Gov. Mike Dunleavy says he will roll out a new plan to stabilize Alaska’s tumultuous state finances in the coming weeks ahead of next month’s legislative session. The upcoming session provides Dunleavy his last chance to address an issue that has vexed his seven years in office.

“(The) next three, four, five years are going to be tough,” Dunleavy told reporters Tuesday ahead of his annual holiday open house. “We’re going to have to make some tough decisions, and that’s why we will roll out, in a fiscal plan, solutions for the next five years.”

The state’s fiscal issues are structural. Since oil prices collapsed in the mid-2010s, Alaska has spent more money than it has taken in despite years of aggressive cost-cutting and a 2018 move to tap Permanent Fund earnings to fund state services.

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