Hometown, Alaska Alaska Public Media

Illustrations by Alaska cartoonist Peter Dunlap-Shohl help to explain the fiscal challenge citizens and policy makers face in Alaska’s near future. (Peter Dunlap–Shohl)As Cliff Groh puts it, he’s studied how the State of Alaska “collects, saves and pays out money” for 40 years. As a legislative aide in 1982, he worked on creating the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend. Five years later, as a special assistant to the commissioner of revenue, he worked on the successful effort to pass legislation raising net oil taxes. He’s been a participant and delegate to forums and conferences organized by Alaska governors to puzzle out our collective financial future, and even taught a class at UAA called “Navigating Alaska’s Fiscal and Economic Challenges.”Over the decades, Cliff saw the problem looming. He tried to warn us — with public forums, community gatherings, newspaper op-eds, Powerpoints … to no avail.Now, watching our state’s fiscal aircraft hit the ground nose first, he’s trying one more strategy to engage and focu