Bryan Butcher, the commissioner of the Department of Revenue, will now be heading up the Alaska Housing Finance Corp., the corporation announced today. Butcher will be taking over from Dan Fauske, who will be running the Alaska Gasline Development Corp., where he hopes to oversee the construction of an in-state natural gas pipeline.
Fauske is making $366,000 a year. Butcher was making $135,000 when he took the commissioner job in 2011. He will now be making $250,000 a year. Angela Rodell will be the acting commissioner of Revenue.
AHFC is a state owned corporation formed in 1986 and finances roughly 30 percent of Alaska’s mortgages. In 2012, it financed $416.2 million in such loans. The corporation also has bonding authority. At the end of 2012, it has more than $4 billion in assets and contributed more than $9 million to state coffers during that year.
Butcher has a Bachelor of Science in Speech Communications from Oregon University. Before working for Revenue, Butcher worked for AHFC as a legislative liaison and in public relations and government affairs.
Butcher took the job as revenue commissioner in 2011, and was put in the hot seat nearly immediately over oil taxes, where he was often criticized by legislators over his sometimes confusing and contradictory statements.
He was all but absent during the last legislative session, when an oil tax bill passed. Mike Pawlowski was Revenue’s face and voice for the tax break. Nonetheless, Gov. Sean Parnell praised Butcher’s role in the tax debate.
“Under Commissioner Butcher’s outstanding leadership, the More Alaska Production Act became a reality, Alaska achieved and maintained a AAA+ credit rating, and Revenue put in place a more reasoned and accurate long-term oil production forecast,” Parnell said.
AHFC’s board made the hiring decision. The job was not advertised. In an interview, Frank Roppel, chair of AHFC, said that because Butcher was such a good candidate, there was no need to conduct a hiring search.
“We felt that we had a very capable person and I doubt that we could do better in the open market,” Roppel said.
Roppel also said that it gives Wall Street comfort to hire a known quantity. Such comfort, he said, can translate into lower interest rates which are passed on to borrowers.
Contact Amanda coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com
