Alaska Senate set to hear first public testimony on Dunleavy’s PFD payback plan

JUNEAU — The Alaska Senate’s state affairs committee will receive the first public testimony on Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s Permanent Fund dividend payback proposal at 6 p.m. Thursday in the Capitol. Alaskans can testify in person or by telephone until 8 p.m. Each person will be given one minute to speak, committee staff said.

The governor has proposed cutting the state budget in order to pay a larger dividend without taxes, but Thursday’s event is supposed to be about the governor’s plan to use some of the Permanent Fund’s earnings reserve to pay portions of dividends vetoed by former Gov. Bill Walker in 2016 and cut by the Alaska Legislature in 2017 and 2018.

Under the governor’s plan, Alaskans eligible for a dividend in 2016 and eligible this year would get an extra $1,061 this year atop the ordinary dividend, which is expected to be about $3,000. That pattern would continue for the next two years: Someone eligible in 2017 and 2020 would get a bonus in 2020. Someone eligible for a dividend in 2018 and 2021 would get a bonus in 2021.

The governor has said he feels the state should pay dividends along the formula used between 1982 and 2016, and these retroactive payments are owed to Alaskans. The Alaska Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that lawmakers and the governor may set the dividend amount annually.

Some lawmakers disagree with the governor’s approach, saying the $2.3 billion cost of paying the bonus would endanger the financial sustainability of the Alaska Permanent Fund.

Because of that cost, the proposal is not expected to advance in the House of Representatives. It is being considered in the Senate, where the state affairs committee is expected to hold a hearing on the idea before opening the floor to the public.

The governor’s proposal, as written in Senate bills 23 and 24, also appropriates money in advance for dividends through 2023 at the old statutory level. That fact has turned today’s public testimony into a proxy battle over the governor’s budget proposal, which cuts state spending by more than $1.8 billion to resolve a $1.6 billion deficit partially caused by the need to boost the dividend to the level advocated by the governor. (The difference between the cuts and deficit is due to foregone federal spending.)

“You want to call your neighbors, your friends, anyone you can to have them testify,” the governor said in a video addressed to supporters.

The AFL-CIO countered with a message of its own, saying on social media, “Support a responsible PFD, that doesn’t threaten the things we know and love about Alaska: safe communities, good schools, and a high quality of life.”

Testimony will be taken at the state’s legislative information offices, and participants are asked to sign up to testify by 7:30 p.m. Anyone who cannot reach an LIO can call one of three phone numbers instead. In Anchorage, the number is (907) 563-9085. In Juneau, it is (907) 586-9085. In all other cities (including Fairbanks), it is (844) 586-9085.

Staff for the state affairs committee said Thursday afternoon that the phone lines will open at 5:30 p.m. and that testimony will run for two hours after beginning at 6 p.m. The committee may extend that two-hour window, but additional public testimony opportunities will be created for anyone who is unable to offer their thoughts in that two-hour window.

Every testifier will be given one minute to speak, staff said, the better to allow as many people as possible to participate.