The Alaska Public Offices Commission survives as a shell organization, one of the smallest parts of state government, crippled by elected officials who like it that way.
The agency is down to six employees, including two secretaries, three paralegals and an acting director.
It has eight vacant positions as it grapples with the busiest time of the year — just before a general election.
The APOC is dying of neglect, down from 13.5 employees during the last election cycle.
Candidates and elected officials love the APOC to the extent that its enforcement of the law allows them to gather ammunition on their opponents, but they hate the organization because it requires them to file time-consuming disclosure reports that are supposed to aid the cause of good government.
There have been periodic spurts of public support for the agency, in particular after the Veco corruption scandal and the jailing of former legislators, but memories fade fast. Elected officials would rather spend money on anything except an agency that they think exists only to make their lives more difficult.
One of the legislative budget holdups that helps cripple the agency is that for the second year in a row, it is listed as collecting $120,000 more in income from fees than it is authorized to collect.
The agency is not allowed to collect fees from anyone except lobbyists and employers of lobbyists, Paul Dauphinais, the former executive director, told me a few months ago.
One quick fix is to allow APOC to charge fees for candidates and special interest groups that are dumping thousands or tens of thousands into the election. This would need legislative approval.
The people and groups trying to sway voters should be required to kick in to keep APOC alive. Incumbent public officials who want to reduce the cost of government are reluctant to do anything to increase the cost of running for office, but this is not too much to ask.
Lobbyists are required by law to register with the state for an annual fee of $250. "The commission may not accept an application for registration or renew a registration until the fee is paid," state law dictates.
A year ago, the Legislature approved a budget that said there should be no fees charged to candidates for election campaigns and APOC services for the fiscal year that ends next summer.
The fees for the state election pamphlet, an advertising book that is to be updated by late Friday to include the Trump campaign (whose leaders said they didn't know the long-standing deadline set in state law) need to be raised, as well as the election filing fees. Both have remained unchanged for decades.
There is a $30 filing fee with the Division of Elections for legislative candidates, and a $100 filing fee for candidates running for governor, lieutenant governor or Congress.
State law contains a provision allowing people who are destitute to file for an exemption from the fees. A similar approach could be made with the APOC and also allow an exemption for candidates who do not spend more than a certain amount on their campaigns.
The APOC budget is about $900,000, about a half-million below what it was two years ago, when it was already too low to accomplish the complicated set of tasks stipulated in state law.
Perhaps the clearest sign of the inadequate funding for APOC is its inability to meet the requirement of having regional offices across the state.
There are many other ways in which it falls short, as a half-dozen people cannot meet this lofty mission statement: "To encourage the public's confidence in their elected and appointed officials by administering Alaska's disclosure statutes and publishing financial information regarding the activities of election campaigns, public officials, lobbyists and lobbyist employers."
The APOC has an interim executive director, Heather Hebdon, because Dauphinais left the position in September with no comment.
In a detailed report early this year, Dauphinais said the agency was unable to meet the numerous requirements assigned to it in state law.
A lot of information has to be processed: "During the 2014 state-wide election cycle there were 8,299 filings reporting 383,489 campaign disclosure transactions for candidates and groups combined. Candidates filed 4,076 reports with 47,415 expenditure transactions worth $26,949,441 and 130,796 income transactions with a value of $29,302,222 — 178,211 total candidate transactions," he wrote.
The law requires the agency to examine and investigate all reports it receives, but that doesn't happen.
"The agency can receive up to 8,000 reports during the course of a year
and reviewing and comparing each report in a meaningful, professional manner is beyond the time available to staff given its other responsibilities," he said.
Alaskans have a choice — either amend state law to get rid of the bothersome disclosure requirements and shut down the agency or put more money into it.
Charging candidates and election groups for its services is a place to start.
Columnist Dermot Cole can be reached at dermot@alaskadispatch.com.
The views expressed here are the writer's and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary@alaskadispatch.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to letters@alaskadispatch.com or click here to submit via any web browser.