Speaking to the Alaska Legislature Wednesday night, Gov. Bill Walker referenced the words of the director of the Legislative Finance Division and called the state’s current budget trouble the “gravest fiscal crisis in state history.”
“Mr. Teal was right” when he used those words, Walker said.
“Better days will come, but until then, we must make difficult adjustments,” he said.
Walker said the Legislature has already cut the state’s budget to levels last reached in 2007. He used his address, the annual speech to the Legislature, to call for new revenue to close the deficit.
“We can’t continue to cut the budget and expect to improve the situation,” he said.
Walker’s draft budget, now in the hands of the Legislature, calls for spending some of the investment earnings of the Alaska Permanent Fund to reduce (but not entirely eliminate) the deficit.