JUNEAU – The Senate State Affairs Committee heard Senate Bill 107, “The Alaska Sunset Commission Act,” by Senator Shelley Hughes (R – Palmer). The cost-saving measure will help ensure efficiency, transparency and constitutional alignment in the operation of our state government.

The bill establishes the Alaska Sunset Commission as an apolitical, independent, and objective panel charged with overseeing and reviewing detailed and robust audits of state entities on a rotating schedule. The panel will be responsible for making recommendations to the Legislature related to performance and costs, including any statutory changes necessary to carry out its suggestions. The Legislature must take up the bill to prevent a particular entity from sunsetting, or closing, and its statutory duties falling to the relevant department commissioner.

The unpaid commission members, appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Legislature, will comprise seven individuals from the private sector with financial, budget analysis, operations management, and efficiency expertise.

“When we are facing a significant fiscal gap and taxes are being considered, the first thing we need to do is to ensure our state agencies are being run as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible,” Senator Hughes said. 

Senate Bill 107 is a reasonable, consistent, DOGE with teeth.  The ‘teeth’ refer to the fact that the Legislature must take up the audit recommendations to prevent the agency in question from sunsetting. The independent commission’s recommendations will be a tool to help both the Governor and the Legislature build a better budget.

“Alaskans want to know they are getting the most bang for their public buck,” Senator Hughes said. “Other states, using this same concept, have improved state agency operations to better

serve the public while saving hundreds of millions of dollars over the years. Alaska can do this too, and it’s time we do.”

The bill has drawn support from the six-member Senate Republican Caucus and piqued the interest of legislators in both chambers as a component of a long-term state fiscal plan.

“I’m from the business world where we work hard to not waste a dime,” said Senator Robert Yundt, R-Wasilla, a member of the State Affairs Committee. “We need that mentality in our state agencies, and the Sunset Commission is the mechanism that can make it happen. SB 107 will help get and keep our spending under control.”

Eric Beverly, Executive Director of the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission, created in 1977, told the State Affairs Committee on Thursday that the Texas commission has resulted in abolishment of 42 programs or agencies, consolidation of dozens more, and $1 billion in savings.

The commission is the Texas Legislature’s way of exercising oversight and evaluating the effectiveness of state agencies.

Eighty percent of the commission’s statutory changes are adopted by the Legislature, he said.

“We ask a fundamental question about whether the agency and its programs are still needed.”

Senator Scott Kawasaki (D –Fairbanks) Chairman of the State Affairs Committee, held over Senate Bill 107 for further review.

Watch Senator Hughes present the bill here.

  Alaska, hughes, sunsetting