislation brings much-needed updates to the state's unemployment benefits, including increasing weekly benefits, increasing benefits for, for dependents, and adding language to make these weekly benefits adjust annually for inflation.

This legislation also adjusts the the amount of contributions. Alongside increased monetary benefits for those receiving unemployment benefits, HB 193 also increases the share of contributions to the State Training and Employment Program and the Alaska Technical Vocational Education Program, more commonly known as STEP and TVEP. These two important workforce development programs enhance workforce skills, reduce unemployment, and help Alaskans rejoin the workforce. Paid parental leave serves the crucial purpose of giving parents the time to bond with their newborn child. By allowing families to take important time off following childbirth or adoption, parents and their children can attend follow-up doctor appointments, reduce the risk of rehospitalization for newborns and mothers, and provide economic security that reduces stress on families.

In 2020, 5 states had paid leave. Today, 6 years later, 14 states and the District of Columbia have adopted mandatory state paid leave systems. 9 States have adopted voluntary paid leave systems, and every year more states consider adopting these policies. To build a competitive workforce, Alaska must enact legislation to attract workers. Working-age Alaskans have been leaving our state for over a decade.

They move to states that offer more opportunities for young families. HB 193 is a first step towards recruiting and retaining young families by creating a paid parental leave program. The legislation allows the Department of Labor and Workforce Development to establish this important benefit using existing infrastructure created and maintained for the Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund program. It is funded by contributions from employers and employees without increasing contributions from either. A flowchart depicting the funding mechanics can be found on the last page of the handout that was distributed to members' desks.

These contributions will allow funds to support families during a critical time of family transition, allowing between 8 and 12 weeks of paid leave. Importantly, the department has the authority and flexibility to prioritize the UI fund and has done extensive modeling based on the available data. HB 193 seeks to ensure that families have the time and space to develop these bonds before re-entering the workforce by updating unemployment benefits, increasing funding for STEP and TVEP, and creating that modest paid parental leave program. HB 193 will help Alaska businesses recruit and retain young families. And Mr. Speaker, I want to note that there have been a number of compromises throughout the iterative policymaking process from version to version to version of this bill going through the House Labor and Commerce Committee and through the House Finance Committee and of course here on the floor.

And I want to say a previous version of this bill had up to 26 weeks of paid leave contemplated, and as a conservative measure, that was reduced down to between 8 and 12 weeks. We also reduced the weekly benefit in a previous version of this bill The weekly benefit was going to be $817 a week. That has now been reduced to $524 a week, and that applies for UI and for paid parental leave. By amendment earlier this, this morning, this afternoon, I don't know what day it is, we removed foster parents from being able to participate in this bill, and we also removed the small business provision. So, Mr. Speaker, a lot has gone into the work of this bill.

We are taking as conservative approach as we can, threading the fine needle between having a benefit that actually benefits families, working families, while also trying to preserve the long-term sustainability of this, of the fund. And as I said previously, and as we all know in this body, The public policymaking process is iterative and it changes based on environmental conditions. And so I will not be surprised if we take up similar legislation or we make tweaks to it as more data becomes available. So the department has taken a similarly conservative approach based on things that they've said in committee meetings and meetings that I've had with them where we— they are going to be taking a conservative approach because we don't know what uptake is going to be with this paid parental leave program. We should expect that the first.

First year that the program becomes available, the minimum leave that people should expect is 8 weeks.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the work of all the committee members on the House Labor and Commerce Committee. We had a robust amendment process and discussion last year, and I certainly appreciate all the work from all of the House Finance Committee members. They were—. The conversations were thoughtful and deliberate, and I'm extremely happy with the process. Dare I say, it's been fun, even today.

Lastly, I want to thank my former chief of staff Tristan Walsh for his work on the bill last year, my current chief of staff Joan Wilkerson for her work on the bill this year. It has been a tremendous LIFT with a number of folks in this body, and I want to extend my deepest appreciation for their support and input on this bill. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Representative Fields. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

This is the most important measure to reverse outmigration the legislature has taken up in years. I want to address 3 ways that this affects the workforce. We have extensively discussed paid parental leave. Both attracting and retaining, uh, working-age families. I won't go into that more.

One thing that we have not discussed very much at all through the amendment process is maximum weekly benefit. Alaska's maximum weekly benefit of $375 per week is less than half neighboring states. When you look at shortage of workers in the skilled trades, maximum weekly benefit that has lost a massive amount of value over the last 14 years is one of the drivers. In no state is unemployment insurance more important than Alaska because we have the most seasonal workforce in our construction, oil, and gas industries. When you think about a worker who's on surface transportation projects in the summer, they are laid off in the shoulder season for an indeterminate period of time until the ice road season is ready on the slope.

The worker doesn't control when companies can start laying the ice roads. That's why the maximum weekly benefit is important. Updating maximum weekly benefit ensures that construction, oil, and gas workers can make ends meet pay a mortgage, pay for their kids' food and diapers, and stay here in the state of Alaska. When we look at pipefitters, teamsters, operating engineers, this is a critically important bill to make sure that our pipeline companies and our construction companies can fill those very important jobs. Finally, this bill is a major step forward in state training and employment program funding.

It increases STEP training funding at a critical time for our state's resource development industry. Thank you to all the members who have participated in the process. Representative Galvin. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise in strong support of lighting up that screen green, and I cannot offer anything more than what you've heard from, uh, the sponsor of this particular bill around the details of how important it is for our workforce development.

But I do want to offer one other piece. As a mother of 4 children, as somebody who understands very well the brain science of children. This move is important for us. This is sending a very small but critical signal to families that that first bit of time with an adult is key. Their brain is growing the fastest at that time.

And we are now allowing potentially— it's very small, but we're allowing support to those especially vulnerable families who maybe are not making a whole lot of revenue on their own. This is a very important piece of that. We'll never be Norway. This—. Today we're not going to give 3-year salary to both parents so that they can stay with that child and give them the nurturing that they need.

But we are going to give this little bit, and I think that this is and could be a very big difference in terms of helping our young children be ready for kindergarten. So I strongly support this. Thank you very much. Representative Schwanke. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise in opposition to this bill today. I just, you know, it feels good, it sounds good, we want to do this, but this bill is not ready for law. We've heard in 2040 that we're going to have fund capitalization problems. We also heard that the fund is currently overcapitalized. So just the fact that we are starting so high pushes that date out a little bit further than we would if it wasn't overcapitalized right now.

Running a small business is really hard.

Most new businesses fail because expenses simply exceed revenue for far too long. Running a great business is even harder. Revenue growth year after year is really the goal. But retaining amazing staff really is what makes our small businesses successful. It's the heart of a great business.

When our businesses grow and they're successful and when we have the opportunity financially to offer paid time off. As business owners, we do that.

