Alaska Legislature considers exempting some Native corporations from public disclosure

Current law requires them to share financial information publicly if they have more than 500 shareholders

The Alaska State Capitol is seen behind other buildings on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026, in downtown Juneau. (James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)

By James Brooks

Alaska Beacon

A late amendment to a bill nearing final passage in the Alaska Capitol would exempt some Alaska Native village corporations from public financial disclosures required by state law.

On Monday afternoon, the Alaska Senate’s labor and commerce committee voted to amend House Bill 126 with a new section that reduces and caps the number of Native corporations required to share information annually with the Alaska Division of Banking and Securities. 

Sen. Jesse Bjorkman, R-Nikiski and chair of the labor and commerce committee, declined to answer questions when asked Tuesday about the change. 

In Monday’s committee hearing, Bjorkman said, “I think members of the media might be interested in information therein, but at the end of the day, I don’t know that information is their business because it happens within the confines of a Native corporation.”

State law currently requires corporations with at least 500 shareholders and $1 million in assets to provide financial documents to the state, which treats them as public records. 

Because Native corporations are exempted from federal disclosure requirements, existing state law provides the only free public avenue for non-shareholders to inspect their work. 

Of the state’s 200-plus Native corporations, 59 are currently required to file reports with the division, and the number is growing over time because shareholders are splitting their shares and passing them to their descendants, pushing more corporations over the 500-shareholder limit.

The new definition would limit disclosures to corporations with 500 shareholders when they were created, regardless of how many they currently have. 

That change would exempt at least seven village corporations — the division isn’t sure of the exact number and is reviewing another 30. None of the 12 regional corporations would be affected by the change because each had more than 500 shareholders when they were created. 

Shareholders of each exempted corporation would still have access to financial information, but members of the public would not.

Curtis McQueen, executive director of the Alaska Native Village Corporation Association, is supporting the change and wrote to the committee, saying that the modification brings state law back to its original intent.

“The amendment will exempt, as was originally intended, smaller village corporations from the filing requirements. This amendment will allow their staff and leadership to focus their time and energy on improving the health of their communities and providing benefits to their shareholders, not filling out forms and complying with the complex requirements of the division of banking and securities,” he said.

Attorney Christopher Slottee, representing the Village Corporation Association, testified separately, writing that no other private corporation in the state is subject to the same reporting requirements as Alaska Native corporations.

“It means that an ANC’s non-Native competitor in the same federal contracting market … faces no public disclosure obligation, while the ANC must publicly expose the financial details that inform its pricing, overhead structure, profit margins, and executive compensation to the exact same competitors,” he wrote. 

The original bill was from Rep. Neal Foster, D-Nome. On Monday, members of the labor and commerce committee asked a Foster aide if he was open to the change.

“It’s not core to what the bill itself does, but we are not opposed to it,” the aide said.

Alaska has more than 200 village corporations and 12 regional corporations, which were created as part of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971.

Since that act, many of these corporations — legally distinct from tribes, which are sovereign governments — have become a powerful force in Alaska, holding vast swaths of land and employing tens of thousands of Alaskans.

Many corporations have also become important nationally because they receive preferential treatment under federal contracting rules. Under the 8(a) program — named for the relevant section of federal law — some Native corporations have become successful behemoths with more than a billion dollars in annual revenue. 

Most had humble beginnings, with just a few hundred initial shareholders. Federal law prohibits those shares from being publicly traded or sold, so Native corporations are not required to file documents with the federal Securities and Exchange Commission, as publicly traded corporations are.

On Monday, Sen. Forrest Dunbar, D-Anchorage, proposed an amendment with a different exemption criteria, but members of the committee rejected that proposal. 

After Monday’s action, members of the committee voted to advance the bill to the Senate Rules Committee, the last stop before a vote of the full Senate. 

Because the bill has already passed the House, Senate approval would trigger a single up-or-down vote in the House, which would be asked to agree or disagree with the change.

What are Native corporations required to disclose?

In the state-operated portal, you can find copies of all documents that qualifying Alaska Native corporations are required to disclose. As described by attorney Christopher Slottee, these include:

• Named individual compensation — the total compensation of each of the five most highly compensated persons of the corporation and its subsidiaries, identified by name, including all deferred compensation, pension, and retirement plan contributions (3 AAC 08.345(b)(2));

• Full audited consolidated financial statements — including balance sheet, income statement, statement of cash flows, and all footnotes (3 AAC 08.365);

• Management’s Discussion and Analysis — a narrative analysis of financial condition, results of operations by segment, liquidity, and capital resources that reveals the internal financial architecture of the business (3 AAC 08.365);

• Related-party transaction details — descriptions of all financial transactions exceeding $20,000 involving directors, executive officers, their family members, or entities in which they hold interests (3 AAC 08.345(b)(3)); and

• A full description of the corporation’s business operations and subsidiary structure — including the principal products, services, markets, and significant subsidiaries through which operations are conducted (3 AAC 08.365).

• James Brooks Cascade is a longtime Alaska reporter who lives in Juneau. He previously worked at the Anchorage Daily News, Juneau Empire, Kodiak Mirror and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. Alaska Beacon is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.