Editor's note: Mike Doogan is an Alaska State House Representative, author and former newspaper columnist. This commentary appeared in his legislative e-newsletter on Feb. 10.
Dermot Cole, the columnist for the Fairbanks News-Miner, has been doing a bang-up job writing about how poorly the state is doing in extracting information from the oil companies and releasing it to the public.
If that sounds like a discussion that would put you to sleep so fast you'd get a concussion when your head hit the table, here are a couple of things to consider.
First, as you are no doubt tired of hearing, oil revenue makes up between 85 and 90 percent of state income. Amazingly, we – and by that I mean legislators, the press and the general public – know as much about what the oil companies are doing as I do about low temperature physics. We should know a lot more, particularly when the companies and their legislative allies are using production claims to bludgeon us out of billions of dollars.
Second, the state makes no real effort to let the public know what is going on in the oil patch, in fact helping the companies to keep things secret. Cole quotes from a question asked by a lawyer, Robin Brena, during a recent court case, about the policies of the state Department of Revenue:
"He asked whether a McDonald's menu could be submitted as an oil company document and stamped confidential. Would it be treated by the Department of Revenue as a confidential document?
"'It's an extreme hypothetical. If they stamped 'taxpayer confidential' on it, you know, I'm not sure that would pass muster, but again, that's not part of my purview,' State Assessor James Greeley said."
Plain language answer: Maybe, maybe not, but it's not my job.
I could go on and on. You know me. I can. Instead, here are the URLs for Cole's coverage.
It's worth reading.
A tale of two ConocoPhillips presentations with Alaska comments
Should a McDonald's menu get the same treatment as a secret oil document?
Finance analyst says next budget plan 'critical to Alaska's future'
Gleason oil tax decision should not be dismissed as 'distraction'
Conflicting numbers in oil reports will play part in tax debate
Alyeska low-flow oil study looks more like political document
Paskvan says court ruling shows bright future for Alaska oil development
Alaskans need straight talk on life expectancy of trans-Alaska pipeline
BP attempt to divest billions renews speculation about Alaska
Coasting Nowhere Fast
I think I've seen this stretch of road before, and I'm pretty sure I've written about it in an e-news or two. It's day 25 of the session, and we're speeding along and getting nowhere fast. So far the House has passed four bills and two resolutions. The earth shattering laws we've moved so far include adding a couple members to an advisory board, establishing a National Guard Day and something about posting notices about livestock districts in post offices – I'm not making that up.
Meanwhile, the governor's oil tax bill that squeaked out of the House by a margin narrower than a lizard's toothpick remains DOA in Senate Resources. Rumor has it the Senate will be sending us a shiny, new oil tax bill, but if you hitch your wagon to a rumor in this building, you won't get out of the front yard. We'll also be talking about gaslines of all shapes and sizes, and budgets that only come in one size – larger.
I've got just one bill in the mill this year. It's a little something that says we should take $10 billion of the state's surplus out of the general fund and stick it into the Permanent Fund, where this voracious pack of fiscal conservatives can't get their mitts on it and spend it all. Everyone who thinks that bill will see the light of day, stand on your heads.
Stay tuned, kids. We're bound to do something this session, and trust me, it'll only hurt for a minute.
Man on a Mission to Measure
Football season is over (I know because the New England Patriots fan on my staff is still weeping uncontrollably), but here in Juneau the budget games are just beginning.
If you've never worked on the state budget before – and, if you haven't, count yourself lucky – it would be reasonable for you to assume that we start by taking a look at how much money the state will bring in for the year, and then carefully crafting our spending based on what we can afford.
It would be reasonable to assume so, but it would be so wrong.
Instead, in the 90-day shopping spree we call a legislative session ($8 billion for a new dam? Charge it!), the governor takes last year's budget, adds contractual obligations such as salary and health care increases and then adds even more budget on top of that. And that's before any of the 40 representatives and 20 senators start adding their own priorities to the budget. Think of it as a yogurt parfait of state spending, with legislators' pet capital projects as the cherry on top.
Each year, legislative budget subcommittees look at the additions on top of the previous year's spending. Rarely do we spend time examining the bulk of each department's budget, what's called the "base budget."
There may yet be hope for transparency in Alaska budgeting, though. This year, the powerful House Finance Committee, of which I am still a not-so-powerful member, is being led by our fearless co-chair, Rep. Bill Thomas, to examine the "missions and measures" of each department. I'll spare you all the ins and outs of the "performance-based budgeting" training we were all politely asked to mandatorily attend—suffice it to say we will be asking each department what exactly their primary goals and missions are as a department, and then we will be asking them just how efficiently they accomplish (or fail to accomplish) said missions and goals.
Are we going to be able to examine every single line item of the state budget in the next couple of months? Probably not, but at least we're making progress towards our own legislative mission of making sure we're spending state money responsibly.
I'll let you know how we did when the House votes on the operating budget in March.
The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch. Alaska Dispatch welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, e-mail commentary(at)alaskadispatch.com.