Alaskans to Receive Oil Wealth Dividend

The Associated Press

The Alaska Permanent Fund dividend is $1,107.56, several hundred dollars less than last year, Gov. Frank Murkowski said Sept. 24.

Eligible Alaskans will receive $443.20 less than they did from last year’s dividend of $1,540.76. The amount of the 2002 dividend was announced at the annual meeting of the Permanent Fund Corp., which manages the $25 billion investment fund created from oil riches.

Dividends are calculated based on a five-year average of permanent fund investment income derived from bonds, stock dividends and sales and other investments.

Murkowski also announced he’s backing a new way to calculate the amount of money available to legislators each year from permanent fund.

Murkowski said he’s supporting the “percent of market value” plan advocated by the fund’s Board of Trustees.

“This provision would balance the good years against the bad and virtually guarantee that even in poor earning years dividends could still be paid, preventing a future Legislature from spending too much of the earnings,” Murkowski said.

Currently, the Legislature can spend only revenues derived from the fund’s investments, which historically they have spent only to pay dividends. Past Legislatures returned the rest of the income to the fund, Murkowski said, and if they had not, the fund would be a third-smaller.

A proposed “percent of market value” plan would let lawmakers spend up to 5 percent of the fund’s total value averaged over the previous five years. Such a change would require voter approval.

Earlier this year, any dividend at all was in doubt because of a long losing streak on Wall Street. But in the months before the fiscal year ended June 30, the stock market rallied and the oil wealth savings account earned enough to pay a dividend.

The fund ultimately finished the year with a gain of about 4.5 percent on investments, said spokeswoman Laura Achee.

Murkowski also announced a new member of the fund board: Former state Rep. Bill Hudson, a Republican from Juneau.

The permanent fund was created by voters in 1976 as an investment account for royalties after oil was discovered on the North Slope. The first dividend paid in 1982 was $1,000. The highest dividend ever paid was $1,963.86 in 2000.

Department of Revenue Commissioner Bill Corbus said an estimated 598,813 Alaskans will receive a dividend, up from 589,300 last year.

A total of $663.2 million will be disbursed for dividends, Corbus said.

Direct deposit of dividends is scheduled for Oct. 8. Checks by mail will be sent starting Oct. 16, Corbus said. Mailing is expected to take two weeks, Corbus said.