Alaska legislators on Friday wrote to Craig Richards, chairman of the Board of Trustees for the Alaska Permanent Fund, expressing their “grave concern over the sudden and inexplicable termination of Angela Rodell as Executive Director of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation (APFC).” Rodell was fired on Thursday.
“In her six-year tenure as Executive Director, the Permanent Fund grew a record-setting $30 billion in value. Ms. Rodell’s track record is nothing short of exemplary, she has always been a steadfast professional, and did everything within her power to shield the Fund from outside political interference,” the two politicians wrote, inserting their own political preferences into the personnel decision by the board to remove Rodell, which was an overwhelming decision by the board in a 5-1 vote.
The naked politics is evident in the letter, because if the two had a valid concern, they would have handled it through back channels. Instead, they widely disseminated their letter to the media as a political weapon.
“We strongly believe that the public and legislature deserve an explanation for the action the board took yesterday,” wrote House Rules Chair Bryce Edgmon and Senate Rules Chair Gary Stevens.
In addition, Senate Finance Chair Bert Stedman weighed in. As quoted by the Anchorage Daily News, he said the circumstances around Rodell’s firing are suspicious. Possible gubernatorial candidate Sen. Natasha von Imhof also indicated she may hold hearings in her Legislative Budget and Audit Committee; Von Imhof is a close personal friend of Rodell’s and is a known adversary to the governor on matters of budget and Permanent Fund dividends.
Thus, a kangaroo court scenario may be ready to play out in the Legislature, just as Gov. Mike Dunleavy prepares to unveil his 2023 budgets, which he must provide to the Legislature by Dec. 15.
In that budget, many expect the governor to once again propose the 50-50 dividend formula, which is his compromise position to get Alaskans more of what they are entitled to by law from the Permanent Fund, and to settle the dividend formula law once and for all.
His effort is likely to try to restore the dividend as something that has a relationship to the fund itself. During the last legislative disbursement of the Permanent Fund dividend, not a single penny of Alaskans’ dividend actually came from the Permanent Fund. Instead, the Legislature used all of the fund disbursement to fund government, and then made an appropriation to pay dividends out of the Statutory Budget Reserve and the General Fund.
Even former Gov. Bill Walker, who is now returning to the scene as a retread candidate for governor, took the stage on Twitter to say he was concerned about Rodell’s sudden exit.
“Alaskans rightfully have questions about her abrupt dismissal. I hope for some clarity on that question in the coming days and will look for answers on what comes next for the Fund,” Walker said on his campaign Twitter feed.
The irony of Walker second-guessing the decision is that Board Chair Richards was once Walker’s attorney general, and in fact, Walker appointed Richards to the board of the Permanent Fund. Now, with Richards having moved into the position of Board Chair, Walker is questioning the decision-making capacity of his former law partner and attorney general, as well as the judgment of the four other board members who voted to remove Rodell. Only Bill Moran voted to retain Rodell after her performance review was completed this week.
Walker owns the dubious distinction of being the father of the demise of the Permanent Fund, as he is the governor who vetoed Alaskans’ lawful and statutorily set dividend in 2016, and set in place the calculation of the dividend as a purely political calculation, rather than formula-driven decision that had worked well for decades.
Politicians complaining about politics is nothing new. Candidates like Edgmon, Stevens, Stedman, Von Imhof, and Walker asking for details of a confidential personnel decision that they know cannot be publicly discussed is political theater and a calculated distraction from the governor’s budget rollout on Wednesday.
