Former Alaska Permanent Fund Executive Director Angela Rodell promised the Permanent Fund Board of Trustees that she’d make a political firestorm for them when they fired her last December. And she did.
An independent investigation commissioned by the trustees reveals that Rodell threatened political retribution during the meeting in which she was told there would be a vote on her retention.
The key takeaways from the report include:
- Problems between the board of trustees and Angela Rodell went back to at least 2018.
- The trustees had brought in an outside executive consultant to help Rodell repair her performance problems.
- Rodell shocked the trustees by sending out a press release describing the fund’s strategy for continuing operations in the event of a government shutdown in June of 2021, due to budget disputes between the governor and legislative leadership. In that press release, she inserted her opinion into the political dispute.
- Gov. Mike Dunleavy did not get involved in the decisions or circumstances around Rodell’s firing, and was surprised when he learned of it.
- Rodell was described by trustees during depositions as threatening political retribution against them.
Rodell, who was paid $389,000 a year, was fired after being given the option by the board to resign during the December, 2021 trustees meeting. Among the concerns were the tensions between Rodell and her staff of investment professionals, and her deteriorating relationship with the board of trustees.
By January, the Legislative Budget and Audit Committee of the Alaska Legislature commissioned an independent investigation to determine if the firing was political, as Rodell had told the committee. Rodell and the committee’s Chairwoman Sen. Natasha von Imhof have a close personal friendship.
Normally, personnel matters are kept confidential. But once the Legislative Budget and Audit Committee became involved, this personnel matter became political. In response to the committee chair creating and using public funds to pay for an investigation into Rodell’s firing, the trustees hired their own law firm to conduct an independent investigation, the results of which were obtained by Must Read Alaska through a public records request.
We received these reports on Tuesday, Sept. 27. On Wednesday, the Legislative Budget and Audit Committee is scheduled to meet at 1 pm to go over the report from the committee’s investigator. The trustees released their report to the committee, but the committee’s own report is not yet available. Documents obtained from the Permanent Fund Corporation show that the trustees’ investigator has asked for, but was not given advance copies of the legislative committee’s separate report, conducted by the law firm of Schwabe Williamson and Wyatt, which will be discussed during Wednesday’s meeting.
The report commissioned by the trustees was completed by attorney John M. Ptacin of Sedor, Wendlandt, Evans, Filippi, an Anchorage law firm. As part of the investigation, the firm observed and recorded the legislative committee’s investigator’s depositions of trustee members, who were asked about Rodell’s history with the board, her performance reviews, specific incidences that led to her firing, and her reaction to being fired.
When asked about Rodell’s reaction to being given a choice to resign or face being fired, trustee Lucinda Mahoney, who was the commissioner of the Department of Revenue at the time, told investigators:
“She [Rodell] said that we were making a big mistake because no one would ever be able to do the job that she did and manage the fund as she did. She told us that there would be political ramifications for our decision. She told us that she was going to hold each one of us individually accountable. It was very unprofessional.”
- Q: I mean, sitting here today, do you think the outcome was still the correct decision?
A. Yes, especially her closing words. Yeah. I think all the trustees were very taken aback at that, and it probably validated their decisions.
Trustee Corri Feige, who was the commissioner of the Department of Natural Resources, expanded on the interaction in her deposition, also describing Rodell as unprofessional:
- Q: So what was Ms. Rodell’s reaction or response to Chair Richards telling her what the board’s direction was going to be?
A: She said okay. And when he said, you know, we will extend you the courtesy — professional courtesy of being able to resign, and she said, nope, and then proceeded to launch into one of the most vitriolic diatribes I have ever heard as a professional. Clearly she was embarrassed and her feelings were hurt, but she immediately went to, I knew you were going to do this. You will all have to wear this decision. You don’t know the political firestorm you will — you have created for yourself, or something to that effect, and then good luck replacing me. I knew I had made the absolute right decision…And for someone not only to — to refuse the courtesy of being able to resign when you are a CEO and then, you know, turning around and — and having, you know, the eruption that she had, that communicates to me that that’s an individual that doesn’t believe that they have anything they need to improve. They don’t have shortcomings. They are blind to where they need to improve their own skill sets. And as a fiduciary of the trust, we can’t — we can’t have that at the helm. We just can’t. So I was — I was very firmly rooted that I had made the right decision.
Board Chairman Craig Richards, when asked how Rodell responded to being fired, said Rodell threatened a political storm:
A: So she first indicated that she thought that this was going to happen and she should have made us have this discussion in open session, and then she said something to the effect of, you don’t know the political storm that you have created for yourself and the consequences. I took it as you are going to reap the whirlwind sort of deal. She made it very clear that she planned to politicize this, and she did.
Trustee Mahoney, when asked why Rodell was terminated, said that Rodell had not handled internal conflicts at the organization well, and that her relationship with the trustees had led to a lack of confidence.
