newsminer.com

Teams of Gov. Palin’s staff are going around the building meeting with lawmakers to explain the governor’s approach to the supplemental budget. If you’ll remember, lawmakers approved the budget bill with a long list of projects Palin vetoed from the capital budget last year.

People fully expected that Palin would veto some of the projects a second time, and she did. She also left some in. And she created a third option -- “Move.” These were projects, presumably, that Palin was OK with funding in this year’s capital budget and just didn’t want in the supplemental budget, which generally covers unexpected costs that have come up since the last budget cycle.

Some are scoffing at the idea of “moving” projects because it’s not really an option under the state’s constitution or otherwise -- it’s basically a handy term for a veto plus an offer to add the projects to the capital budget.

But Sen. Gary Wilken of Fairbanks called it a reasonable approach. He said he’s never heard of anyone doing it, but added, “We’ve never done capital in the supplemental, either.” (That’s not exactly true, but not to this extent.)