Legislation requires PFD applicants to register for draft

JUNEAU -- Starting Jan. 1, all men between the ages of 18 and 25 in the state of Alaska will have to be registered for Selective Service, under penalty of losing their yearly Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend.

"The law, as it went into effect, was if [these men] were not registered with the Selective Service, they would not be eligible to receive a dividend," said Paul Dick, chief of operations for the Permanent Fund. "We're making it part of the PFD process."

Eighty-four percent of eligible Alaskans registered with the Selective Service last year, down from 86.5 percent during earlier years, which gives the state a 'B' grade in the Selective Service's Compliance Report Card. Although the numbers could be worse (states such as Louisiana and Hawaii report registration percentages of only about 75 percent), there is certainly room for improvement. The 2002 legislation is a step in this direction.

Dick also said that if unregistered young men in Alaska are found applying for a dividend, the state will, in addition to denying their dividend application, refer their recorded information to the federal Selective Service Office. Federal law states that all young men shall register for the draft within 30 days of their 18th birthday, or face fines of up to five years in prison and fees of up to $250,000. If the applicants are outside of the 30-day grace period offered by the federal government, they may face consequences; otherwise, they will simply be automatically registered with the Selective Service.

The bill in question also forbids unregistered Alaskans from accepting state jobs or state-administered student loans. These edicts became effective July 1.

The bill was signed into law by former Alaska Governor Tony Knowles on June 27, 2002, but the sections involving the permanent fund do not go into effect until January 2004. The bill's sponsorship packet stated that this provision was necessary to avoid catching dividend applicants by surprise: "We would expect that some applicants would be caught unaware of the new dividend eligibility rule until they were denied and it was too late to remedy the omission."

All the same, a number of young men are expected to be denied a dividend next year because of the new legislation. "We expect a fair number of applicants will be denied each year for failure to register with Selective Service," the packet read.

Alaskan men have not faced the possibility of being drafted into the United States Army since the Vietnam War.

The Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend has existed since 1976, when Alaska residents voted to amend the state constitution to establish an enduring state fund "to provide a means of conserving a portion of the state's revenue from mineral resources to benefit all generations of Alaskans." The fund now totals more than $24.2 billion.

Since the permanent fund was established via constitutional amendment rather than independent legislation, its policies are extremely difficult to alter or remove. However, in recent years the fund has faced other problems; its earnings are based less on the price and quantity of Alaskan oil than the success of the investments performed by the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation. The downturn of the stock market in recent years has thus spelled a lessened dividend for Alaska residents and concerns about the potential of no dividends at all in coming years.