When we're successful, we have enough revenue coming in, we offer our employees flexibility. We do that.

When we have enough money, we offer our employees raises. When we have that money, we do that. What we're doing here is handing a competitive advantage to large businesses and corporations in our state, and we are making it more difficult for small businesses to succeed. This is not the right solution for Alaska. I will be voting no.

Representative Colon. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to start off just really, uh, thanking the representative from District 16. This is a lot of work. It's been a heavy lift.

She chose to pause it through the interim to work on it more. It's a creative solution, and I've been a big advocate to helping families, whether it's childcare or, or other things we can do so people can have families. And I think this helps. I remember going back to work after 3 weeks of having a child. Cried all the way there, cried all the way back.

My husband had to stay back. We were in a precarious situation. He had just gotten out of the Army. So I know how it feels to have to do that. And yeah, the benefits are somewhat low compared to other states.

Maybe it's not as long as other states, but I think this is a step in the right direction. I know a lot of people are viewing this as taxing small business. Your businesses are already paying the unemployment insurance. They're already paying it now. It actually goes down a little bit.

This is coming from the employee portion. So this is giving smaller businesses an opportunity to offer paid parental leave in a very creative way, in an overfunded account. And I just— I think it's a win-win all around. I know, especially with some of the amendments, there are some issues that I think that could be fixed. That could be better, but not enough for me to hold it up.

So I really, really appreciate the representative from District 16 putting this forward. It's very complicated, and I'm a yes vote today. Representative Ruffridge.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, I appreciate the speaker before me and her comments. I think they're very similar to what I'm about to say. I also want to thank the member from District 16 and her work on this bill and being willing to take amendments on the floor. I think that's not always an easy thing to do with a complicated bill.

I appreciate the comments from the member from District 17, Downtown Anchorage, for recognizing the difficulty of seasonal workforce and the large amount of seasonal workforce that we have in the state of Alaska, and for the amendment that was adopted that really takes some of those seasonal workforce issues from House Bill 161 and puts them inside of here to deal with that paid sick leave exemption requirement. I think that's going to do a lot for this upcoming season, particularly in seasons in the future as well. I think there are some issues in the underlying bill, or in the bill that we're voting on now, that do need to be addressed. I think there is some issue with the long-term viability of the program and something that we need to take a look at. I agree with my colleague, uh, from the hillside when, uh, she says that it's, uh, going to be something that we have to take a look at, but it's not a reason to hold up the bill today.

And I appreciate the work that's gone into it. I think we stand strongly with small businesses and with families of Alaska when we move something forward that is good for them, but I think a little bit work to do in the future. Thank you. Representative Eischeid. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

First of all, I wanted to thank the member from District 16. This is an incredible, important step in building Alaska. It's an investment. The paid parental leave part invests in families. I so often hear us say, you know, we want to put families first.

We value families. The paid parental leave part actually invests.

Invest in families and there's going to be a good return from that. The other thing to invest in is our workers. And I'm really pleased with the increases to the unemployment insurance benefit. That's been frozen since 2009. I don't know how many of us have talked to folks that have been recently unemployed and gone through that current benefit that's been frozen for 17 years.

It's not sustainable. We want to make sure that not only do we invest in families and their children, we want to invest into the workers, keep them here, and build a better Alaska. So I will be voting yes on this, and I appreciate the sponsor of this bill. Thank you. Representative Allard.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Um, I, I do appreciate the sponsor of this Bill bringing it forward, I think it might help some, but my district spoke to me loud and clear. I received numerous emails, text messages, and phone calls, and I'm here to represent all of Alaska, but I'm also here to zero in on my community itself. So, Mr. Speaker, the combination of the new mandatory payroll tax, a sweeping expansion of the unemployment benefits, an automatic CPI escalator that removes future costs from legislative control. Also excessive employer mandates with significant litigation exposure.

And a program that launches before actuarial review raises serious concerns about fiscal responsibility. I'd also like to say the free market principles and the government—. Representative Ballard, I would ask you to keep with the custom, and that is to ask permission to read. It's a conversation. Okay, I asked the body.

Reviewing my notes. Well, you're reading, so please continue. Okay. Uh, generally want to support parental leave and would be better served pushing for a voluntary framework, tax incentives for employers who after leave or offer leave, or a much narrower and fiscally bounded program rather than this broad expansion of state payroll tax and benefit apparatus. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Representative Bynum. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm going to rise in support of this legislation. I know that we had a lot of work to do on this, and I want to thank the member from West Anchorage, 16, for all the work that she put into this. It came to the Finance Committee, and when it came to us, there was a massive change in the bill.

The bill sponsor worked many hours and then also worked with the Finance Committee members to make sure that our concerns were being addressed. Time was very short. We got through amendments. We— it feels like, Mr. Speaker, it's been 3 months, but it's really, I think, only been about 2 and a half weeks since we went through this process. May 5th was we taking up amendments.

So I, I just want to say that tremendous work was put into this, and I think it's an opportunity to provide a tremendous benefit to Alaskan workers. I believe that with the delay that we have in the delay effective date for this actually going into law, there's going to be an opportunity for the department and administration and us to look at this and see if there's little changes we need to make before this thing goes live. We made some changes on the floor here today. Did phenomenal committee work with 40 members. I can't believe we actually got through it as quick as we did.

So just appreciate everybody's hard work on this. I think there'll be opportunity to see if there's any shortcomings and what those are. But we did do some really good work here on the floor and we made the bill better and we protected Alaska small businesses through some of the amendments that we put in here. It still provides a tremendous benefit to employees. Look forward to seeing where this goes into the future.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Representative Prox.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have some reservations about this bill. I don't like mandates. And— but on the other hand, we do need— we have crisis in childcare and a crisis here and a crisis there. And a lot of it has to do with getting parents and children off to a better start.

And this is one way that we can do this. There's some other bills that are in the works for fixing these sort of things. This might be an interesting way to reduce the state cost of childcare, reduce the problems of children not being cared for. And interestingly enough, that's one of the primary concerns that people choose to abort a baby. Financial considerations.

So it'll be interesting to see how this happens. I guess I'm willing to take that risk. And thank you for everybody that really worked on this bill on the floor and in the committees. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Representative Johnson.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, I am going to be a yes vote on this bill, and I'm not going to I guess beat around the bush is going to be a little bit hard. I didn't love Amendment Number 1, and there's some other things I did not so much, but I do want to say how much I appreciated the member from District 11 looking for a spot to put her amendment into, and definitely the chamber's number one priority, and just so many people throughout the state that said that end of year where they they had employees that would just leave their jobs because they knew they had 2 weeks of mandatory sick leave and they were having a tough time getting, keeping that staffing up at the end of the year. So I really appreciate that. So I know, like I said, this is a sandwich.

