Lawmakers are pushing Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration to release drafts of a statewide salary study submitted by a human resources consultant.
The calls to release the drafts come as the state faces an ongoing worker shortage — as of the end of last year, there were 2,905 unfilled positions across state government, according to internal records obtained by Alaska Public Media.
The shortage has persisted for years. In 2023, lawmakers appropriated $1 million to fund the study comparing the state’s salaries to those in the private sector and in other states. That study was originally due at the end of last June.
But at a State Affairs Committee meeting on Thursday, Department of Administration Commissioner Paula Vrana told lawmakers the administration wasn’t satisfied with what state officials received over the summer.
"After receiving some early drafts of the report, it was noted that significant and relevant factors had changed since the study began," Vrana told the committee.
Those include a bill raising salaries for exempt employees and some routine collective bargaining. Vrana said her department also asked the outside contractor, HR consulting firm Segal, to integrate data from “additional peer jurisdictions.”
The final report is now expected by March 31, she said.
But that’s well into the legislative session — and lawmakers in both bodies say filling state vacancies and retaining state workers are top priorities for the session. State Affairs Committee Chair Rep. Ashley Carrick, D-Fairbanks, said the draft reports would be helpful.
"There's a lot of concern about why we don't, as a legislature, have the draft reports, especially as the funders of this information," Carrick said. "Personally, I'd really like to see a draft, and I'd like to, if not, know exactly why that's not information that the legislature has access to."
The governor’s office and the Department of Administration jointly denied a public records request from Alaska Public Media asking for the draft reports.
“Current drafts of the report are not subject to disclosure based on the executive communications privilege, the deliberative process privilege, and/or the balance of interests,” Guy Bell of Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s office and Brittany Patzke of the Department of Administration said in response to a records request.
Dunleavy’s administration is also limiting what lawmakers and the public see about the additional data state officials asked for. Though Vrana outlined the broad strokes, the specific revisions the state asked for were redacted by the Department of Law in public records outlining the contract update.
The executive director of the Alaska State Employees Association, Heidi Drygas, told the committee that her union, representing much of the state’s rank-and-file workforce, is in negotiations for a new contract — and data on how competitive the state’s salaries are is an essential part of those negotiations.
“I would argue the public has a right to know why the department is expending additional funds for that additional information,” Drygas told lawmakers.
Some of the governor's allies, though, say they understand the administration’s decision to keep the drafts under wraps. Rep. Kevin McCabe, R-Big Lake, said during the hearing that releasing an incomplete report could put the state at a disadvantage as lawmakers assemble the state budget.
"I totally understand that releasing bad data would be worse than no data at this point," McCabe said.
