By SUZANNE DOWNING
March 24, 2026 – The Alaska House Finance Committee discussed a proposed budget structure Thursday that would move available revenue into the Statutory Budget Reserve while still providing not one cent for a Permanent Fund dividend.
During the March 24 meeting, committee members confirmed that the working draft budget (SB 263) contains no dividend appropriation, even as funds are being deposited into state savings.
Co-Chair Andy Josephson explained the approach, telling members they would be depositing available funds into the reserve, and adding that there is no appropriation for a Permanent Fund dividend in this version.
The discussion centered on a budget maneuver that transfers available revenue into the Statutory Budget Reserve, then draws from that account to support state spending. That fund can be accessed with a simple majority. Because the dividend must be explicitly appropriated, leaving it out of the budget effectively sets the payout at zero.
Rep. Will Stapp criticized the approach, saying the body would be moving money to savings while paying zero PFD, and arguing the plan prioritizes government spending over the dividend.
Rep. Jeremy Bynum questioned why the committee would put money into the reserve account without even having the full detailed budget in front of them.
“It makes me question why we would be doing some of these maneuvers … Specifically one of the major elements, whether it is fully funded or not, that we have in statute, is the Permanent Fund dividend.”
Legislative Finance staff confirmed the structure during the meeting, explaining that funds are transferred to the statutory budget reserve and then appropriated for operations, and that no dividend is included in the committee substitute.
A policy choice facing lawmakers this session is whether to allocate available revenue to government spending, to government savings, or to the Permanent Fund dividend, which is the people’s share of oil royalties.
Under current law, the dividend requires a direct appropriation from the Legislature. Without one, no payment is made, regardless of available funds. At this point, the House Democrat-led majority has zeroed out the PFD, with 56 days left to go in the legislative session.
2 thoughts on “House Finance Dems are moving money into savings fund, while leaving Permanent Fund dividend at zero”
If someone could explain what we are saving FOR – I would be interested. However, the GOAL to be achieved by saving has never been much defined or explained. Instead, Alaska has tended to save money for the purpose of saving money. OTOH, it might be good to prevent the permanently-elected plutocrats in the Legislature from giving it all to their buddies, favorite NGOs or for meaningless projects.
I’ll try to explain the savings issue: The Permanent Fund is the ultimate savings account – the corpus of the fund cannot be spent without a change to the Alaska Constitution. So its only function is to GROW to generate Earnings that can then be spent on our most important needs as a State government of the People. Other savings accounts (the CBRF) are a reserve in case of emergencies or natural disasters. The Legislature also has a Statuary Budget Reserve (the SBRF) that is just an accounting gimmick where money sloshes around until it is appropriated with a simple majority vote. The General Fund is the main State account where all money must flow in and out.
The bottom line is that there may not be enough or very little available money to fund the Dividend after the Operating and Capital Budgets are funded UNLESS the price of oil bails us out again.