State Government

Members of the Alaska Public Offices Commission today (Tuesday) blasted the legislature for a bill that would ease the state’s electronic campaign disclosure requirement.

House Bill 311 exempts candidates who don’t have a computer or broadband Internet access at home. A Senate amendment would excuse sitting lawmakers from the requirement for as long as they hold office. The bill also delays the electronic disclosure requirement for one year – until February 2013 – and prevents APOC from changing reporting requirements in the middle of an election cycle.

The bipartisan Public Offices Commission was unanimous in its opposition to the legislation. Commissioner Kathleen King – a public member from Anchorage – noted the legislature passed the electronic reporting requirement in 2007 after some lawmakers were ensnared in a federal corruption probe.

“That statute committed APOC to develop this filing system, these databases, to collect this information electronically, and legislators have known that this day was coming,” said King. “And I think the current bill weakens that statute considerably. And in fact, many of those legislators that supported the 2007 amendments support this one. And I just don’t think that we should wait until the next political fiasco to amend the statute back.”

Legislators have complained that APOC’s online reporting system is slow, cumbersome, and not-user friendly. But Republican Commissioner Kenneth Kirk from Anchorage says he doesn’t see any significant hurdles for lawmakers to overcome.

“Frankly, I have trouble seeing that it’s a major imposition on those campaigns,” Kirk said.

Anchorage Republican Representatives Craig Johnson and Mike Hawker called-in to the meeting from the Capitol to defend HB 311. Johnson says it fixes deficiencies in the current statute that could prevent some people from running for office.

“I don’t know if you guys are aware of this, but 17 percent of Alaskans have no access to Internet – none – and if you go beyond that into the people that have dial up, that number goes up to almost 20 percent, 25 percent,” Johnson said. “And this is typically the very poor and the people in rural Alaska. And by implementing this policy you have effectively excluded those people from running for office.”

Commissioners reminded Johnson that the legislature implemented the policy, not the commission.

Democratic Commissioner Shirley Dean of Juneau also noted that candidates can apply for a waiver to the electronic reporting requirement, and that certain campaigns – including for municipal office in communities of less than 15-thousand people – are automatically exempt from the rule.

“This bill really does not need to happen, because everything in it is covered by our waivers that’s currently in regulation,” Dean said.

House Bill 311 was fast-tracked through both chambers of the legislature before the commission could comment on it. APOC Executive Director Paul Dauphinais expressed his staff’s concerns at three committee hearings.

The bill appears headed for a conference committee unless the Senate agrees to drop the provision exempting sitting lawmakers from the electronic reporting requirement. The House rejected that change on Monday.

A bill easing a requirement for certain political candidates to file campaign financial disclosure reports electronically hit a snag Monday, after previously sailing through both chambers of the Alaska Legislature.

House Bill 311 passed the Senate, but a change to the legislation was rejected by the House of Representatives.

While the bill has garnered virtually no attention, it is opposed by staff of the Alaska Public Offices Commission – the agency that oversees disclosure of campaign financing. Casey Kelly has more.

The House version of the bill, which passed on Friday, would delay the electronic reporting requirement by one year to February 2013, and exempt candidates who have no computer or broadband Internet access at their home. It would also prevent the Alaska Public Offices Commission from changing the manner or format of reporting requirements during an election cycle.

The Senate wanted to go further, preventing APOC from making changes to reporting requirements for sitting lawmakers during the tenure of their term in office. But Anchorage Republican Representative Mike Hawker said that was taking things too far.

“Speaking with many members of this body that is perhaps a bit aggressive, perhaps a bit strident,” Hawker said on the House floor.

The House rejected the change 33-0. If the Senate does not agree to drop it, the two sides will hash out their differences in a conference committee.

The bill breezed through both chambers ahead of a Wednesday (2/15) deadline for candidates to file their first financial disclosure statements of the 2012 election cycle. Senate President Gary Stevens – a Kodiak Republican – said some lawmakers have had difficulty with the new electronic reporting system being implemented by APOC.

