Opinions

Proposed salary outrageous for Walker administration gas line official

Go to virtually any city or borough government meeting right now and you will find the same thing -- elected officials struggling to deal with dramatic shortfalls in their budget due in large part to cuts in state funding through the revenue sharing program.

The state is taking in millions less than it is putting out thanks to declining flow through the pipeline and as a result, the state coffers are dwindling, too, though we still have a good chunk of change in a variety of savings accounts.

The worst part about the state's fiscal crunch is that it impacts all of us at the same time. Schools see cuts, city governments see cuts, and state spending in the private sector is dialed back, too, so individual businesses feel the impact. Even funding for nonprofits, arguably the backbone of Alaska's infrastructure, are having their efficiencies put to the test. It hits everyone hard.

Well, almost everyone.

This week, Gov. Bill Walker asked the Legislature to approve an $840,000 salary and benefits package for a public employee to work on Alaska's natural gas pipeline project.

Walker has long been a proponent of the natural gas pipeline -- much of his career has been involved with it in one way or another. So I'm sure he has an accurate sense of the rate of pay for someone with the expertise to lead this effort. And the old adage that you have to spend money to make money probably rings true in this case.

But when did things get so far out of proportion that a person can make more in a year than most of us make in 20? According to the state, in 2014, the median hourly wage was $21.73 and the annual mean wage was $54,040. Alaska enjoys a fairly high average wage compared to the rest of the nation because of the large number of highly paid positions operating in industries like oil and gas, but there are plenty of people in Alaska struggling along at significantly less than $54,000 a year, especially in rural Alaska. And given that everyone knows Alaska is far more expensive to live in than the Lower 48, these numbers require some adjustment.

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But that's not even part of the picture when you talk about paying someone $840,000 for one year's work. That's roughly $400 an hour. That individual will make more in one hour than the minimum wage worker in Alaska will receive for a week's worth of work.

When did we get to a place where one person's labor was worth so much more than another's? Certainly, the doctor who goes to school for nearly a decade and continues to invest significant time in his knowledge of the human body deserves to be paid more than someone who chooses a less arduous path in life. But even doctors in Alaska make less than $200,000 a year on average. Gov. Walker himself makes only $145,000, which is still plenty.

The rub is that funding a position like that comes at the expense of others. With a finite amount of money, an $840,000 salary for an individual means state funding is not available for more than a dozen police officers, some 14 teachers, or more than 16 firefighters. As many as 20 public employees -- the people who plow your roads, keep water running to your homes, and maintain the infrastructure you depend on every day, could be funded with that money.

What is more valuable at the end of the day to most Alaskans?

Surely there's some room here for middle ground. While business officials who negotiate projects like this surely have a valuable skill set, I'm sure many Alaskans would challenge the state to find someone who is motivated less by money than by doing something great for the future of the state of Alaska. There are more than 500,000 people in the state of Alaska of working age. Are you telling me not one of those people is able to fulfill these job requirements for less than $840,000?

There are times in Alaska's history when big salaries were commonplace and money flowed as freely as the tides. But those days are gone. Now, we are just another place in America with a high cost of living and challenging weather. Alaska -- especially our top officials -- needs to adjust its thinking accordingly.

But this suggested salary doesn't just speak to skewed perspectives among Alaska's elected officials. Wealth inequality is a disgusting problem nationwide. People, working hard day in and day out, need to be justly compensated. The only way to do that is to balance out the pay scale.

That may be next to impossible to do in the private sector, but government -- run by the people, for the people -- can certainly set a precedent. And we can start by objecting to this obviously inflated salary.

Carey Restino is the editor of Bristol Bay Times-Dutch Harbor Fisherman and The Arctic Sounder, where this commentary first appeared.

The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)alaskadispatch.com.

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