As the state faces multi-billion dollar deficits, the topic of using Alaska Permanent Fund Earnings to help is ever present.
Former Department of Revenue deputy commissioner Larry Persily said, in his opinion, it is only a matter of time.
Persily: “There’s no question in my mind that eventually permanent fund earnings will be used to pay for public services: schools, roads, public defenders, police and everything else. There just isn’t enough oil and gas money in our future to continue to provide out a free ride, we’re going to have to use permanent fund earnings at some point.”
He said with the current proposed budget cuts to public services like Education and the Department of Public Safety, more Alaskans might support that use.
Most Alaskans tie the state’s possible use of the fund to losing PFDs but Persily said that is not necessarily the case.
Persily: “It’s correct in that the earnings of the permanent fund get spun off to pay the dividend. I have not heard anybody talk at all ever about doing away with the dividend or severely cutting back the dividend. I think every elected official in Alaska knows when the time comes we’re going to have to use permanent fund earnings to pay for public services.
He said that would be a long and public process.
In 1999, 83 percent of Alaskans voted to reject a plan that would have used some of the earnings to pay for public services.