“I think this could have a daunting impact on legislators,” Stevens said. “I mean, I’m in my 12th year in the legislature and I’ve always sent these things in – mailed them in – and I’ve always typed them out so they’re easily readable, easily scan-able, and are available the next day to the public. I know others hire people to do this for them. That shouldn’t be the case. You shouldn’t have to go out hire someone to do this report for you. We should be able to do it ourselves.”

The legislature put the electronic filing requirement on the books with 2007 Comprehensive Ethics Reform Act, though it hasn’t been enforced while APOC staff worked to get the system up and running.

APOC Executive Director Paul Dauphinais says his staff has been working for more than a year on the system and held several training sessions to walk people through the process.

“We’ve had all kinds of trainings where people were there in person, they can attend via Go-to-meeting, and they can attend via just a telephone, where they can listen in,” said Dauphinais. “We’ve trained over 300 people.”

The law already provides an exemption to the electronic reporting requirement for municipal candidates in communities with less than 15-thousand people, as well as candidates who have an emergency, or who don’t intend to raise and spend more than 5-thousand dollars during their campaign.

Dauphinais says HB 311 weakens transparency by broadening the exemptions for candidates who have no computer or Internet access at their residence.

“All the money that’s been spent on trying to bring electronic filing to bear – something that 34 other states in the union have mandatory for their candidates – in many cases it’s going to be optional now,” Dauphinais said. “And I would say in a large number of cases it will not be required.”

Dauphinais expressed his concerns to the House State Affairs Committee last week and the Senate Rules Committee on Monday. But members pushed the bill forward, pointing to a requirement that APOC staff post copies of the disclosure forms submitted in alternative formats to the commission’s website within two days of being filed.

Dauphinais says staff will not be able to catch mistakes that would be flagged by the electronic system, and those documents won’t be as easily searchable.

“Particularly toward the last few days of a primary or general election, or a municipal election, it makes it more difficult with all kinds of candidates filing to get those reports up in a timely manner,” said Dauphinais. “Then it’s very difficult for the public to put the pieces together. Because when we scan a document, it’s a PDF and that’s all you see. You can’t look at it in relation to another. It’s not on a database where you can put the last report with this report and see how the money flows.”

The Public Offices Commission itself has not reviewed HB 311 or given the legislature any input on the bill. Dauphinais speaks for the commission’s staff, which is responsible for investigating campaign disclosure complaints.

The full Senate will convene Tuesday, and can either agree to drop its proposed change to the House bill, or appoint members to the conference committee. The House conference committee members are Hawker, Anchorage Republican Craig Johnson, and Juneau Democrat Beth Kerttula.

The Alaska Public Offices Commission has scheduled a meeting for Tuesday at its Anchorage office to discuss House Bill 311. The commission will also be taking public comment on the bill. The meeting starts at 10 a.m. and can be heard via teleconference at 1-800-315-6338, Code 4176#1.

A bill that breezed through the state House last week (Friday) easing a requirement for some political candidates to file financial disclosure documents electronically, weakens transparency, according to the head of the Alaska Public Offices Commission.

APOC Executive Director Paul Dauphinais says allowing candidates to continue filing with pen and paper hampers public access to financial disclosure information, even with the requirement that those documents be posted online.

“I would submit to you that this does hinder transparency to the public,” Dauphinais testified to the House State Affairs Committee last Thursday. “Essentially you’re looking at a photograph. It’s difficult to compare; you are requiring people to print out or make notes. I would also submit to you that by not using the new system – which is up and ready to go and running – those people who file that way have much more control over their data. There is a self-check mechanism in that program. It identifies for you any errors that were made. Did you not put in the name and occupation of a contributor who went over the threshold for that to be reported? That finds it for you.”

House Bill 311 was approved on a 35 to 1 vote. It allows candidates with no computer or broadband Internet at home to file with pen and paper.

Anchorage Representative Mike Hawker says the bill does not alter the amount or type of information candidates must submit to the Alaska Public Offices Commission.

“It’s so important to us, in our duties here, to disclose our information – these campaign finance activities – to the public. That transparency is critical in maintaining the credibility of the public process,” Hawker says. “But in doing so, we must be very cautious that we do not become so overly proscriptive that we discourage, or even prevent any Alaskan, anywhere in the state from seeking public office.”

