Routine maintenance is inadequate, and there's a backlog of major maintenance needs. But both the executive and legislative branches appear to be ready to focus on this area. The legislature has required that a maintenance budget be produced for the state, starting in fiscal year 2000. After winning an arbitration case last year against the state's powerful employee unions, Alaska is now free to make a number of heretofore-unthinkable changes. And it has begun making them.
Agencies are no longer dependent on hiring from limited lists obtained from a central agency.
Personnel officials plan to develop competency-based evaluations and group evaluations. They're working on new assessment tools for managers. And they hope to utilize the assessments to reward all employees for performance. But even with so much reform in the air, labor-management relations still make personnel operations in Alaska quite difficult. Employees in line for termination stay in jobs for months while unions battle on their behalf.