Dunleavy now claims state canceled $50,000 no-bid contract with his friend the same day the public learned about the deal

On May 31 this year the Anchorage Daily News and the Associated Press revealed that Gov. Mike Dunleavy had quietly given a no-bid $50,000 state contract to his friend Brett Huber, who was working to reelect Dunleavy.

Huber and Dunleavy defended the no-bid deal in the news as legal, necessary and a good deal for the public. But the contract was secretly cancelled the same day, Dunleavy’s lawyer now claims.

If so, why was Huber paid $8,000 nearly a month later for providing consulting services to the governor’s office?

Huber, who ran Dunleavy’s 2018 campaign, has worked for Dunleavy off and on since Dunleavy’s time in the state Senate. Huber quit his latest state job in the governor’s office in early April to run a political action committee supporting Dunleavy’s reelection, collecting $80,500.

But Huber did not leave state employment empty-handed.

Dunleavy never announced his decision to keep Huber on the payroll through the election with a no-bid contract, ostensibly to give advice on “statehood defense.”

In other words, Huber was getting paid to help the campaign. It’s part of the overall pattern of Dunleavy using state resources for his own benefit.

The contract started April 25 and would end Oct. 24, just before the election. It was a do-nothing contract with vague tasks that fall within the usual duties of any number of state attorneys. Huber is not an attorney.

On the day the news broke about Huber’s contract, Dunleavy critics alerted the public to Huber’s triple role as a Dunleavy contractor, a deputy treasurer of the Dunleavy campaign and the manager of the SuperPAC, “A Stronger Alaska.”

Huber was removed from the list of deputy Dunleavy treasurers that afternoon.

In the news coverage of the Huber contract, Huber defended the contract as did Dunleavy’s office.

Dunleavy’s office said no one on the state payroll could perform the “unique work” Huber did, so that’s why he received the $50,000.

The governor’s office also claimed that Huber’s work was “beyond the ability of a line attorney at the Department of Law to perform.”

Huber claimed he “transitioned from state employment to working contractually on these issues because it made more sense for me personally and for the state.”

“It makes sense for the state, saves them some money and I’m abiding by all the rules and regulations in providing this service to the state,” Huber told the Anchorage Daily News at the time.

Jump ahead to Sept. 6 when the Alaska Public Interest Research Group and the 907 Initiative filed a complaint with the Alaska Public Offices Commission in which one part challenged Huber’s no-bid contract and the obvious conflict created by his work on the campaign.

In the news coverage of the complaint, Huber and the governor’s office had a surprise announcement—they claimed that the contract they had defended and promoted three months earlier had been cancelled the same day the public learned of the no-bid deal.

They claimed it was canceled on May 31, which means that hours after Huber and the governor’s office defended the $50,000 payment, they knew they couldn’t go through with it.

“Strategic Synergies and Brett Huber had indeed entered into a contract with the Governor’s Office to provide consulting services pursuant to a contract signed April 25, 2022, that contract was ended or cancelled on or about May 31, 2022,” Dunleavy’s attorney wrote to the APOC. “Significantly, the consulting services to be provided under that contract were completely unrelated to the 2022 campaign and election.”

Huber’s consulting services had everything to do with the 2022 campaign and election.

If the contract was canceled May 31, as the governor’s office now claims, why was Huber paid $8,000 by the state for providing consulting services to the governor’s office?

That’s one of many questions the Alaska Public Offices Commission needs to answer as soon as possible.

Huber wrote a letter to the APOC which he claims he did nothing wrong, but he doesn’t mention the $8,000 payment sent to him nearly a month after the governor’s office says his contract was dissolved with no payment.

He makes a vague reference to the $50,000 no-bid contract and claims that the issue is not within the jurisdiction of the APOC. He denies “misuse of public money,” but does not address the real issue—he left his state job to work on the campaign and was rewarded with a no-bid contract that required no deliverables from him.