We have to eat some of those and these, I guess it's a liverwurst sandwich. So I'll be voting yes. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I think we are finally at wrap-up comments. Representative Hall.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the comments from the body this afternoon. I wanted to make clear a couple of things. One, this is not a new tax. There are no new taxes in this, and there is no increase in any tax.

Also, the inflationary adjustments that are written into the bill for the Department of Labor to implement do not— they do not adjust based on CPI. They adjust based on the average taxable wage.

I appreciate the comments from the member from District 1 about pushing off the start date of the benefit to beginning in 2023. I think that is a, a smart move for us to make as a body so that the fund has time to capitalize. And lastly, I cannot stress the importance of creating a paid parental leave program for Alaskans. It is a massive step in the right direction and a tremendous opportunity for working families in Alaska. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I appreciate a yes vote.

Thank you. Are you ready for the question? The question being, shall committee substitute for House Bill 193 Finance amended pass the House? Members may proceed to vote.

Will the clerk please lock the roll? Does any member wish to change his or her vote? Will the clerk please announce the vote? 36 Yeas, 4 nays. The vote of 36 yeas to 4 nays, House Bill 193 has passed the body.

Mr. Majority Leader. Mr. Speaker, I move and ask unanimous consent that the roll call vote on the passage of the bill be considered the roll call vote on the effective date clause. Hearing no objection, the effective date clause has been adopted. Madam Clerk.

Committee substitute for Senate Bill number 140— excuse me, 104, Finance, by the Senate Finance Committee, entitled An Act Relating to the Transfer of a Title on the Death of the Owner Relating to the Transferability of Common Interest Community Ownership Interests and Providing for an Effective Date. The Transportation Committee considered the bill attached, one previously published fiscal note, signing the report do pass. Representatives G. Nelson, St. Clair, Mena, and co-chairs Carrick and Eischeid No recommendation, Stutes and McCabe. The Finance Committee also considered the bill, attached one previously published fiscal note. Signing the report do pass: Representatives Jimmy, Galvin, Hannon, Bynum, and co-chairs Schragi, Josephson, and Foster.

There are no House committee substitutes. Madam Clerk, are there any amendments? Amendment number 1 will not be offered. Brief at ease. Brief at ease.

Will the House please come back to order.

Under amendments to Senate Bill 104, Madam Clerk. Amendment number 2 by Representative Stapp, beginning page 5, following line 7. Representative Stapp. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move Amendment Number 2.

There's an objection. Okay, Mr. Speaker, bear with me here. Okay, so it is a very rare occasion, but sometimes, and I'm sure this is not lost upon you, Mr. Speaker, you read a story about some individual who actually is accidentally declared dead. Um, this amendment would say, hey, in the event that someone was mistakenly declared dead and they were in fact not dead at a later date, they could actually apply to get their stuff back. So when I read this bill, I thought that, okay, transfer our death on title, we want to absolutely do that.

But what happens if, you know, there's less than a 1% chance that they're not actually dead.

And you transferred the title of their stuff, and they might want to get it back, Mr. Speaker. So all this amendment does is add one little provision that says, um, uh, that that would be allowed. Because I know if I died, or rather I was declared dead accidentally, I would want to get my stuff back. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Under debate on Amendment Number 2.

Mr. Majority Leader. Yes, Mr. Speaker, a question for the maker of the amendment. I think we want to be careful that if the person who is presumed to be fed and later found to be alive, if they were intentionally intending to drop off the grid or for legal reasons did try to fake their death or produce a circumstance which would result in a legal presumption of death from the medical examiner's office, which is quite a process they have to go through, and a person pretty much has to be pretty committed to arriving at the result unless they're literally stranded somewhere and are later able to get back to civilization. In other words, if there is a If there's actually a problem legally with that person knowingly and willingly deciding to allow themselves to go into this status where they were legally presumed dead, then I think this amendment could be a problem if you're just allowing that person to use that circumstance and then later decide they want their stuff back.

That could be a problem. I would let the maker of the amendment address that situation. Representative Ballard. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. True story.

So I used to work in the Alaska Social Security Administration, and the news anchorman from Alaska, he was super popular and he just retired maybe last year. If anybody remembers who he is, he actually came into our office. Remember, he's live on the news every night. He was declared dead. So we had to revive him.

And you know what? It took almost a year to do that, and he didn't even know he was dead. He literally had to bring in a videotape. This is a news anchorman on TV all the time with videos. He literally had to produce a videotape to the Social Security Administration here in Alaska to say he was alive.

He literally had to sit on there and say, I'm alive, I am not dead. And even though he was on camera every single night So I would support this amendment. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Representative Tomaszewski.

Well, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm going to rise in support of this amendment, and I guess I may even name this amendment. I guess it'd be the Lazarus Amendment. But Mr. Speaker, I can see a situation where maybe someone was lost, maybe someone was declared dead, they were never found, maybe they were in a coma. Coma, something could happen and this amendment to this piece of legislation could actually become very helpful.

And so for that, Mr. Speaker, I will be a yes vote on this amendment. Thank you. And wrap up, Representative Staff. Uh, yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Um, the Majority Leader poses kind of an interesting question.

What if, in, in the event that someone was willfully faking their own death and violating the law in order to magically reappear? And my amendment would allow them to get their boat or their vehicle back. Um, I would— I, I, you know, I, I operate kind of on a do no harm principle, uh, Mr. Speaker, where I, I think like I'm just looking for situations in which somebody, you know, like the member from Anchorage had said, uh, was inadvertently declared dead. I kind of feel like if you're doing it intentionally for some sort of criminality, that you probably have other problems than getting your car or your boat back. I'm just saying, in that case, I just wouldn't want someone to be able to take the title of a piece of property I have, especially like a boat that was kind of expensive, and then celebrate how great it was for me to not actually be dead, and then tell me I can't get my boat back.

That's all. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

ទំទំ ទំទំ ប្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រ ទំទំ ទំទំ ប្រាន្រាន្រាន្រាន្រាន្រាន្រាន្រាន្រាន្រាន្រាន្រាន្រាន្រាន្រាន្រាន្រាន្រាន្រាន្រាន្រាន្រាន្រាន្រាន្រ ប្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រ ស្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រ ស្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រ ស្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រុង្រ

Will the House please come to order?

We left off considering Amendment Number 2 to Senate Bill 104, and I believe we now have the amendment to the amendment fully distributed. Representative Stapp, I think you were the author of the amendment. Uh, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will withdraw Amendment 2 Amendment 2 is— has been withdrawn.

This brings us to Amendment Number 3. Representative Stapp. Uh, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will not be offering Amendment 3 or Amendment 4. Madam Clerk, are there additional amendments?

I have no further amendments, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Majority Leader.

Excellent. Mr. Speaker, I— with the House, please come back to order. With apologies, Mr. Majority Leader.

