Release state salary study now to help solve recruitment crisis, petition asks Dunleavy

Alaskans should see the $1 million results of a state salary research report that Gov. Mike Dunleavy refuses to release, according to a petition circulated by the Alaska State Employees Association.

This is critical to informing the debate to come in the 2025 Legislature about how the failure to raise compensation for state employees has contributed to the decline in state services and a crisis in recruiting employees and retaining them.

“The ASEA Executive Board has called an emergency special meeting on January 24 to discuss the status of the buried salary study and our union’s next steps.”

Among other things, ASEA says it is “truly shocking” that the governor’s office claims that drafts of the report it received from the contractor have been disposed of, so they are no longer public records.

In response to a public records request from me, the Dunleavy administration said:

“The governor’s office received other, now superseded or obsolete drafts of the statewide salary study: those drafts are no longer public records because the governor’s office is not retaining and need not retain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 has received drafts of the study that are by definition preliminary. The governor is playing word games to keep the research out of the hands of legislators and the public.

“We respectfully request that you share with the public the contents of the salary study that was funded and went into contract with the Segal Company in 2023. The legislative intent was for the study to be completed with data available to help guide legislators in putting a budget together during the 2025 legislative session which gavels in on January 21, 2025,” the petition says.

As of early Thursday afternoon, the petition had more than 1,000 signatures.

This is the link to the petition.

“The last salary study of classified state positions was conducted in 2009. That analysis is more than fifteen years old and ASEA is understandably concerned that the Administration is censoring new information that aligns wages for state employees with comparators in both public and private sectors,” ASEA said.

Meanwhile, I have submitted a public records request to Administration Commissioner Paula Varna for the salary study, but have received no response other than an email saying that the state is reviewing the request and will reply in due time.

Heidi Drygas, executive director of the ASEA, said the union believes the study was completed last summer.

“In August, the state amended the original contract with instructions for the Segal Company to issue a ‘new version’ of the report. That revised report was due October 31, 2024. To our knowledge, no one other than the governor and his administration has reviewed this study, which was funded by the legislature,” Drygas wrote in a letter to members.

“As I’ve said in the past, the answer to Alaska’s high turnover and chronic understaffing is not rocket science. The State must pay people fairly for the their work, pay them when and what they’re due, treat those employees with respect, and provide them with a dignified retirement. This anticipated salary study is a critical piece of that equation.”

“As we continue to gather information about the status of the final salary study and the prior ‘draft’ reports, please join lawmakers and public employee union leaders who have been calling on the state to release the entire study.”

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