More ethics, more often

David Postman, who once covered the Alaska legislature for the Anchorage Daily News, has posted about my ethics campaign on his blog for the Seattle Times.

Should we restart the Longevity Bonus program?

A couple of legislators have filed bills to restart the program.

Gov. Sarah Palin has put $32.2 million in next year’s budget to do so. That indicates that about 12,000 people would get anywhere from $100 to $250 a month under the program.

These are just estimates, made by my staffer, Ken Alper. (If you want to know more about the math behind these estimates, you can reach Ken at Ken_Alper@legis.state.ak.us). We won’t know the real numbers unless the program is restarted. But if the estimates are close, only 20 percent of Alaskans who are 65 or older would receive the bonus. And since the bonus is given without regard to income, some wealthy senior citizens would be getting a check while some poor senior citizens wouldn’t.

So the program is both inequitable and scattershot. That’s troubling. Equally troubling to me is how those 12,000 or so Alaskans qualified for the program. To understand that, you’re going to have to sit still for a history lesson. Pay attention, there will be a quiz later.

The longevity bonus program started in 1972. It paid $100 a month (an amount raised several times in later years until it reached $250 in 1982) to Alaskans who were 65 or older and had lived here for 25 years. The program was both a reward for the pioneering efforts of the recipients and an incentive to keep them in the state. The statement of purpose in the bill that established the program said, in part.

The legislature also is aware of the fact that many of these pioneers have been forced to live out their retirement years in areas far away from the land they loved and nurtured and thereby also suffering in many cases the loss of familial relationship with their own kin, an experience that is sad and frustrating to them as well as depriving new generations of Alaskans the benefit of their wisdom and experience.

Hard to be against rewarding pioneers, and if that were still the program I wouldn’t have any trouble supporting it. But it’s not.

In 1982, a fellow named Rodney Vest sued the state, claiming that the residency requirements violated the equal protection clauses of both the state and federal constitutions. When he won in both the state superior and supreme courts, the legislature had two choices. It could end the longevity bonus or open it up to everyone who was 65 or older.

Unfortunately, the legislature did the latter, removing all reference to the pioneers.  All you had to do to qualify was be 65 years old, here and breathing.

The cost of the program took off like a rocket. In the last year before it was expanded, 9,700 people were paid $29.2 million. In 1993, 22,700 people were paid $66.6 million. Lawmakers saw that the state could no longer afford the wide-open program and clamped down. By 1996, the last year anyone could qualify, the cost of the program was $73.3 million. It began to decline after that as qualified recipients began to die. By the time Gov. Frank Murkowski vetoed funding for the program in 2003, it cost $47.5 million.

If the program is restarted, a certain number of the people getting the bonus would be the pioneers the program was originally designed for. Ken estimates that number to be only 1,375 out of the 12,000 who would still qualify.

With all these problems, I don’t see how I can support restarting the program. E-mail me and let me know what you think.

Got your factoids right here

Alaska apparently exports aircraft and spacecraft—$75 million last year. Who knew? The information was contained in a couple of slides presented by Greg Wolf, the executive director of World Trade Center Alaska, to the powerful House Special Committee on Economic Development, Trade and Tourism, of which I am, of course, a powerful member. When asked, Wolf couldn’t say exactly who was exporting what to where.

Best Wishes,