Yes, Mr. Speaker, I move and ask unanimous consent that committee substitute for Senate Bill 104 Finance be considered engrossed, advanced to third reading, and placed on final passage. Brief ease. Brief ease.

The House, please come back to order. I do not hear an objection to moving the bill to third reading. Madam Clerk, committee substitute for Senate Bill Number 104, financed by the Senate Finance.

Committee entitled an act relating to the transfer of a title on the death of the owner relating to the transferability of common interest community ownership interest and providing for an effective date. Representative Nelson. Uh, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Um, SB 104 continues the work of the Uniform Real Property Transfer on Death Act. Once again, it was a piece of legislation that was passed in this body in the 20th legislature, and essentially what it does is it extends the transfer on death deed concept, which is already established to boats and vehicles and some manufactured home units that are licensed by the DMV.

Uh, it would lower the cost of probate. It's, uh, something that allows for, uh, an owner to name the beneficiary before passing and makes the transfer of those properties, uh, more seamless in times of grief. And it's a bipartisan bill with Tremendous support. So I urge members to vote yes. Any debate before the body?

I do not see any. I presume there's no wrap-up comments. Are you ready for the question? The question being, shall Committee Substitute for Senate Bill 104 Finance pass the House? Members may proceed to vote.

Will the clerk please lock the roll? Does any member wish to change his or her vote? Will the clerk please announce the vote? 40 Yeas, 0 nays. Mr. Majority— with a vote of 40 yeas and 0 nays— getting ahead of myself— Senate Bill 104 has passed the House.

Mr. Majority Leader. Mr. Speaker, I move and ask unanimous consent that the roll call vote on the passage of the bill be considered the roll call vote on the effective date clause. Hearing no objection, effective date clause has been adopted. Madam Clerk, please read the next item on today's calendar.

Committee substitute for Senate Bill 178, Finance, by the Senate Finance Committee, entitled an Act Relating to Early Intervention Services for Certain Children Relating to Optional Services Under the Medical Assistance Program and Providing for an Effective Date. The Health and Social Services Committee considered the bill attached to previously published fiscal notes. Signing the report, do pass Representatives Ruffridge, Mears, Prox, Fields, Gray, and Chair Mena.

I have no House committee substitutes. Madam Clerk, are there any amendments? I have no amendments, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Majority Leader.

Mr. Speaker, I move and ask unanimous consent that committee substitute for Senate Bill 178, Finance, be considered engrossed, advanced to third reading, and placed on final passage. There is an objection. This bill be held to the next day's calendar. Madam Clerk.

Senate Bill Number 181 by the Senate Rules Committee by request—. No, a brief at ease.

Will the House please come back to order. Senate Bill 181 will be rolled to the next day's calendar. Madam Clerk.

Committee substitute for Senate Bill Number 200, Resources, amended by the Senate Resources Committee, entitled An Act Relating to Municipal Assessments of Farm or Agricultural Land and Providing for an Effective Date. The Community and Regional Affairs Committee considered the bill, recommends it be replaced with House Committee Substitute for Committee Substitute for Senate Bill Number 200, Community and Regional Affairs, attached 1 previous— 1 new zero fiscal note. Signing the report, do pass, Representatives Hall, Holland. Gene Nelson co-chairs Hemmschulte and Mears. No recommendation.

Prox amend. St. Clair, there is one House committee substitute. Mr. Majority Leader. Mr. Speaker, I move and ask unanimous consent that the House Community and Regional Affairs substitute for committee substitute for Senate Bill 200 Resources amended be adopted in lieu of the original bill.

Briefcase. Briefcase.

Will the House please come to order. We have before the body Senate Bill 200, which is in second reading. Madam Clerk, are there any amendments?

Brief at ease.

Will the House please come back to order? There was not an objection to adopting the Community Regional Affairs Committee Substitute.

Not hearing any additional objection. Madam Clerk, are there any amendments? Amendment number 1 by Representative Vance, beginning page 1, line 1. Representative Vance. I move amendment number 1.

There's an objection. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This amendment does 2 things. This, well, one is that it's about agriculture cooperatives. We have a few of them who are highly effective in the state, but they run into some difficulties, some challenges.

And they, during our farm week, they expressed that to me. And so this amendment does two things. One, it expands the ability for cooperatives to get loans through the agriculture, the RLF, the Agriculture Revolving Loan Fund. They don't have access to that right now. And as cooperatives, they would really like to be able, the ability to access the great loans that we have in that program and do more together as a cooperative.

And strength in numbers is how our small farmers have been successful, whether it's peonies or through, you know, farm stands, so farmers markets. So that's the first thing that it does. The second thing is that it adds an exemption to the workers' compensation coverage requirements for the cooperatives. Most of them already have the workman's comp in as their individual farm, but they're also required to have it as a cooperative, and that is becoming burdensome. So this just says as a cooperative they are exempted from that and streamlines helping these small businesses.

And this, this just lets these cooperatives continue to focus on what they do best, and helps grow ag in, in one small step to help the small businesses. And so I ask for your support.

Under debate on Amendment Number 1, Representative Mears. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I believe this is things that we had talked about during our food security task force. The topic is vaguely familiar. I don't recall that there's a bill on this. As we've experienced today when we're dealing with insurance and workers' compensation, it's a complex issue. I don't know that I have the confidence that the content of the amendment is in a spot where we can support it here on today without further vetting.

In wrap-up, the amendment sponsor can get to what work has been done. If it's been through other committees and I've just missed the fact that this is going through the legislature, I would really appreciate that. Thank you. Representative Moore.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm gonna stand and rise in reluctant opposition to this amendment. I do have a bill that does this very thing. I'm probably not gonna move anywhere this session here, but we can work on it next year, and I'm sure that the sponsor of this bill will also be interested in working on that as well. At ease.

At ease.

Will the House please come back to order. Under debate on Amendment Number 1 to Senate Bill 200.

Is there additional discussion? If not, in wrap-up, Representative Vance. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I did introduce this as a bill, House Bill 355. And did the bill hearing request and never received a hearing.

So I know that all of us here want to help our small agriculture cooperatives. They did come to me asking for this, and my district happens to be— a couple years ago was considered one of the fastest growing ag districts in the nation. I know that a lot of people don't think of us in Lower Peninsula as, as being big in agriculture. However, we have a lot of peony farmers, potato farmers, We have Homer Farmers Market, is one of the hottest in the state, and encourage you all, all of you to come down, especially midsummer, to take advantage of that. But this is, this is just a common sense thing to help lower the cost for these agriculture cooperatives, and so I encourage your support.

Are you ready for the question? The question being, shall Amendment Number 1 pass the House? Members may proceed to vote.

The clerk, please lock the roll. Does any member wish to change his or her vote? Representative Allard, from a yay to a nay. Representative Stutes. From a nay to a yay.

