Alan Weitzner has resigned from the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, sources have told Must Read Alaska. Weitzner was the executive director of AIDEA since his appointment by Gov. Mike Dunleavy in 2020, after the departure of Tom Boutin, who was appointed by Gov. Mike Dunleavy in 2019 and whose departure came at the same time as the Covid pandemic’s crushing effects on the Alaska and American economy. Prior to that, Weitzner had been the agency’s chief investment officer.
AIDEA is charged with financing businesses, helping to diversify the economy of Alaska, and creating jobs for Alaskans. AIDEA’s mission by providing various means of financing and by facilitating the financing of businesses in Alaska. What supports AIDEA is the loan portfolio program, which has nearly ended. The agency doesn’t have a lot of other projects or achievements under way that it can show for itself. It hasn’t had a state appropriation for decades and is self-supporting.
The next scheduled AIDEA Board meeting is Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2022 at 10:30 pm.
Morgan D. Neff, Chief Investment Officer, would be the natural caretaker CEO for the agency until Dunleavy finds a new CEO. Neff was a finalist for the CEO of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corp.
This story will be updated.
I have to think this is somehow related to the situation being reported right now by the Anchorage Daily News; that Alaska has the poorest performing economy in the US, as revealed in a University of Alaska study. The PFD and extraordinarily high government employment do not an economy make, apparently.
I am not sure how the incredible AIDEA turnover is related but maybe others know. Five of every eight AIDEA employees have left during the past two years according to reports.
The Alaska economy has been physically contracting for a long time even as the population increased (now contracting of course, with people wanting to get ahead leaving and people who like SNAP, WIC and Medicaid not only remaining but increasing). We have the highest per capita consumption and the lowest real economic output among all the states. Alaska was once known for both high productivity and high wages, but now we’re known for a high cost of living and mediocre wages except for state and municipal government where wages are competitive and the workweek is 37.5 hours. I have read that Alaska is the only state in which state and local government employment exceeds employment in manufacturing, agriculture, retail (including restaurants), finance and transportation – COMBINED. We are no longer The Last Frontier: Now we are The Welfare Queen State.
With respect, you don’t -have- to think anything, your leaders and Big Tech think for you.
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Conflating out-of-control state spending with royalty payments in lieu of subsurface mineral rights is approved thought for which congratulations are in order.
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Alaska is unique, where government is the cottage industry keeping people alive.
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Alaska is not like Texas or Florida where economies are booming, where legislatures aren’t inaccessible to the masses, where legislators aren’t outnumbered 7 to 1 by registered special interests, where voters aren’t disenfranchised by easily corruptible election systems.
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No, Alaska’s moribund economy is unique because the toxic waste that is GOP Inc. and Democrat Inc. and public sector unions want it that way.
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Good news is Alaska’s government as a cottage industry is as sustainable as terminal cancer.
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Metastasizes, kills the host, then what… invaders don’t live without a host, no?
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Then we start over… Last Frontier redux?
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Could happen.
If you think state and municipal wages are competitive for anyone but Tier 1&2 employees, you’re out of your mind. The state can’t even get qualified STEM people to apply to their jobs, and almost 20% of state positions are empty right now. I personally left state employment two years ago for a net raise (including benefits) of 41% doing very similar work. Mining and petroleum companies are basically treating entry level state employment as a free training course.
I hope a law enforcement investigation follows him.
AIDEA has been a boondoggle since day one. It has cost Alaska Taxpayers BILLIONS of Dollars. What a costly joke.
The only taxpayers in Alaska are oil company’s. Everyone else is feeding off the PFD teet and never full.
teet
English
Noun
fast, swift, nimble
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Monies wasted by government, regardless of the source, affect all citizens.
Let’s go back and start supporting our sustainable natural resources. Alaska thrived on it’s fisheries but due to outside sport lobbies our lopsided board of fisheries has all but killed commercial fishing in Cook Inlet and all the local jobs that supports it. Let Alaskan fishing families work and harvest the over abundance of sockeye that are allowed to over escape the Kenai river. There are different avenues for work other than government jobs.
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