I know exactly how the 2025 Legislature will cut $50 million from the proposed “fast track” supplemental budget released by Gov. Mike Dunleavy Thursday.
The money to cut without worry is the $50 million that Dunleavy claims the Alaska Industrial Development & Export Authority needs to pay for a promise that AIDEA made on December 4.
The only other item in the fast track supplement is $15 million for disaster relief funds.
The AIDEA bailout is a disaster of a different kind.
Read MoreLegislators, the governor and his top aides will get automatic pay hikes every two years to make up for inflation unless the 2025 Legislature moves quickly to strike down the plan.
That’s the idea that three members of the Alaska State Officers Compensation Commission tentatively agreed to Wednesday, saying they would meet again in January before taking final action.
The commission is supposed to have five members, but it only has three. Gov. Mike Dunleavy has refused to fill two positions, which concentrates the power to help set key state salaries in the hands of commission members Jomo Stewart, Larry LeDoux and Lynn Gattis.
Read MoreLegislators and the governor have avoided an open and transparent discussion about how the public process was subverted in 2023 to get big pay raises, but the issue will not go away. The State Officers Compensation Commission can do the right thing Wednesday and recommend that the commission be done away with.
Read MoreThe $250,000 examination of AIDEA’s history that the state agency refuses to release to the public can be kept secret because it is a draft report, according to AIDEA Executive Director Randy Ruaro.
“Under Alaska law, until a report is final, it is not required to be released,” Ruaro wrote in a letter to the editor accusing me of being a bad guy.
But that is not what Alaska law says.
Read MoreThe state announced that it intends to award a contract to Six-7 Strategies for the proposed $9 million public relations and marketing campaign envisioned by Gov. Mike Dunleavy to promote Alaska to companies Outside.
The Dunleavy plan is to sell Alaska as imagined in the colorful pages of this 32-page pamphlet titled the “Alaska Standard,” a document created under a previous state contract. The Alaska Standard, created by Bridge House Advisors of Chicago, promotes development of oil, gas, minerals, renewable energy, etc. in Alaska.
Read MoreIn a letter to the editor, Randy Ruaro, the executive director of the Alaska Industrial Development & Export Authority, accuses me of making things up, waging a smear campaign and opposing resource development and jobs for Alaskans.
He is wrong on all counts.
I suspect Ruaro didn’t intend to do this, but his broadside actually confirms what I wrote here on November 26—that Anchorage consultant Northern Economics completed its $250,000 study of AIDEA’s economics early this year. I concluded that AIDEA did not like the results and refused to release the findings, claiming it was a draft and therefore secret.
Read MoreTwo state-owned corporations that don’t act without the blessing of Gov. Mike Dunleavy have cooked up a plan to tap into a slush fund to provide a $50 million guarantee to pay for a gasline study.
The corporations excluded the Legislature Wednesday and avoided the sometimes messy process of holding public hearings and seeking testimony when dealing with public money.
Read MoreBut it appears clear now that the Dunleavy administration never had any intention of weighing all the trucks and made no effort to do so, an issue that is particularly relevant given the wear and tear on highways and bridges.
The heavy-handed intervention by the Dunleavy administration is clear in the report, which now opposes a plan to extend the hours of weigh stations and weigh every truck.
Read MoreContango Ore claims new weight restrictions on the Chena River flood control bridge will mean a 20 percent cut in the amount of ore hauled to the Fort Knox mine.
Contango and Kinross had intended to haul 50 tons of rock per load. A 20 percent reduction means the trucks will only carry 40 tons per load.
But something about this doesn’t add up. The new 80-ton bridge limit should not have led to a 10-ton reduction for each truck.
Read MoreThe AIDEA study about the economics of AIDEA is not the only important state-funded report that has yet to see the light of day.
A comprehensive $800,000 study on the salaries of state workers and whether they are high enough for market conditions is another. Hiring problems have become chronic at state agencies, leading to a decline in services. Low salaries are one of the recruitment problems.
The salary study was to have been completed by June 30, allowing enough time to work its recommendations into the proposed state budget that is due from Gov. Mike Dunleavy in two weeks.
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