Gov. Mike Dunleavy continues to campaign with state money, using “volunteers” such as Andrew Jensen, who was given a $90,000 state job to promote Dunleavy just as the campaign got going a year ago.

An updated complaint about Dunleavy’s money shuffle now questions why he is paying a Washington, D.C.-based publicity woman $4,000 a month.

Right-wing PR woman Mary Vought of Arlington, Virginia, who claims to be a fiscal conservative, has collected more than $100,000 in public money from Alaska with no justification and no competition.

And the Dunleavy administration won’t say what she’s doing for all that money.

Dunleavy has never explained why she is on the payroll.

“The contract raises suspicions that it is related to campaign activities for two reasons: First, the governor’s office has a very large communications staff—larger than past administrations—leading to questions regarding why they would need an additional communications contractor. Second, is the timing—Governor Dunleavy filed his letter of intent to run for re-election on Aug. 13, 2021, which largely overlaps this contract,” the updated complaint from the Alaska Public Interest Research Group and the 907 Initiative says.

The contract was not competitive and does not meet the requirements of the state procurement code.

On Friday, Dunleavy’s spokesman did not answer when the Anchorage Daily News asked what services Vought Strategies LLC provides the state.

I’m glad to see the inappropriate payments to Vought finally getting some attention.

The Dunleavy deal should have been canceled long ago, but Alaska news organizations have done no reporting on the matter after an initial story in 2020.

Vought, who calls herself a “seasoned political expert,” worked for Mike Pence when he served in Congress, as well as for Sen. Ron Johnson and former Rep. MIchele Bachmann, among others. She is also the head of the Senate Conservatives Fund.

She signed a letter opposing the Dunleavy recall in 2019 that falsely claimed Dunleavy had cut the state’s budget deficit by 40 percent. Her husband is Russ Vought, a Trump follower and former director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Two months after signing the anti-recall letter, she began collecting her checks from the state. She is supposed to generate publicity for Dunleavy Outside.

The original payments began in January 2020, but the governor’s office claimed that the contract started June 18, 2020 and ran until June 30, 2021.

In early 2021, the governor’s office extended the contract to May 17, 2022, claiming the total cost would not exceed $100,000. But the payments to Vought began months before the alleged start date. And the total has exceeded $100,000.

One key question is why Vought was getting $4,000 a month in the first five months of 2020 when the contract was not signed until June 18, 2020. Vought had no Alaskan business license listed on the contract and Ben Stevens was the project director.

Her business is not listed in the state database and her LLC is not registered with Alaska.

But payments to Vought did not stop in May of this year, according to the state checkbook. She received $4,000 in June and $4,000 in July, which is when the last update was filed. There’s no reason to believe she didn’t get $4,000 in August and $4,000 in September.