The 2007 Comprehensive Ethics Reform Act put the electronic filing requirement on the books, though it hasn’t been enforced. Municipal candidates in communities with a population of less than 15-thousand people are already exempt from the rule. APOC will also grant an exception to candidates who have an emergency or who don’t intend to raise or spend more than 5-thousand dollars during their campaign.

House Bill 311 also delays the timeline for the electronic reporting requirement until next year. Some legislators have had problems with APOC’s online system.

The bill was fast-tracked through the House. Anchorage Representative Les Gara was the only member to vote no.

It now heads to the Senate.

Public employees who choose a traditional pension under a bill sponsored by Juneau Senator Dennis Egan may have to share more in the rising cost of health care, after changes made by the Senate State Affairs Committee today (Thursday).

Senate Bill 121 would let public employees choose either a defined benefit program – also known as a traditional pension – or a defined contribution program, like a 401(k) retirement account. During the Murkowski administration, the legislature did away with the defined benefit program for all employees hired since July 2006.

An actuary’s analysis of the bill shows the state would initially pay less for both health care and retirement for those employees who choose a defined benefit. But the savings would diminish over 30 years due to rising health insurance costs.

The State Affairs Committee adopted an amendment written by Egan’s office calling for a review of the costs every five years, so adjustments can be made to employee and employer contributions.

Egan says his goal is to hold the state’s retirement costs steady.

“Hopefully things will stabilize, but everything regarding health insurance right now is in such flux,” he says.

Unions and other groups that support Egan’s bill say forcing workers into a defined contribution plan hampers retention of public employees. The bill has ten co-sponsors and bipartisan support.

The Parnell administration opposes the measure.

State Affairs Chairman Bill Wielechowski says he hopes to move the bill out of his committee next week.

The state could save more than $5 billion in future payments to the Alaska Public Employees’ Retirement System by immediately putting $2 billion into a pension reserve fund, according to Legislative Fiscal Analyst David Teal.

Over the past five years, the state has contributed about a billion dollars to the retirement system, which has an unfunded liability estimated at $11 billion. Teal told the Senate Finance Committee today (Wednesday) that if nothing is done, yearly payments in the millions of dollars will continue through at least 2030.

“If we were to contribute an additional $2 billion now, it would allow us to stop making state assistance payments in the future,” Teal says. “Another way to look at it is: The cumulative contributions without a deposit would be $8.3 billion. Well, the cumulative contributions with the deposit are $3 [billion], for a savings of $5.3 billion over the life of this model.”

Senate Bill 187 – sponsored by the Finance Committee – would set up the $2 billion reserve fund, which could be used to supplement PERS as needed. The money would come from state savings, which currently total more than $10 billion.

Because the fund would be separate from the retirement system, Teal says the state could eventually get its money back once the PERS deficit disappears. But he says that won’t be for several years.

“One way you could look at this bill is that it’s a loan to the retirement system, and that we get our money back. But it’s a very long-term loan. You’re not talking about ten years and you get your money back. You’re talking about somewhere out there in 2050 or 2060,” says Teal.

That prompted Sitka Republican and Senate Finance Co-Chair Bert Stedman to ask, “Mr. Teal, do you plan on being here to make sure we get our money back?”

“I plan on getting my own money out by then, Mr. Chairman,” Teal responded.

This was the first hearing for the bill, which was set aside for further review. Stedman said the committee will take public comment at the next hearing.

The amount municipalities pay into the retirement system is currently capped at 22 percent of their payroll. Under SB 187 that number would stay the same.

Governor Sean Parnell has said he’s opposed to the idea of creating a reserve fund to help supplement PERS. The governor says he’d rather not create another pile of money that’s off-limits in case of an emergency, which also would be subject to the whims of the stock market like the retirement system.

PERS’ unfunded liability has been attributed to market woes, the rising cost of health care, and the extended life expectancy of retirees.

Rebecca Braun of the Alaska Budget Report previews lawmakers’ consideration of a new oil tax bill and reviews executive branch travel reports. She also provides updates of the supplemental and operating budgets in this expanded version of the segment that aired Wednesday on Morning Edition.