A fishing commission has worked itself out of a job. But its commissioners make more than $130K
At an obscure state agency in Juneau, two commissioners each earn more than $130,000 a year to oversee fewer than two dozen employees — about the same amount paid to the corrections, health and transportation commissioners, who supervise thousands.
The two political appointees, Ben Brown and Bruce Twomley, are being paid even though they've all but stopped doing the Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission's most essential work: They haven't limited access to a fishery since 2004, and they've resolved no more than three permit applications in each of the past five years, down from the dozens that were once processed annually.
A long-running project to upgrade the agency's obsolete, 35-year-old computer system has stalled. One former employee, who lacked civil service protection, says he was fired after pushing for reforms and providing auditors with information that he said documented the commission's inefficiency and dysfunction.
Meanwhile, several other longtime employees have been allowed to retire and collect state benefits while continuing part-time work for the commission in temporary positions. One, Doug Rickey — who left the agency last month — said he was doing about 20 percent of his work remotely from Las Vegas, where he lives part of the time.
Read more: https://www.adn.com/politics/2017/07/09/an-alaska-fishing-commission-has-worked-itself-out-of-a-job-but-its-commissioners-still-make-more-than-130000-a-year/