Will the clerk please announce the vote? 16 Yeas, 24 nays. The vote is 16 yeas to 24 nays. Amendment number 1 has failed to pass. Madam Clerk.

Amendment number 2 by Representative Carrick, beginning page 1, line 1. Representative Carrick. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move amendment number 2.

There is an objection.

Okay, thank you, Mr. Speaker. So Amendment Number 2, I first want to thank the bill sponsor in the other body from the Kenai Peninsula for bringing the underlying legislation forward. And after consultation with that sponsor, I'm bringing forward Amendment Number 2, which is a targeted common-sense update to Alaska law governing borough service areas. This policy change has been vetted in two committees this year in the House and is designed to address real-world challenges preventing local governments from efficiently delivering essential services, particularly here related to road maintenance to residents who need them. Just for a tiny bit of background, under current statute, changes to service areas such as annexation or boundary adjustments often require multiple layers of voter approval, even in situations where the change is administrative, necessary for public safety, or or is clearly supported by the affected community.

And this amendment addresses the fact that while voter input is critical, these requirements create unintended barriers that leave some Alaskans without access to basic services. This amendment applies to second-class boroughs in the state of Alaska. There are 5 of those. I will note that they are Kenai, Ketchikan, the Fairbanks Borough, Matsu, and Kodiak. And of those, the most Largely impacted by the provision of this bill is Fairbanks, which has 103 road service areas out of a total of about 150 in the state.

So very importantly, Mr. Speaker, Amendment 2 preserves voter approval as the default rule for any major change to service areas, but it also provides for prospective flexibility for service areas created after July 1, 2026, ensuring that future growth is not constrained by outdated statutory requirements while avoiding disruption to existing service areas. Again, this is something that is supported by Alaska Municipal League, the Mat-Su Borough, the Fairbanks North Star Borough, and has not received opposition from the affected boroughs. And I really thank again the member from the other body for bringing the underlying bill forward and ask for your support. Thank you. I remove my objection.

The objection has been removed. Hearing no further objection, Amendment Number 2 has been adopted.

Brief deez.

Will the House please come back to order?

Amendment number 2 has just been adopted. Madam Clerk. Amendment number 3 will not be offered. Amendment number 4 by Representative Johnson, beginning page 1, line 1. Representative Johnson.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Amendment number 4 will not be offered. Amendment number 4 will not be offered. Madam Clerk. Amendment number 5 by Representative Colon, beginning page 2, line 26.

Move Amendment Number 5. Amendment Number 5. Representative Duong. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This amendment basically takes a section back to the Senate version.

In Community Regional Affairs, these paragraphs were removed and the word horses was removed. This is a version that passed the Senate. When you do this, when you re— when you take this out, you do not include horses as livestock. But if you look at the bill on page 3, they have the list of livestock in the current form of the bill. It's cattle, hogs, sheep, goats, chicken, turkeys, and pigeons.

So I think if pigeons can be considered livestock, Certainly horses could be considered livestock. The purpose of the bill, well, it has a lot to do with how farmland is assessed, but it really— the mission of the bill is to increase food production and farms in Alaska. Then people ask, well, what has horses got to do with increasing food production? I can tell you, they produce a lot of manure, and our Hillside Farms give a lot of manure to community gardens and make things grow. Other uses of the horses, we have equine therapy for kids, disabled kids.

There's a lot of things that happen on the hillside that have to do with food production and other services. And so this amendment just reverts it back to what passed the Senate and includes horses in the list of livestock.

Representative Fields. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. With the adoption of Amendment 2, I just want to look to the member carrying the bill and see if this amendment would still be compliant with single subject. Representative Moore. Thank you.

It is now a single subject, and this will now be working with municipal regulations. So this is a very friendly amendment. We love the horses, and we hope you vote yes.

Representative Mears.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Um, in House Community and Regional Affairs, um, we had rolled back a little bit from what passed the other body to just items that were really focused on food security, and then the committee contemplated what other uses would be supportive of agriculture. So one of the changes was a definition of products and not just income. So the version that passed the Senate, one of the things that my understanding is would allow that the boarding of horses would be something that would, would be available for an agricultural land use reduced property tax.

We can go, we can keep going further on things that are not direct food security, but where do we draw the line? We can keep going and having home gardens and anything that is associated with what you would buy at a feed store. And, you know, like everything that you could possibly do that you could support the agriculture industry by having something that you buy in a feed store. But you got to draw the line. So, where the committee gave back from food security was including floriculture and flowers because there's a certain amount of land clearing and intensity in those operations that supports the larger agriculture industry.

I certainly understand horse manure and compost. I can sit down with folks and talk about my history with that professionally.

But what this amendment effectively does, I think, goes beyond food security and gets into, gets into an area that frankly, folks with more privilege have the opportunity to take advantage of. And I certainly understand that there's plenty of folks with horses that will argue about their, their wealth and ability to do things because they have horses, but it's a little further than, um, that I want to go, and I think that we should go effectively. That would allow folks with larger acreage and, and these opportunities with horses to have some property tax breaks that folks that don't have that. And I understand this is probably more of an Anchorage type issue, but when I look very specifically there, I see that disparity and it's not somewhere I want to go. So I do not support this amendment.

I think the work that we did in House Community and Regional Affairs is fair and is supportive of food security and doesn't go very far beyond that. Thank you.

Representative Stapp.

You know, Mr. Speaker, I'm going to rise in support of the amendment. I did have rather lengthy explanation, but I'm just going to say rather than what's good for the goose is good for the gander, what's good for the horse is good for the bill. Mr. Speaker, please vote yes. Representative Vance.

I rise in support of this.

I come from a long line of farmers. My husband comes from a long line of farmers. You know, I, I, I just must take offense to the idea that having horses is somehow like creating some kind of disparity in income inequality and that people who have horses are more privileged.

Are they awesome? Yes. Like, I wish I had a horse, but I can tell you farmers, farmers love their horses and need them obviously for manure. I think it's part of, it's, it's just inherently a part of, of far— of farm life. And if you are wanting to use natural means of fertilizer instead of harsh chemicals, manure is amazing for that.

Horses provide a lot of agriculture use, and people are wanting to go back to traditional means. And who are we to question that? Typically, they aren't people who are going to be be raising high-class equestrians, you know, in Alaska. These are hardworking Alaskans who are looking for some relief on their farm. And I think if the bill sponsor sees this as a friendly amendment, I think we should honor that, as well as the farmers who work so hard and cut a little bit from their income by having horses to increase their quality of life.

Representative Sinclair. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And you had a litany of mics you could have chosen from over here. I appreciate it. I support this bill, and we heard it in Community and Regional Affairs, and this was a point of contention with me, and I'm going to go a little bit different angle.

