Neil Steininger, the director of the Office of Management and Budget for Gov. Mike Dunleavy, is leaving the Dunleavy Administration. The administration said it cannot comment on personnel decisions but the decision appears to be the governor’s, and insiders chalk it up to a difference in budget philosophy.
Steininger was hired to run OMB in January 2020. He had worked in various administrative roles in state government since 2012, when he started as a Permanent Fund dividend specialist at the Department of Revenue.
After Dunleavy let go his first budget director, Donna Arduin, in 2019, there was a temporary replacement before Steininger was promoted in 2020. It’s not been announced who will serve in this role for the next three years.
And the difference In philosophy is…?
Kinda critical detail.
oh oh. smart people jumping ship, hire less competant is going to help us.
state budget is baloney being cut with a butter knife. Dumplever gonna bail on state after his term.
we are in same boat as Kansas was, after the wacky ideas run out, you’ve cratered the state. what’s coming over the horizon isn’t going to be pretty. stats shows general drainage of folks, dollars not much upside
CNBC has us 50th again two out of last three years. expense exceeding revenues never works, except for magically endowed political types
Steininger was tasked with saying silly things with a straight face, and for the most part he did that pretty well. He also strived to be honest, and while he did that less well he succeeded better than many OMB Directors before him. He tried to keep his head down, probably in order to have as long of a tenure as possible but that is not the right job for that so it was very much not the right job for him. I think it’s fair to say of Mr. Steininger that had the administration actually cared about the state moving forward from a balanced-budget standpoint he would have been fired a lot sooner. He brought cute and proficient women with him when he testified before committees, and many were grateful for that. This far into the lame duck period of this administration the new OMB Director may be less right for the job, or it may be one of those cute women, which would be OK. Does anyone not agree with that assessment?
With the high costs of getting some state services to isolated communities, sooner or later taxes will have to be levied. It’s sad, but that is the way it is. I hope they find something equitable for all.
No, first we need to cut state operations by 30 to 40 percent. We have too many people for the amount of goods and services we produce now. No amount of taxes can fix that. We can tax the 80,000 state and municipal workers but don’t expect an economy based on paying salaries to all the taxpayers to work. Alaskans have to not only work but work at producing something to pay for all the disposable diapers, snowgoes, motor fuels, and tomatoes we import.
Comments are closed.