This story was originally published by Dermot Cole, Reporting from Alaska.
This is the perfect day for Randy Ruaro to release the “robust, independent analysis” of the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority that was completed more than a year ago and kept secret.
Not because this is April Fools’ Day, but because the Alaska House and Senate are holding a joint meeting of their state affairs committees today at 3:30 p.m.
Legislators should demand to see what they received for the $250,000 contract.
Ruaro is to address the topic “What is AIDEA and how does it benefit Alaskans?”
There is no better document to answer that question about benefits than the study prepared for AIDEA and completed more than a year ago by Northern Economics of Anchorage for $250,000.
Ruaro has refused to allow the public to see the document. That includes legislators.
The members of the state affairs committees should insist that Ruaro release the report, so the public can understand what the independent study contains and get an unfiltered view of how AIDEA benefits Alaskans.
In a hearing of the Senate Resources Committee in February, Ruaro lied to legislators that the “independent” report was not finished and blamed that on turnover at Northern Economics.
But we now know that Northern Economics finished a “long form report” and gave it to the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority in early 2024, but the Dunleavy administration did not like the results and refused to release the “independent” analysis.
AIDEA admitted that it received the “long form report” in a contract extension with Northern Economics that called for specific revisions ordered by AIDEA to the finished study.
The new version of the study is due by the end of June, according to a document released in response to a public records request.
While the $250,000 has already been spent, AIDEA is now promising to pay for additional “time and expenses” to revise the “independent” study in ways to suit AIDEA.
This is no longer an “independent” analysis, based on the latest amendment.
The amendment confirms that in early 2024 Northern Economics submitted a “long form report.” After paying the contractor the full amount—with no penalty for failing to produce—the state began to claim the work was not finished.
It says Johns will “detail areas to expand upon, areas to highlight and areas to include that were not originally covered” in the Northern Economics research.
Northern Economics will follow the directions from Johns and provide a “refinement estimate” to AIDEA. Perhaps that means the company will provide a cost estimate for the AIDEA revisions.
The company submitted its last invoice on March 3, 2024, bringing its total charges to $249,871 for work that it finished in February 2024.
Northern Economics President Marcus Hartley has declined to respond to multiple requests about the “independent” review, a term that means the final contents should be determined by the company hired to be independent.
The credibility of Northern Economics, which bills itself as “Alaska’s Trusted Economics Expert,” is on the line here. The company says that it “performs meaningful unbiased analyses throughout Alaska and around the world.”
There is reason to question just how unbiased the analysis will be when a version that Dunleavy supports is finally made public.
After waiting nearly a year, perhaps hoping the study would be forgotten, AIDEA at long last decided to tell Northern Economics that the agency objects to some of the contents of the “independent” report and ordered more work.
In 2023, AIDEA officials said they were excited about having Northern Economics take on the robust job. The AIDEA press release was headlined “Northern Economics to Conduct Independent Analysis of AIDEA.”
“Our team of economists is the best in the business and we look forward to providing this third-party unbiased economic analysis of AIDEA as quickly and thoroughly as possible,” Hartley said in the 2023 press release.
The report was supposed to be complete by late 2023. Last June AIDEA extended the contract until the end of 2024, even though all the money had been spent.
Here is the original contract, earlier amendments and the company’s invoices.
Here is the latest amendment and the AIDEA instructions for revisions.
AIDEA had a political goal with this $250,000 contract: It was to counter the studies performed by two experts in Alaska public policy, Gregg Erickson and Milt Barker.
Erickson said that he and Barker were paid a total of $55,000 by Salmon State for a September 2022 report, “AIDEA Cost & Financial Performance— A Long, Hard Look,” and three reports released a year ago.
Stung by the Erickson/Barker findings and assertions, AIDEA announced plans on September 29, 2022 to hire a contractor to prepare a report for AIDEA that would counter the “disinformation” in the Erickson/Barker report.
AIDEA said it hoped to “complete the analysis by the end of 2022” and headlined its first press release, “AIDEA Debunks Report and Announces Independent Economic Analysis.”
In November 2022, AIDEA said it wanted a report that “will independently examine and document the authority’s impressive economic and investment history,” as well as its “central role” in advancing economic growth. It said the report would be done by June 2023.
Ruaro did not wait to read three 2024 reports from Erickson and Barker before attacking the authors, complaining about “dark money” from the groups backing Salmon State, the environmental organization that contracted with Erickson and Barker.
Here is the AIDEA April 9, 2024 press release, in which Ruaro provided links to a right-wing dark money outfit attacking left-wing dark money. The groups backing Salmon State, and by extension, Erickson and Barker, are an “affront to the democratic process,” according to Ruaro.
Under a democratic process AIDEA would not continue to lie about the study completed more than a year ago and keep it secret.
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