Off the record - a VIP policy letter from Senator Kim Elton

Dear Alaskan:

     I want to take this opportunity to let you know that investment advisor Mercer is buying investment advisor Callan. Forgive me if I suggest that's like steamy romance novelist Danielle Steel buying the Kinsey Institute for . . . (well, you know, sex research).
     Mercer is the group of financial consultants that created novel, indeed fictionalized, actuary reports for the state's huge public employee retirement funds. When we talk about the retirement accounts having an unfunded liability, professionals suggest the liability is in large part Mercer's fault. In fact, Alaska is suing Mercer to try and recover more than $1.8 billion for the damaged pension funds.
     So, why should y'all care they are absorbing Callan, another group of financial advisors with calculators? Well, Callan folks are primary investment advisors for our market-hammered Permanent Fund and what's left of our pension funds.
     Ms. Steel, meet Dr. Kinsey. Mercer, meet Callan. Mercer's acquisition of our investment portfolio advisors is even scarier than Ms. Steel becoming the boss of sex researchers and therapists.
     A joint Mercer/Callan press release announcing the new mega-Mercer notes the combined firm will "offer clients a wider range of tools and resources, top-notch professional advice and enhanced research, educational, and quantitative services." But let's not let them be the judge of that.
     I'd suggest all the "tools" and "enhanced research" are only good if the folks using the tools and resources and research are the best. Instead of tallying their combined resources, we must question the ability of the folks using all the resources. Our state's lawsuit against Mercer is predicated on the charge that the work of Mercer was "riddled with significant errors."
     I doubt the Mercer errors were because the tools weren't sharp but more likely because the tool users weren't sharp.
     So, what do we do now? I suggest our permanent fund and pension folks start casting about for a group of professionals not working for the Mercer group. Let's not let the Mercer folks get back at our money through our existing relationship, and their new relationship, with Callan--even if Mercer returns the $1.8 billion they helped us lose.
     We're all better off if we curl up with a Danielle Steel novel than if we curl up, again, with Mercer fiction writers.

Sincerely,

Sen. Kim Elton

DD for AG?--Rumor du jour is that former Senator Dave Donley is being considered for the vacant attorney general slot. The other half of the rumor is that an appointment won't be made until after the legislature adjourns so a confirmation vote can't be taken this session.

Protocol (UA Political Science 101)--There is a prescribed recipe for the way we deal with issues and colleagues on the floor and in committees. That's so we can conduct the business of the bodies in an orderly way. This can be confusing to visitors. This week I dashed into my education committee room a couple of minutes late and was startled when one mischievous committee member, pretending to announce the arrival of a judge in a courtroom, intoned authoritatively "All rise". I was even more surprised when a room full of UA students actually got to their feet.

Your choice--Former Sen. Rick Halford's cell phone rang as he was presenting the recommendations of the salary commission, which he chaired, to a group of legislators in the Senate Finance committee room last week. The meeting chair noted the usual penalty for cell phone infractions--a big box of doughnuts. Sen. Lyman Hoffman then broke in with an alternative: "or a pay raise."

Two rabbis, two politicians, and a Sikh--It sounds like the start of a joke but there is a picture on the governor's website with the guv, acting Anchorage Mayor Matt Claman, and three spiritual leaders lighting candles in memory of the victims of the recent Mumbai terror attacks. Apparently none of the governor's five PR folks (that's the number identified in the Alaska Budget Report), really understood what was going on. They instead headlined the photo: "First Day of Hanukkah".