Guessing the amount of Alaska's annual Permanent Fund dividend check usually entails some arithmetic or waiting anxiously for the governor or revenue commissioner to announce it.
But the Alaska Legislature took the fun out of the guessing game this year. Spurred by Alaska's massive budget deficit, lawmakers gave up on the historical formula used to calculate the size of the oil-wealth checks and instead set it at a specific amount this summer: $1,100.
Gov. Bill Walker's administration formalized the $1,100 dividend Friday with zero fanfare, announcing it in an afternoon statement to media.
Direct bank payments start being deposited Oct. 5.
The state is projected to spend some $670 million on PFDs this year, about half what would have been spent under the historical formula that was rejected by the Legislature because of Alaska's multibillion-dollar budget deficit.