– The governor recruited 7-year-old Shania Sommer to make the announcement. Alaskans need to know this is unsustainable.

Editor’s Note: A previous version of this story quoted Governor Bill Walker saying that this is was the first time in Alaska’s history that the earnings from the Permanent Fund have exceeded the earnings from Alaskan oil. She is a 7th grader at Palmer Junior Middle School and is involved in the Alaska Native Science and Engineering program. “I have been saving my Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend to help pay for my college education, so I am excited to help reveal the amount of the 2015 PFD”.

The annual direct payout to citizens, derived from a formula averaging the Permanent Fund earnings over a five-year period, is unique to Alaska, even though other jurisdictions have resource wealth funds. Low oil prices have plunged oil-dependent Alaska into a crippling budget deficit, but it didn’t affect the size of the payout because the permanent fund for the oil payouts is in a separate account.

Alaskans have been receiving shares of the state’s oil wealth since 1982. “We’ll work with the legislature on that”. “I urge all Alaskans to become informed investors, for their sake and for the sake of the next generation”. Since 1982, just over $23.3 billion has been distributed to Alaskans through PFD checks.

Despite his critical view of the Alaska Permanent Fund, Walker is in favor of developing ANWR and making changes to the state’s permitting process. “It is time to have an open and honest conversation about our finances, and how resources like the Permanent Fund can be used as an asset”.

For years any discussion about tapping into the dividends was considered politically unsafe , but Alaska Governor Bill Walker, as well as economists, has said it is time to re-examine options.

The subject has come up during talks hosted across Alaska by the governor and state lawmakers, as have an array of other possible revenue generators.

“While this dividend is going to be a welcome into our economy, as it should be, it’s also at a time that our economy is … we’re borrowing funds to do what we do in this state”, Walker said. Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay field is one of the largest oil fields in the country, although production has fallen to less than 300,000 barrels per day from its peak of 1.6 million barrels per day in 1988, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA). “It is now our responsibility to apply that same wisdom to the financial decisions we face today so our children and grandchildren can also live in a prosperous Alaska”.