Let's go—. Let's look at horses as your tractor. With high prices of gas, maybe you have to go back and use an implement with, with a horse, a mule, etc. It is a tool in the toolbox, and I'm sure that if you're a farmer, you can get some type of tax break on a new tractor or tractor implements. The horse is another, another form of horsepower.

Thank you.

All right, let's move a couple of horses closer to the front. Representative Bynum. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just wanted to rise briefly. I'd heard a member on the floor.

Associate horses with wealth. I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, I did not grow up wealthy. Everybody that lived around me were not wealthy, and we lived around horses. My wife and I just went to the fair this past, past summer for the first time, Mr. Speaker, and was really excited to go and see all the livestock. And I was really surprised to hear that we don't consider, or that we're not wanting to consider, horses as part of livestock because When I went to the fair, I saw a lot of horses as part of that.

And when I did go look at those horses and all the other livestock, which was great because the fair here is fantastic out there by Palmer, I didn't associate those horses with extreme wealth. So if somebody can point me to the nearest racetrack, my friend behind me would probably be very excited about that. But I don't associate horses with wealth at all. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Representative Sadler.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don't want to pile on, but I'm going to anyway. The member who raised the objection to Amendment 5 on the grounds that it would benefit people who have horses because they are people of means, I think, has it a little bit backwards. Anybody with any association with horses knows while they are sometimes, sometimes awesome, they are expensive as all get out. The quickest way to not be rich is to keep horses.

Now, the people that keep pigeons, they're the real aristocracy, so we should be gouging them as much as we can. Good amendment.

Representative Prox.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise in favor of this amendment, and I guess I kind of take offense at the insinuation that it's somebody of privilege. And this does apply outside of Anchorage. I know there are quite a few horse barns in Fairbanks and other people that— I don't have a horse, but other people that I know, am associated with, use— they use those horses for many good purposes, for teaching, you know, 4-H, other programs, therapeutic horses, etc. And then the other is that you might be raising hay for cattle or some other reason, or dogs, or I don't know what.

But the more that you— the more markets you have, the more likely your agricultural production is going to be. So if we're going to go down the road of giving exemptions for any particular use, go all the way and just make as many as we can. So I think in this case, adding horses is a very good idea. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Representative Elam.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise in support. I think that the, the equality of justice for horses is needed, you know, if we're gonna— so this bill originated in my district. We have a lot of horses and mules, ponies. They've got a lot of livestock all around the Kenai Peninsula.

And, you know, we don't segregate the types of animal— animals we have on the farms and on the areas there. And so to not include horses seems like a little bit of a reach. So I stand for justice in the horses.

All right, Representative Hannon.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am in no way disputing that horses aren't livestock. My question comes to the maker of the amendment and an understanding of the bill that I'm struggling with right now at this time of night and reading it for the first time. And that is, it appears the bill is to give some tax relief on assessments by, by being an agricultural property. And so my question to the maker of the amendment is, by simply having the livestock, does that automatically make you eligible for an assessment reduction and a tax benefit, because my fear would be that there are some people who are going to be in jurisdictions that may choose to now, where they are not regulating the livestock you keep, say, if we have to give you this lower tax because you have a pig or a goat or a cow and say a horse, We may zone them out of your right to have them.

My community, we don't have a lot of ag land, but we do have a lot of zoning and debates over how many chickens, and it is one rooster that you can have, that everybody knows about. But the concern is if you are doing more than one rooster, you might be zoned out. And so I— I don't want this to hurt agriculture lands, but I don't have a complete understanding of the underlying bill of the tax advantage. And so wanting to know if just listing as livestock automatically gives the tax advantage of a lower infest, uh, assessment mandated by the state into areas where they may have zoning that they've now kind of ignored. You've got livestock, but we're not giving you a tax break, so we let you have chickens and goats and a horse.

Representative Himschult. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Sitka is literally a one-horse town, and I just want to invite the members to consider— and I'm probably stating the obvious here— but if we include horses, then what we are saying is every other taxpayer in the community has to pick up the burden of what the horse owners are not paying. So that's just something to think about as you consider the amendment. In Sitka, it's not going to make a huge difference, but I'm going to be thinking about that.

Thank you.

Representative Nelson. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise today with some experience, especially on smaller plots of land for agricultural use, with my prior knowledge, knowing how expensive larger tractors can be, especially for ease of use and quality of life, horses definitely are still a staple in many agricultural areas. So including this in the underlying bill with Amendment Number 5, I applaud the author of it because it is— it should truly be added. So in closing, let's just— let's stop horsing around and press the green button.

Thank Thank you. Representative McCabe. Thanks, Mr. Speaker. I've never seen a cattle ranch or a dairy farm, and most farms, without horses. I'm sorry, tractors work, four-wheelers work, helicopters work, but at the end of the day, most cattle ranchers, most people that are running cattle, um, or even dairy cows, have horses.

Representative Gray. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wasn't going to speak, but if they have all of those other animals, then we don't really need to classify the horse because they would already be getting the agricultural— they'd already—. It already—. The bill would already apply.

Thank you.

Were you seeking a brief at ease, Representative Moore? Yes, I'm just rise to answer a question from the representative from downtown Juneau. The answer is no. You have to have $2,500 worth of farm product sales shown on your taxes.

The amendment changes that. Briefities. Sorry, briefities.

Will the House please come to order.

At this time, I'm rolling the rest of today's calendar to the next day's calendar. Madam Clerk, please read the next item before us. I believe we completed consideration of the daily calendar. This takes us to unfinished business.

Mr. Majority Leader, when you are ready. Yes, Mr. Speaker, I move and ask unanimous consent that the members go into the limbo file to take up House Bill 216. The member from District 9 will explain the changes made by the other body.

Representative Polland. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Permission to read, please. Permission granted. Great.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As a reminder, House Bill 216 provides a narrow, limited authorization for the Alaska Railroad Corporation to transfer approximately 84.8 acres of land to the city of Whittier. The other body made one minor change to this bill. In Section 1, Subsection C, on the top of page 3, the railroad is now authorized to accept a land— a transfer of land of equivalent value in return for the parcels being conveyed to the city, or any combination of land and cash equivalent to the fair market value of the land. This addition, in keeping with the spirit of the bill— is keeping with the spirit of the bill.

It's always been my intent that this language be led by the parties doing the hard work of negotiating a deal, the Alaska Railroad and the city of Whittier. The change made in the other body offers both parties wider latitude while still protecting the state's interest by ensuring that the railroad is fully compensated. Both the railroad and the city support this addition. With the other body's addition, Mr. Speaker, the bill remains a narrow procedural authorization. It does no more and no less than is required under Title 42 to allow a land transfer to proceed.

And still, despite its narrow scope, it allows for an acquisition that could be transformational to the City of Whittier. I urge you in joining me in voting yes for concurrence. Thank you.

Are you ready for the question? Ready. Oh, Rob.

Brief at ease.

