I read State Sen. Rob Yundt’s PFD post with both appreciation and concern. I appreciate his support for a full, statutory dividend; Alaskans are better stewards of those dollars than 60 legislators.

That’s consistent with our constitutional design: Alaskans are the ultimate owners and beneficiaries; the Legislature is the trustee with the purse strings. Voters created the Permanent Fund, and Article VIII’s equal-access and uniform-application rules exist to keep resource development fair. The Legislature’s job is to turn those promises into statutes, leases, budgets, and audits that deliver the “maximum benefit” to Alaskans – and we hold them accountable at the polls when they don’t.

My concern is that Sen. Yundt calls for a fiscal plan but hasn’t offered one. Endorsing the PFD is the easy part; governing requires a math-tight roadmap that balances the budget, protects the Fund’s real value, and explains how we’ll fund core services without raiding dividends. I welcome his leadership and I’m eager to see the line items, timelines, and tradeoffs that turn his message into a workable plan.

Let me offer my thoughts. I’ve written on this almost ad nauseum. Alaska’s fiscal challenges are functionally an easy fix. Politically they are like pulling teeth from a chicken.

Alaska can balance its books, protect the Permanent Fund, and raise household prosperity by refocusing government on outcomes instead of bureaucracy, yet the legislature’s propensity continues to grow a bureaucracy that neither serves Alaskans nor prepare its children for an abundant future.

Restoring trust requires restoring the PFD to its pre-2016 statutory process. Dividends are paid from realized earnings under the formula, outside annual budget horse-trading.

The fiscal anchor is simple: live within recurring revenues each year, preserve the Fund’s real (inflation-adjusted) value, and route dollars to services that measurably work. Four operating changes make that possible: stabilize Medicaid, replace K-12 bureaucracy with parent-directed Education Savings Accounts (ESAs), build firm low-cost energy (hydro, nuclear, modern coal), and restore the Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) to its statutory footing while paying down arrears in predictable annual installments. As those pillars take hold, the state can also shrink its administrative footprint and help current public employees transition, gradually and voluntarily, into private-sector roles that develop Alaska’s natural resources and the infrastructure necessary to support it.

Medicaid is the first budget risk to tame. In year one, Alaska will stand up a contracted payment-integrity and eligibility effort to scrub ineligible rolls, pre-audit high-risk claims, and renegotiate outlier costs into case-rates, without growing permanent headcount. A statutory contingency account would cap General Fund exposure so mid-year overruns no longer raid other priorities. With that triage in place, the state pursues a forked strategy: either federalize core Medicaid administration, shifting financing and compliance to the federal level while keeping Alaska’s provider networks, or, if federalization proves unavailable, run an alternative 1115 waiver that pays for outcomes under shared-savings contracts. Either path turns a volatile match obligation into a predictable, audited program that protects patients and the state’s treasury.

Education reform redirects money to students and teachers instead of central offices and a “one size fits all” approach. A universal (education saving account) ESA law would deposit a per-pupil amount (with add-ons for special needs and remoteness) into a secure account parents control for tuition, tutoring, curriculum, micro-schools, CTE, and services they choose. Over two fiscal years, the state sunsets non-federally-required functions in the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development and dissolves school district bureaucracies, retaining only time-limited facilities and records office to manage buildings and archives. Existing schools may continue, as providers competing for families, while special-education services are guaranteed through contracts and ESA add-ons. Accountability shifts from paperwork to results: publish simple provider report cards on reading and math growth, graduation and placement, per-pupil spending, and parent satisfaction, and tie any state innovation grants to demonstrated gains. The ESA framework will explicitly preserve funding and access for non-academic supports, school sports, physical education, vocational/CTE tracks, and paid standards-based apprenticeships with industry partners, so students build healthy bodies and job-ready skills alongside core academics.

The destination is a state that spends predictably, measures what matters, pays what it promises, and turns more of its natural wealth into family income and durable jobs.

Cheap, dependable energy underpins long-run growth and financial success. The state accelerates hydro by uprating existing dams, permitting run-of-river projects near loads, and using take-or-pay power purchase agreements to unlock private capital. In parallel, an SMR (small modular reactor) siting and licensing act pre-zones industrial sites, sets decommissioning reserves, and invites vendor proposals for remote hubs and large industrial loads. Where logistics make sense, aging coal units are replaced or retrofitted with high-efficiency, low-emission technology under modern environmental controls. A one-stop energy permitting office collapses timelines, and a time-limited, auctioned production credit jump-starts early projects without creating open-ended subsidies. The result is firm baseload that lowers retail rates, supports mines, processors, data centers, and communities, and reduces reliance on volatile imports and unreliable alternatives.

Restoring trust requires restoring the PFD to its pre-2016 statutory process. Dividends are paid from realized earnings under the formula, outside annual budget horse-trading. Arrears owed to eligible Alaskans are repaid over time through a dedicated account fed by realized gains above an inflation guardrail and any unexpected surpluses, never by touching principal. The Alaska legislature should also provide Alaskan voters with the question of constitutional protection. Constitutional protection can lock in both the formula and the Fund’s real-value discipline so future legislatures and their budgets cannot raid either. This approach returns mineral-wealth earnings to Alaskans as intended while preserving the endowment that makes those earnings possible.

As the administrative state shrinks, Alaska should take care of its people and strengthen its economy at the same time. The state can offer voluntary transition pathways for affected employees, priority placement, training vouchers, and hiring pipelines, into private firms building the energy projects, maintaining transmission, delivering education services, and expanding responsible resource development. Think of bridge programs that recognize public experience (procurement, safety, project management) and fast-track those skills into construction managers, plant technicians, linemen, IT auditors, compliance leads, and instructional providers. Contracts can include local-hire and apprenticeship targets, so the shift is orderly and rooted in Alaska communities.

To keep the math honest, appropriations follow three guardrails: a real-value-preserving cap on total Permanent Fund draws; a General Fund spending cap with automatic rollback rules if revenues disappoint; and clean, single-subject finance bills without policy riders. Quarterly public scorecards track Medicaid enrollment and cost per member, ESA uptake and learning growth, statewide ¢/kWh and unserved energy, and PFD arrears balances. Where numbers miss targets, prewritten corrective actions trigger automatically, rate adjustments, contract re-bids, or documented true-ups, so problems are fixed while records are still fresh.

Sequencing is straightforward. In the first 90 days, pass the ESA statute and school district/DEED sunset, enact Medicaid payment-integrity and the contingency account, restore the statutory PFD and create the arrears fund, and adopt SMR siting plus the one-stop energy office. Year one builds the ESA platform, signs the first hydro and modernization agreements, publishes transparent baselines, and pays the dividend per statute. Years two and three complete the Medicaid fork (federalization or 1115), wind down district bureaucracies as ESAs launch, award SMR and coal modernization projects, and make the first arrears tranches. By years four through seven, early SMR and hydro additions are online, retail rates decline, arrears shrink, and Alaska’s workforce increasingly powers a private-led resource economy. The destination is a state that spends predictably, measures what matters, pays what it promises, and turns more of its natural wealth into family income and durable jobs.

The predicate for not just Alaska’s financial solvency, but the explosive success of Alaskans’ spirits, uncrippled by bureaucracy, will be the disciplined return of power and dollars to families: a restored statutory PFD, universal Education Savings Accounts, and cheap, reliable energy, all delivered by a smaller, outcome-driven state.

The views expressed here are those of the author.

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