A Citizen’s Guide

ANCHORAGE—State Senate President Ben Stevens says the deferred cash and stock he receives as a board member of Semco Energy is not income, and he plans to refute any charge that he must report it to the state.

State law requires legislators to list all sources of income above $5,000 during the previous year. Stevens reported that he serves on Semco’s board and owns stock, but he did not report any income from the company.

An entry as income for Stevens showed up in the Michigan-based company’s reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to the Anchorage Daily News, which first reported the story Friday.

Stevens is obligated to disclose the money, even though it’s still in Semco’s deferred-compensation plan, the Alaska Public Offices Commission said.

The Anchorage Republican says he receives $35,000 plus 7,000 shares of company stock as annual compensation for being on Semco’s board. That compensation is converted entirely into stock and is held in a deferred compensation plan until his three-year term on the board ends.

Allegations that he is deliberately hiding income are absurd after the scrutiny he’s undergone for the consulting fees and income he has received from the energy and fisheries industries, Stevens told The Associated Press on Friday.

“Why would I be so idiotic as to not report any income after what’s been going on to me the past two years,” Stevens said. “Why should I report it? I’m not obligated to report that to the IRS because I don’t get any money.”

The commission takes a different view.

“It’s income,” APOC assistant director Chris Ellingson said Thursday, after consulting the commission’s attorney. APOC will send Stevens a letter asking him to report the income, in cash and stock, he received from Semco Energy, which operates in Alaska as Enstar. Stevens said he filled out his disclosure forms properly, but the commission’s documents don’t have any place for deferred income. “The problem is, APOC’s reporting mechanism is an unsophisticated document,” Stevens said. “It says, ‘Did you receive income in ‘05?’ I’m taking the position no, I didn’t receive income in ‘05. I don’t pay taxes on that income.” Stevens joined the Semco board in December 2004 after three years on an advisory panel at Enstar, the utility that distributes gas in Anchorage and the Mat-Su area. “Here we go again,” said Sarah Palin, a Republican candidate for governor. She resigned her seat on the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission in 2004, saying the chairman of the commission, state Republican Party chairman Randy Ruedrich, was mixing party work with his state job. “So he’s a decision-maker for Semco … and he is also the decision-maker for the Alaska state Senate, when they are dealing with these oil and gas issues?” she asked. “How is that not a conflict?” Curtis Thayer, Enstar’s director of government affairs, and a longtime Republican insider and veteran campaign manager, told the Daily News he has been careful not to lobby Stevens. “If there was a potential conflict, we wanted to avoid it,” he said. Enstar picked Stevens for its advisory board in 2001 because of his work experience, Thayer said. “Ben had done independent consulting and had a business background, and that’s what kind of brought him to the Enstar board,” Thayer said. Stevens began serving in the state Senate in 2001. The sources of Stevens’ income have raised eyebrows for several years. Even before his appointment to the Legislature, Stevens was paid substantial sums for consulting work by companies that lobby his powerful father, U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska. Later, as head of the 2001 Special Olympics World Winter Games, Ben Stevens made $715,000 over three years. Supporters said the money was well spent because Stevens raised millions of dollars for the event, held in Anchorage. Veco, an Alaska oil field services and construction company whose executives are major contributors to Republican political campaigns, paid Stevens $57,000 last year for unspecified “business services,” according to Stevens’ most recent report to the state. And last year the Daily News reported that Stevens had an undisclosed interest in an Adak fish company that benefited from a special fish allocation created by his father. That company paid him $82,307 last year for management and business services, Stevens reported.