Come back to order. Mr. Majority Leader. Yeah, Mr. Speaker, um, I rise to a conflict of interest as I do serve as a consultant to the City of Whittier, so I ask to be excused from the concurrence vote. There's an objection.

Representative Copp, you'll be required to Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move that the House concur in the Senate amendments to House Bill 216, thus adopting Senate committee substitute for House Bill 216, Community and Regional Affairs, and recommend the members vote yes. Are you ready for the question? The question being, shall the House concur in the Senate changes to House Bill 216, thus adopting Senate committee substitute for House Bill 216, Community and Regional Affairs. Members may proceed to vote.

Will the clerk please lock the roll? Does any member wish to change his or her vote? Will the clerk please announce the vote? 40 Yeas, 0 nays. With a vote of 40 yeas to 0 nays, the House has concurred with the Senate changes to House Bill 216.

Mr. Majority Leader. Mr. Speaker, I move and ask unanimous consent that the roll call vote on the passage of the bill be considered a roll call vote on the effective date clause. Hearing no objection, the effective date clause has been adopted. Mr.

Majority Leader. Mr. Speaker, I move and ask unanimous consent that the members go into limbo file to take up House Bill 36.

Member from District 20 will explain the changes made by the other body. Objection. There is an objection to taking up House Bill 36. Representative Johnson, did you wish— 3 please. 3 Please.

Will the House please come back to order. Mr. Majority Leader. Yes, Mr. Speaker, I withdraw the previous motion to take House Bill 36 out of the limbo file, as that will be taken up tomorrow. Mr.

Majority Leader. Mr. Speaker, I move and ask unanimous consent of the members going to limbo file to take up House Bill 10. The member from District 35 will explain the changes made by the other body. Representative Kerig. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The change in the other body was just to update the effective date to go to 2027. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Majority Leader. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House concur in the Senate amendments to House Bill 10, amended effective date added, thus adopting Senate committee substitute for House Bill 10 Finance, and recommend the members vote yes.

Are you ready for the question? The question being, shall the House concur with the Senate changes to House Bill 10? Members may proceed to vote. Will the clerk please lock the roll? Does any member wish to change his or her vote?

Will the clerk please announce the vote? 26 Yeas, 14 nays. With a vote of 26 yeas to 14 nays, the House has concurred with the changes to House Bill 10.

Effective date clause.

Are you ready for the question? Shall the effective date clause be approved? Members may proceed to vote.

Will the clerk please lock the roll? Does any member wish to change his or her vote? Representative Hannan, from a nay to a yay.

Yes. Representative Tomaszewski, from a yay to a nay.

Will the clerk please announce the vote? 37 Ayes, 3 nays. With a vote of 37 ayes to 3 nays, the effective date clause has been approved. Mr. Majority Leader.

Mr. Speaker, I move and ask unanimous consent that the members go into the limbo file to take up House Bill 184. The member from District 3 will explain the changes made by the other body.

Representative Story. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This change has to do with House Bill 184 expanding ADA's statutory purpose to include financing and facilitating financing for the construction of new workforce housing facilities. The changes made in the other body were that to go from workforce housing, the definition from 5 dwelling units or more to 3 dwelling units or more. It also extends the current municipal property tax exemption for certain ADA assets by repealing the sunset provision from prior law.

This maintains the status quo for affected assets including the Red Dog Mine, Port, and Ketchikan Shipyard. I recommend members vote yes. Mr. Majority Leader. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House concur in the Senate amendments to committee substitute for House Bill 184, Community and Regional Affairs, thus adopting Senate committee substitute for committee substitute for House Bill 184, Finance, and recommend the members vote yes.

Question before the body is: shall the House concur with the changes to House Bill 184? Members may proceed to vote.

Will the clerk please lock the roll? Does any member wish to change his or her vote? I'm sorry, who was that? Representative Costello from yay to nay.

Will the clerk please lock the roll?

I think we got that backwards.

Will the clerk please announce the vote? 22 Yeas, 18 nays. With a vote of 22 yeas to 18 nays, the House has concurred with the changes to House Bill 184. Mr. Majority Leader.

Mr. Speaker, I move the effective date clause. Are you ready for the question? The question being, shall the effective date clause be adopted? Members may proceed to vote.

The clerk, please lock the roll. Does any member wish to change his or her vote? Will the clerk please announce the vote? 39 Yeas, 1 nay. With a vote of 39 yeas to 1 nay, the effective date clause has been adopted.

Mr. Majority Leader. Mr. Speaker, I move and ask unanimous consent that Senate Concurrent Resolution 24, the title change resolution for House Bill 184, be taken up as a special order of business.

Are you ready for the question? The question being, shall Senate Concurrent Resolution 24 be adopted? The House members may proceed to vote.

Will the clerk please lock the roll?

Does any member wish to change his or her vote? Clerk, please announce the vote. 36 Yeas, 4 nays. By a vote of 36 yeas to 4 nays, SCR 24 has been adopted. Mr.

Majority Leader. Mr. Speaker, I move and ask unanimous consent that the members go into the limbo file to take up House Bill 314. The member from District 33 will explain the changes made by the other body. Representative Prox.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The House Bill 314 was one that renewed the Engineers, Architects, and Surveyors Board and then added registered interior designers. And the change in the Senate reverts to the original House version by re-adding the land surveyor seat from 1 to 2 and removing 1 engineer from 5 to 4. Includes conditions on which engineering seat will dissolve by attrition based on termination dates. And I ask for you to press the green button.

Thank you. Mr. Majority Leader. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House concur in the Senate amendments to House Bill 314 amended, thus adopting House Bill 314 amended Senate, and recommend the members vote yes. Representative Bynum.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for allowing me to comment on these changes. I strongly object to the changes that the Senate had made on this bill.

We on this floor had amended this bill to change the compo— the composition of the engineering board— or, I'm sorry, the board— to restore 5 engineers. They have changed this to go back to 4. 4. I think this creates a disproportionate representation on the board of the other disciplines and is harmful to the board overall. I will not be supporting a concurrence on this bill.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Are you ready for the question? The question being, shall the House concur with the changes by the other body to House Bill 314 as amended in the Senate? Members may proceed to vote.

The clerk, please lock the roll. Does any member wish to change his or her vote? Will the clerk please announce the vote? 29.

Yays, 11 nays. By a vote of 29 yeas to 11 nays, the House has concurred with the changes to House Bill 314. Mr. Majority Leader. Mr. Speaker, I move and ask unanimous consent that the roll call vote on the passage of the bill be considered the roll call vote on the effective date clause.

Hearing no objection, the effective date clause is adopted.

Mr. Majority Leader, are we—. I have— Mr. Speaker, I have no excused absences to read at this time. Free for ease. Free for ease.

Will the House please come back to order after consulting Representative Johnson.