A: Okay. So I kind of already said it, but I’ll restate it. Hopefully I’m consistent. So my vision is that the fund is a 100-billion-dollar fund by the year 2030. And in order for that to happen, we need to have a very high performing team where the investment officers who do the buys and the sells have a very good relationship, cohesive, work in harmony, collaborative with the executive director so that we don’t have attrition issues that could potentially impact returns. I have a vision that the organizations, both the operations organizations and the investment organizations, work really well together as a team. There is all this conflict that is going on there that she hadn’t been able to resolve. And then additionally, the relationship with some of the members of the board was in jeopardy. They had lost confidence in her. So I considered all of that in terms of as we move forward and we really continue to grow, is this the right leader to lead us into the future. Then I also considered the history, you know, the historical performance reviews. And that – that was — that was the foundation of my vote.
Ethan Schutt, who is now the Permanent Fund Board’s chairman, said his reason for voting for Rodell’s termination were due to what he described as an unhealthy relationship between the board and Rodell:
- Q. So when you said there was discussion about the disconnect between Rodell and the Board of Trustees, what do you mean by that?
A: Several trustees were clear in that they didn’t feel like we had a good, healthy, open dialogue back and forth between Ms. Rodell and the board and that there was sort of an unnatural and unhealthy tension in that relationship. I guess those are my kind of paraphrased summary of the issue.
The report, included below so Must Read Alaska readers can review it in its entirety and come to their own conclusions, summarizes the breakdown of trust between Rodell and her governing board:
“At their 2022 depositions, each trustee further reflected on the Board’s decision to terminate Ms. Rodell’s employment. Trustee Moran, for instance, voted to retain Ms. Rodell, explaining that fund performance constituted eighty- five percent of his decision. Trustee Feige felt the quarterly meetings were poorly managed and that Ms. Rodell was not an effective communicator—and Trustee Feige was particularly troubled by Ms. Rodell’s foray into government shutdown politics. Trustee Schutt generally noted that Ms. Rodell was unprofessional at the September 2021 meetings and he was concerned that Ms. Rodell’s leadership would lead to the departure of key investment staff. Trustee Schutt took a particularly negative view of Ms. Rodell’s politicization of the fund relative to the potential of a 2021 government shutdown. Trustee Schutt was also concerned with some of the low scores on Ms. Rodell’s survey, namely from investment staff. Trustee Richards was highly concerned about the eroding relationship between the Executive Director and investment staff. Trustee Mahoney sensed that Ms. Rodell was not going to improve as Executive Director and that APFC needed a leader that would grow alongside the fund. Trustee Rieger felt that because a majority of the trustees had lost confidence in the Executive Director, it would be untenable for Ms. Rodell to continue.”
The report also describes what happened during the meeting in which Rodell was fired:
“After the trustees concluded their deliberations, the trustees invited Ms. Rodell into executive session. Chair Richards thanked Ms. Rodell for her service and relayed that the trustees would vote to terminate her employment. Chair Richards offered Ms. Rodell an opportunity to resign in lieu of termination. Ms. Rodell had an unprofessional reaction to the news of her departure. She stated she would not allow the trustees to ‘take the coward’s way out,’ or something to that effect. She instructed the trustees to vote on her removal in open session and she forecasted a ‘political firestorm’ over her firing, which came to fruition due in part to her conjecture that Governor Dunleavy’s administration orchestrated her firing.
“Ms. Rodell’s conduct during this final executive session provided further evidence to some trustees that their relationship with the Executive Director had deteriorated beyond repair.”
After her firing, Rodell made statements indicating that her removal was political. To the Legislative Budget and Audit Committee, which opened an investigation into her firing, she said, “I believe my removal to be political retribution for successfully carrying the board’s mandate to protect the fund and advocate against any additional draws over the (percent of market value) spending rule … which is contrary to Governor Dunleavy’s agenda.”
The independent report commissioned by the trustees states there’s no evidence the firing of Rodell was political, and says that when trustee Corri Feige relayed the news to the governor by phone, Gov. Mike Dunleavy was genuinely surprised.
“There is no evidence to suggest that Governor Dunleavy or some other political actor orchestrated Ms. Rodell’s termination. Ultimately, Ms. Rodell and APFC staff have two important duties. First, they are expected to maximize returns as instructed by the trustees. Second, they are expected to provide lawmakers unbiased information about how legislation could impact to the fund. There is little to no evidence Ms. Rodell played some outsized role in the more tectonic political discussions about the future of the fund and its uses. And there is no evidence that Ms. Rodell’s purported incursions into debates about spending APFC money compelled the Governor or any executive branch official to seek her dismissal. Ms. Rodell’s allegations of political retribution ignore the fact that trustees began raising concerns about her performance in 2018,” the report says.
The depositions of the trustees, conducted by the legislative committee’s separate investigator, support that summary. Even Bill Moran, who voted against Rodell’s firing, said he didn’t think it was political and did not think the governor was involved.
Read the report by the Permanent Fund trustee’s independent investigator:
Read excerpts from the depositions of Permanent Fund Corporation trustees:
