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Alaska Gov. Walker 'Pretty Darn Sure' He'll Call Special Session

Lawmakers have already exceeded the voter-approved 90-day limit on legislative sessions, but the governor wants them to stay in Juneau to keep working to address the state's multibillion-dollar budget gap.

As the Legislature trudged on past the voter approved 90-day session into the constitutional 121-day session, Gov. Bill Walker said he wants them to stay in Juneau and keep working to address the state’s multibillion-dollar fiscal gap.

In an interview Monday, Walker said he doesn’t want to see a repeat of last year, when the Legislature took  a long break from the session in Juneau before reconvening for a very long special session in Anchorage.

Nearly every big-ticket item on Walker’s list to address the $4.1 billion hole in the state’s budget remained unfinished as of Monday. Legislators worked well into Monday morning to pass dozens of personal bills to clear the slate and focus attention on the remaining budget bills.

Included in are a scale back of oil tax credits, a reworking of the Alaska Permanent Fund that would reduce dividends and use the remainder of annual investment earnings to fund government, a broad-based tax and the budgets.

Zach Patton -- Executive Editor. Zach joined GOVERNING as a staff writer in 2004. He received the 2011 Jesse H. Neal Award for Outstanding Journalism
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