The Legislature appropriated $1 million two years ago for a salary study, trying to find out what it will take to make state pay competitive in Alaska.

The company with the contract faced a deadline of June 2024, established at the start so that the information would be available in creating the state budget.

There have been draft copies of the study, which should be made public because draft reports are public records in state law. There were two 38-page drafts delivered to Dunleavy July 18, along with two 18-page sets of exhibits.

“These drafts are not subject to disclosure based on the executive communications privilege, the deliberative process privilege, and/or the balance of interests,” the governor’s office now claims.

In response to a public records request I submitted, the governor’s office also says that while it once had other draft reports of the study, it does not have them any longer.

As an excuse, this is a few steps shy of “The dog ate my homework.” George Costanza could do better.

The powers that be say that since the governor’s office no longer has any copies of the draft study, the governor’s office doesn’t have anything to release. It’s a salary study disappearing act.

“The governor’s office received other, now superseded or obsolete drafts of the statewide salary study: those drafts are no longer public records because the governor’s office is not retaining and need not retain them for their informational value to or as evidence of the organization or operation of the governor’s office: the governor’s office no longer has an administrative need for them. The office of the governor has not received a preliminary or final report,” the governor’s office said in denying to release the documents.

In claiming that Dunleavy’s office “need not retain them for their informational value,” the governor is asking Alaskans to believe that there is no informational value in what the contractor discovered about state salaries, using public money. Erasing important information is more like it.

A December 16 memo to commissioners from Dunleavy’s office says that “as we reviewed drafts of the study, we identified the need” for more information. The contract has been extended again and the final document won’t be released for a few more months, which may not be in time to shape budget discussions about raising state pay in the 2025 Legislature.

You can take it to the bank that had the drafts of the study been pleasing to Dunleavy—arguing that state pay is fine as it is—the reports would have been in wide circulation months ago. And we would not be insulted with assertions that the documents have vanished in a bureaucratic rapture.

The proof that there is informational value in the draft reports is that the Legislature appropriated $1 million and people have been asking for it for months.

There is a great deal of public interest in the draft reports, and the information—even that which is deemed obsolete—was paid for with public money and should not be kept secret. The claim that there is no “administrative need” for the reports is bogus.

The claim that the governor has not received “a preliminary or final report” is word play. A draft report is a preliminary report.

On December 23, Sen. Bill Wielechowski wrote to Administration Commissioner Paular Varna asking that any and all drafts of the study be released to the Legislature.

The Segal Company undoubtedly has copies of what it submitted to Dunleavy.

“Because of the State's inability to hire Troopers, snowplow operators, prosecutors, and other vital state employees, last year, the Legislature appropriated funds for the Department of Administration to conduct a study of state salaries and benefits to help the state determine whether state jobs are competitive with other employers. This report was due months ago but the Department of Administration has refused to release the study,” Wielechowski wrote on Facebook.

On Thursday, he said he has not heard back from the Dunleavy administration.

The salary study was supposed to have been wrapped up by June 30, allowing enough time to become part of the budget discussion this year.

“Upon completion, the results and recommendations of the survey will be compared to the compensation offered to eligible state of Alaska employees to determine if the state is offering salaries and benefits that are within an appropriate competitive range in relation to other employers that are in direct competition for the employees required to deliver state services,” the state said in 2023.

“The state is flexible as to interim due dates for deliverables as long as the final report date of 6/30/24 is met,” the Department of Administration said on October 19, 2023.

The state also said the “final report must be submitted by June 30, 2024, in order to allow time for responsible parties to review and make informed decisions during the following fiscal year.”

This is the first comprehensive study of state compensation in 15 years. The last one, from 2009, took 11 months.

While Dunleavy’s office claims to no longer have drafts of the salary study, Administration Commissioner Paula Vrana must have refrained from tossing copies—if for no other reason than to contrast and compare the contents with future versions of the study—so I filed a public records request with her early today for release of the documents.

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