The Kenai Peninsula, of course, draws largely from the oil and gas industry for a not insignificant chunk of revenue and a good number of jobs.
Every three years, the Alaska Oil and Gas Association runs the numbers on such things with the McDowell Group, a consulting firm in Anchorage.
Wednesday, Donna Logan, an economist with McDowell, presented thelatest findings to a joint meeting of the Kenai and Soldotna chambers of commerce.
“The big takeaways: 104,000 total jobs in the state, about a third of our employment. About six billion dollars in labor income. Again, about a third of our payroll income in the state.”
On the Kenai, those percentages break down a little more. About 20 percent of the jobs are tied to the industry, and about a quarter of the payroll income, which totals $400 million.
Oil and gas is also responsible for a lot of the tax revenue here. That’s a lot of dependence on a single industry. Logan says that dependence makes Alaska’s economy look more like something you’d see in the Third World.
“I think it’s always important to diversify your tax base. Period. Before I came to the state, I used to work for an investment firm and we did investment strategies for different regions in Europe and Canada and the U.S. and if you look at developing worlds that are so dependent on one industry, mining for instance, Alaska would look like one of those developing world countries, frankly, we’re so dependent on it. So, we’ve been really fortunate over the years to be able to do what we have been able to do with the monies. But it’s not necessarily going to get easier to just depend on the industry to pay all the bills. You have to really think about how to grow other aspects of your economy so you have that stability.”
Logan pointed out a few other areas in the state budget that rely heavily on a sometimes uncertain energy sector to keep going: public safety, that is, State Troopers, gets 80 percent of its budget from oil and gas. It’s 74 percent for education and early development, 34 percent of the Department of Fish and Game’s budget relies on the industry, as does the Department of Environmental Conservation to the tune of 24 percent.