Juneau -- A joint session of the Senate and House Finance Committees Wednesday heard testimony from the Legislature's Commission on Privatization and Delivery of Government Services.

The 11-member commission, which the 21st Alaska Legislature established to examine the possibility of turning some State functions over to private industry, met during the interim (between legislative sessions) and prepared a report to the Legislature before its expiration date, December 31, 1999. More than 300 Alaskans volunteered their time to help the commission.

"A lot of Alaskans put a lot of work into this activity, and while it's up to us to debate and to implement some or all of the Commission's recommendations, the one thing we will not do is ignore them," said Representative Con Bunde (R-Anchorage), Vice Chair of the House Finance Committee. "This was designed to be, and will continue to be, an on-going process."

"The first thing we will do is send these recommendations to the Finance subcommittees for their review and consideration to see what could be implemented," said Senator John Torgerson (R-Kasilof), Co-Chair of the Senate Finance Committee. "We also must figure out whether, and to what extent, the governor will act on these recommendations."

The Commission prepared a list of 20 recommendations which received approval from a majority of commission members. In addition, the Commission forwarded the master list of all 408 recommendations of subcommittees and State commissioners.

"Government services should only be privatized if, by doing so, we can provide the same or a higher level of service to the public for less money," said Senator Jerry Ward (R-Anchorage/Kenai). "This is all about a smaller and smarter State government."

"The State must begin to identify those activities which are inherently non-government activities," said Representative John Cowdery (R-Anchorage). "I anticipate legislation, modeled after federal statutes, which will require agencies and departments to periodically examine their activities and disclose which are inherently governmental and which are not."

Commission members stressed that privatization efforts contain potential benefits for a wide variety of Alaskans. "There has been a background rumor going around that the Commission's activities and recommendations were somehow 'anti-union,' but nothing could be further from the truth," said Commission member Kathryn Thomas of Kenai. "In fact, many of the private sector businesses which might benefit from privatization, in both urban and rural Alaska, are union companies."

Editors note: Copies of the Commission on Privatization and Delivery of Government Services report to the Legislature are available from Legislative Information Offices.

Broadcasters note: Audio comments are available on the Majority Actuality line, 1-800-478-6540
= Jerry Ward, 36 K = John Cowdery, 28 K = John Cowdery, 15 K