One moment, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The other day I served notice of reconsideration, so I would like to reconsider my vote. On Senate Bill 214. Senate Bill 214 is the capital budget.

Are you ready for the question?

Brief ease. Brief at ease.

Will the House please come back to order. Rep. McCabe, you were seeking the floor.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Permission to read? Permission granted. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday we passed a capital budget.

And today on reconsideration, we have one opportunity to look at that vote again in the light of another day. I'm asking members to take that opportunity. I'm not asking this body to kill the capital budget. Alaska needs a capital budget. Communities need projects, courthouses, addiction treatment facilities, at-risk youth centers, roads, ports, schools, and deferred maintenance on public.

Buildings, they all matter, Mr. Speaker. Those are the kinds of capital investments this process is supposed to prioritize. But what we have in front of us is drifting away from that purpose. What I'm asking is simple: vote no on reconsideration. Send this bill to conference.

Let this legislature do the work that should have been done before this budget ever reached the floor. Because right now, this is not a capital budget Alaskans are going to recognize as focused on core infrastructure. It's one we are going to spend the next year, a campaign year, trying to explain to our constituents. Look at what is actually in this bill. There's a $5.2 million appropriation for a closed membership union training trust by name.

No competition, no statewide grant process, no opportunity for another Alaskan organization, another training center, another workforce group to even apply. This was not requested by the governor. This was added by us. We earmarked it directly into the budget. I've already gotten several phone calls about this, Mr. Speaker.

$5.2 Million of taxpayer dollars directed to a single named organization without an open process, without competitive review, and without an equal opportunity for other Alaskans to bring forward better ideas. That is not what a capital budget is supposed to be. A capital budget is supposed to fund capital projects, courthouse additions, addiction rehab centers, at-risk youth facilities, and core public infrastructure that serves all Alaskans, not $5.2 million directed to a union training facility with a very small number of students enrolled. And to access that program, an Alaskan first has to work hundreds of hours under a local union contract before they can even participate. Every taxpayer now funds it.

Only a narrow group benefits from it. That alone should give this body pause. And it does not stop there. It's not just one line item. It's part of a broader pattern in this budget.

Look at the Department of Commerce section. The governor requested roughly $22 million. The legislature increased that to roughly $116 million, more than 5 times the governor's original request. And where did most of that increase go? To named recipient grants.

Millions to private associations, millions to union-affiliated training trusts, millions to seafood marketing groups to spend overseas, money to economic development districts, money to nonprofits and trade organizations inserted after the governor's budget was already submitted. No competitive grant process, no statewide evaluation, no open opportunity for other Alaskans to better— with better proposals to compete. That's not how a capital budget is supposed to function. At some point, we stopped focusing on public infrastructure and started writing checks to specific pre-selected organizations. And while that was happening, let's look at what got cut.

The governor requested more than $26 million for statewide deferred maintenance. That's roofs, heating systems, public safety facilities, roads, and buildings owned by the people of Alaska. This budget reduced that to roughly $2 million, a reduction of more than 90%. Think about that contrast, Mr. Speaker. We found millions for named private entities and closed membership training facilities, but we could not find the money to maintain the public infrastructure every Alaska— Alaskan relies on every day.

That's not a minor budgeting choice. That's a reversal of priorities. And then there's the West Zoo. The legislature stripped out tens of millions in federal authorization tied to that project, federal dollars that cost the state of Alaska nothing because we kept the match and we kept the money. We just redirected it somewhere else.

We had to claw part of that authority back through amendment, through amendment process, just to partially correct the direction this bill was going. So federal investment in long-term access to the infrastructure becomes controversial, but state-funded earmarks for private organizations move forward without the same scrutiny. The same funding sources, including ADA receipts instead of spending from dividends, are being used in this bill for both workforce training programs and transportation infrastructure decisions. This is a borderline unconstitutional abuse of state-owned corporation money, and it's fully embraced, yet spending federal dollars is constrained. Why would we to do that.

I understand the final days of— how the final days of session work, and I understand members are voting late at night, working through hundreds of pages and dozens upon dozens of line items under pressure and exhaustion. I'm not here to attack anyone for that, but that is exactly why reconsideration exists. Reconsideration exists so this body can take a second look when the dust settles and ask a very simple question: Did we actually get this right? A no vote today does not kill the bill, it just simply sends it to conference committee. That is what these mis— that is where these misplaced appropriations can be resolved.

That is where priorities can be reset. That's where deferred maintenance can be restored. That's where these named recipient earmarks can receive the scrutiny they should have had before reaching this floor. Conference committees exist to fix flawed budgets. That is their purpose.

We use them all the time. So today I'm asking members for something straightforward. Have the courage to take a second look. Have the courage to say this can be better. Because if this legislation— if this legislature cannot even reconsider, on reconsideration, remove a $5.2 million earmark for a closed membership training trust servicing 18 students while cutting statewide public building maintenance by over 90% on the very same pages, then we have already answered a larger question.

We have already answered who this process is really working for, and it ain't Alaskans.

Vote no on reconsideration. Send this budget to conference. Do this the right way. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Are you ready for the question?

Representative Schrag. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just— that was a really nice speech. I'd like to clarify one very critical detail for folks. This is third reading, final passage.

Voting no would kill this bill. It would not send it to conference. So just to be very clear, this is third reading and final passage on a Senate bill that's in the House. This has nothing to do with conference committee here. That would be if the other body were to reject our changes made to the capital budget.

So I just want members to be very clear on that. There are a lot of other things that were misstated there and that were incorrect. I'm not going to waste the body's time trying to correct all those tonight, but I did want folks to be very clear that if you kill the bill here, you kill the bill. It does not go— it does not go to conference. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Are you ready for the question? The question being, shall House Committee Substitute for Committee Substitute for Senate Bill 214 Finance amended House pass the body? Members may proceed to vote.

Will the clerk please lock the roll? Does any member wish to change his or her vote? Will the clerk please announce the vote? 24 Yeas, 16 nays. By a vote of 24 yeas to 16 nays, Senate Bill 214 has passed the body upon reconsideration.

Mr. Majority Leader.

Mr. Speaker, I move and ask unanimous consent that the House stand in adjournment until Sunday, May 17th. Mr. Majority Leader, we have an effective effective date clause. Oh, sorry. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I withdraw that motion. Mr. Speaker, I move the effective date clause.

The question before the body is, shall the effective date clause be adopted? Members may proceed to vote. Will the clerk please lock the roll? Does any member wish to change his or vote? Will the clerk please announce the vote?

39 Yeas, 1 nay. By a vote of 39 yeas to 1 nay, the effective date clause has been adopted. Mr. Majority Leader. Mr. Speaker, I move and ask unanimous consent that the House stand in adjournment until Sunday, May 17th at 11 AM.

There being no objection, House will stand adjourned until Sunday, May 17th at 11 AM.