Here's why the attempt to keep state salary study secret deserves to fail
Here’s my guess about what why the Dunleavy administration refuses to release the $880,000 state salary study to the Legislature or the public.
The information gathered by the contractor, Segal, suggested that large increases are needed to make state pay competitive with other Alaska employers.
The Dunleavy administration does not want this information to be in circulation, however, because the facts would make it harder for the state to claim that lower wages are justified.
Seeing the numbers that came back from the consultant last summer, the Dunleavy administration decided to change state policy on how state salaries should compare to those from other Alaska employers to try to lower state pay for some workers.
It revised and extended the contract with Segal and secretly told the consultant that the benchmark for jobs not in “life, health or safety” should be lowered so that state salaries are lower than 50 percent of employers for similar work. The current policy is to be lower than 35 percent of employers.
In public, the Dunleavy administration claims that it is still state policy to set salaries so that 35 percent of Alaska employers pay more and 65 percent pay less.
But the Dunleavy administration has abandoned this for some employees and concealed the change from the Legislature and the public.
When it hired a contractor to perform the salary study in 2023, the Dunleavy administration said it wanted the benchmark set so that 35 percent of employers pay more than the state, continuing a long-held policy only briefly abandoned by Dunleavy in 2022-2023.
“With regards to assessing the competitiveness of State of Alaska wages in comparison to market, the state’s practice is to be competitive with the market; therefore, the state typically measures its competitiveness against the 65th percentile (i.e., the data point where 35% pay above and 65% pay below,” the request for proposals said.
But in a redacted contract amendment from last summer released to legislators and the public, the Dunleavy administration hid the information about percentiles.
I have seen an unredacted version of the contract. The state has been dishonest about its policy on setting an appropriate benchmark for state wages. It changed the benchmark for some employees out of a desire to pay less.
The public has a right to know exactly what information the state asked the contractor to collect for $880,000.
The public also has a right to know exactly what facts the contractor found. The contractor did not collect political information, materials dealing with state strategy or anything that remotely qualifies as a state secret.
This research, paid for with state funds, will answer questions about the level of state pay compared to other employers. That is information that every member of the Legislature needs to know before it votes this session on appropriating money to pay state workers.
It is a safe bet that the contractor discovered that the state is not paying enough to remain competitive.
Had the contractor’s research shown that current state pay rates are competitive, Dunleavy would have dumped copies of the state salary study on every street corner in Alaska.
The administration wants the public to believe this is a high-minded approach to good government. It’s nothing of the kind.
The Dunleavy administration doesn’t like what the contractor found and is trying to keep it secret.
This deserves a court challenge.
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