The state Legislature’s 2014 session is headed toward its required April 20 adjournment. As of today, the Senate has passed the operating budget back to the House. Next stop is the conference committee. The Senate Finance Committee has also released its first draft of a capital budget with appropriations to finish the partly-built University of Alaska Anchorage engineering building, to fund more work on the billion-dollar Knik Arm bridge, and to add funds, but not complete, the partly-built engineering building at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the extension of the Alaska Railroad to Port MacKenzie on Knik Arm, in upper Cook Inlet.

The first version of a state capital budget, Senate Bill 119, surfaced in the Senate April 7 and totals $542.3 million in state general funds, up from $454.7 million proposed by Gov. Sean Parnell. A second version with a few projects added, most notably a funding plan for a new University of Alaska Fairbanks power and heat plant, is expected to be released by the Senate Finance committee April 9. The House is expected to make some additions to the capital budget once it passes the Senate but typically there are informal House-Senate consultations as the capital budget is developed and many priorities of House members are already in SB 119.

The first version of the Senate capital budget would appropriate $45.6 million to complete a partly-built engineering building on the University of Alaska Anchorage campus and $10 million for more work on another partly-built engineering building at the university’s Fairbanks campus.

The bill would appropriate $11 million for continued work on an extension of the Alaska Railroad to Port MacKenzie in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough and $55 million for the proposed Knik Arm bridge in Anchorage.

Also, $44.9 million in state general funds would be appropriated to build and modernize schools in rural Alaska, continuing a commitment the Legislature has made in recent years.

(Read more in our next Alaska Legislative Digest/Alaska Economic Report edition, coming April 12).