JUNEAU -- An attempt by Republican House members to target the jobs of specific Walker administration employees, including a former Democratic state senator, has been abandoned by the full Legislature, despite its strong Republican majority.

A House committee specified some employees by their specific Position Control Numbers -- including singling out a deputy commissioner of the Department of Labor and Workforce Development, former Sen. Joe Thomas, D-Fairbanks -- and tried to cut their jobs.

Rep. Tammie Wilson, R-North Pole, a member of the powerful House Finance Committee, chaired the department's budget subcommittee and targeted the positions. She acknowledged Wednesday that she'd specified the individual PCN for Thomas' job, but said it wasn't anything personal and that with two deputy commissioners the department was "top heavy."

"We just picked one; my staff picked the position, I didn't know which one it was," Wilson said.

That just happened to be Thomas' position, she said. Also specified was a legislative liaison job in the department held by Zack Fields, a former Democratic Party spokesman.

Rep. David Guttenberg, D-Fairbanks, praised the conference committee's action to restore the positions of Thomas and the others and said the original action appeared "spiteful."

"The only way you put PCNs in the operating budget is you have to go find them. It's not something that you do randomly," he said.

"You go find them and you put them in there because you are targeting them. But it doesn't work," he said.

The Legislative Finance Division's budget manual explains the process for those drafting budgets and asks the question, "Can the legislature force a department to lay off a person by cutting the PCN and/or its associated funding?"

It says it is still up to the department whom it hires, and a department is allowed to respond to elimination of a PCN by moving the targeted individual to a newly created PCN, to an existing vacant PCN, a reclassified one or even "bumping" an existing employee out of their job.

That's appropriate, said Rep. Sam Kito, D-Juneau, who said it should be up to the commissioner who is hired.

"Nobody should be targeted by their PCN," he said. "It means the Legislature is targeting individuals and impacting the commissioner's ability to develop a team that works for them, and that really is the governor and the commissioner's prerogative."

The funding for several positions was also cut, meaning Labor Commissioner Heidi Drygas may have to move staff around if she thinks two deputy commissioners and other positions cut are needed.

Wilson also said Labor didn't need a legislative liaison, a staff person who provides information about the department to legislators and responds to their questions.

"They still have a communications director, and they can use that as their legislative liaison person if they need to," Wilson said. "They're mostly answering questions from us anyway."

She said that even with the cuts, the commissioner's office has too many staff and should instead focus on job creation.

The department is facing some of the largest cuts in state government.

But the Senate didn't go along with the proposed specific cuts, and the conference committee working to merge the two budgets this week decided against targeting the specific positions.

The committee Wednesday considered proposed cuts to the Department of Natural Resources, and even where it appeared there was an agreement, there might not be.

The conference committee working out differences between the House and Senate versions of the Department of Natural Resources budget considered a cut proposed by the Senate of approximately $4.3 million for one of Walker's priorities, finding ways to bring North Slope natural gas to market.

But the conference committee said it was going to go with the cut, money that committee chair Rep. Mark Neuman, R-Big Lake, said wasn't needed.

"The discussion that I had with the department, they felt that they were OK with this," Neuman told the committee.

That surprised Rep. Les Gara, D-Anchorage, who said the department has said in the past it needed the funding to hire experts to help the state commercialize its gas.

"My understanding is they believe this (cut) will hamper their efforts to move ahead with a gas pipeline and get our gas to market, and hopefully to Asia," he said.

The news that the Walker administration supported the cut seemed to surprise Office of Management and Budget Director Pat Pitney and other administration staff. After suspension of the meeting for hasty consultations, Neuman delayed action on that aspect of the budget until later.

After the meeting, Gara praised the delay.