Public deserves to know the facts on Rodell's firing and Dunleavy's role in it

In the weeks and months preceding the creation of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation, legislators made it clear that the Legislature needed to perform an oversight role in the future.

They would be appalled by the claims from Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s attorney general that legislators have no business finding out the facts about the firing of Angela Rodell by the trustees.

Forty years ago legislators set up a system that required the corporation to have its budget scrutinized and approved by the Legislature. They also required that the Legislative Budget and & Audit Committee “provide for an annual post audit and annual operational and performance evaluation” of the corporation’s investments and investment programs.

The Dunleavy administration, which wants no legislative investigation of the firing of Angela Rodell, is claiming that state law prevents the Legislature from a fact-finding mission on this matter.

Attorney General Treg Taylor says the oversight language quoted above limits the Legislature to dealing with “investment practices and policies, not its personnel management.”

Taylor, who is providing political cover for Dunleavy, will probably continue to claim that the Legislature has no business in trying to find out what role Dunleavy and his office played in Rodell’s firing.

Even if the narrow interpretation of the law offered by Taylor is valid—which is disputed by legislative attorneys—the Legislature is free at any time to look into the operations of the corporation.

Taylor’s letter selectively quotes the law and does not mention the required “post audit,” a term that carried special significance for the creators of the Permanent Fund Corporation.

In discussing the oversight language at this hearing in 1979, starting at about the 1-hour, 25-minute-mark, legislators and staffers said the requirement for an annual “post audit” quoted a phrase that had been suggested by PriceWaterhouse about a report that could cover hiring practices and the entire operation of the corporation. The legislative intent was to grant broad authority.

In the state House, the key backers of the fund in 1979 said that if the Legislative Budget & Audit Committee did not provide sufficient oversight, a separate legislative committee should be set up to do the job.

The May 4, 1979 Free Conference Committee report said the Legislature wanted a management system for the fund that was protected from political influence, but accountable to the people through their elected officials.

“In short, the aim was insulation without isolation,” the 1979 committee said.

The Dunleavy administration, in trying to stop the testimony of trustees and fund employees under a flimsy legal argument, is making the corporation less accountable to the people.

The Legislative Budget & Audit Committee needs to provide oversight of the Permanent Fund, carrying out the vision expressed in law more than 40 years ago. The Rodell investigation is a place to start.

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