There’s a nearly 50-50 chance that the Alaska Permanent Fund won’t have enough spendable money to pay dividends and the state’s bills at least once over the next decade — unless lawmakers change the structure of the fund to function more like a university endowment.
That’s the message Permanent Fund leaders and the Legislature’s chief budget analyst delivered to lawmakers on Tuesday.
The head of the Legislature’s nonpartisan budget analysis agency, Alexei Painter, presented lawmakers with a financial model showing a 46% chance that the fund’s spendable account would not have enough money to provide a payment to the state’s general fund that makes up the second-largest overall source of state revenue — second only to the federal government…