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, as Rep. Ashley Carrick accurately noted.
Rurao said that most of the work done to revise the contract was done by AIDEA, not by Northern Economics. Ruaro said he doesn’t expect Northern Economics to charge AIDEA much more, but will find the money if necessary.
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, with AIDEA doing much of the revision.
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. The original report and the revised report by AIDEA should be released when AIDEA finishes the new version in a couple of weeks.
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(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
