NEW YORK, Dec. 17, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The State of Alaska, Department of Revenue (DOR), in collaboration with Saige Consulting (“Saige”), is excited to announce a new partnership aimed at modernizing the application process for the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend. Established in 1976, the Alaska Permanent Fund was created to ensure that future generations would benefit from the state's natural resources long after they are depleted. This fund translates Alaska's natural resource revenues into annual dividends distributed to eligible Alaskan residents (Administered by the DOR through the Permanent Fund Dividend Division). This collaboration is designed to streamline the application process, ensuring efficient, timely distributions that reflect the State of Alaska’s commitment to both current and future generations of Alaskans.

The DOR has through a competitive process, selected Saige as its strategic business and technology partner to innovate and develop a cloud-native application for the Dividend Application Information System. This enhanced system will streamline and directly serve over 630,000 eligible Alaskan residents to apply for and receive their Permanent Fund Dividend payments. This partnership marks a significant step in ensuring the continued success of the dividend program, making it more accessible and efficient for all Alaskans.

Alaska is one of the first jurisdictions in the United States to initiate a groundbreaking transformation of its public services. This transformation, which will leverage technologies including AI, will dramatically enhance the effectiveness of its current platform and provide a seamless experience to its residents. Without this transformation, hundreds of thousands of residents would continue to face a suboptimal dividend application experience due to outdated technology, manual processes, and limited troubleshooting capabilities. The system overhaul will introduce significant improvements, such as process automation, improved data management, user experience modernization (e.g., streamlining the mail-in application process), enhancing fraud prevention measures, optimizing correspondences with residents, and significantly shortening application review times.

As part of this significant transformation initiative, CivicBridge, a proprietary framework developed by Saige, will catalyze systematic changes within the Alaska Department of Revenue’s Permanent Fund Dividend Division (PFDD). This framework enables scaled application processing by incorporating the latest technology, including AI. It streamlines operations and reduces manual workloads for PFDD employees through automation and AI, ensuring accurate and timely application processing. Consequently, Alaska residents will experience a quicker and simpler application process, a reduction in administrative burden, and a decrease in application backlogs.

Saige and the Alaska Department of Revenue have started the discovery phase of the technology adoption, with initial implementation planned throughout 2025. The goal is to make the system fully operational for Alaska residents by early 2026.

“At DOR, we are committed to providing the highest level of service to our residents, especially for our PFD Program that holds a special place in the hearts of all Alaskans,” stated Fadil Limani, Deputy Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Revenue. “Our partnership with Saige introduces advanced AI capabilities to our state government functions, accelerating Alaska’s IT modernization and ensuring that all residents benefit from cutting-edge technology and an improved digital experience. Our team has worked tirelessly over the past year to advance Governor Dunleavy’s initiative striving to be at the forefront of digital innovation and our commitment to modernize and secure Alaska’s digital landscape, which promises to revolutionize how we process PFD applications—a true game changer for generations of Alaskans. We have received tremendous support from the Governor's office and the Legislature, and we are eager to see this project come to life.”

During an initial assessment of the updated myPFD and DAIS platform, projections indicated that with CivicBridge:

• The New DAIS implementation will generate significant value and cost savings in the millions of dollars to the State of Alaska through embedded AI and automation, which will drive operating efficiencies including improving data accuracy and more importantly enhance the Alaskan resident experience.
• Alaska residents will save over 7 million minutes or 116,000 hours annually in application queries and follow-ups.
• The PFDD team’s ability to clear the current application backlog will be greatly enhanced.
  

“It is an honor to collaborate with the State of Alaska on this historic initiative, which will bring significant benefits to both Alaska residents and the Department of Revenue,” said Charles Hu, Senior Partner at Saige Consulting. “Through our partnership, we are committed to enhancing the services provided by the Department of Revenue by optimizing resident applications through a modern, AI-enabled foundation that will support digital transformation efforts for many years to come.”

Many state and local governments across the United States are embracing advanced technology, including new artificial intelligence applications, to modernize legacy government systems. Today’s announcement reinforces the benefits of working with a business and technology partner to accelerate adoption to enhance operations and citizen services, with Alaska setting the new standard for public service delivery.

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About The State of Alaska’s Department of Revenue and PFDD
The DOR is responsible for managing Alaska's financial resources. Their mission is to collect and invest funds for public purposes. The divisions managed by DOR are Treasury, Tax, Permanent Fund, Child Services & Criminal Investigations.

The PFDD is responsible for determining applicant eligibility prior to the distribution of an annual dividend paid to qualified Alaska residents from investment earnings of mineral royalties, royalty sale proceeds, and federal mineral sharing payments that was established by the State Legislature in 1976.

About Saige
Saige Consulting is a strategic consulting and technology development firm that leads digital transformation initiatives for enterprise clients. Leveraging artificial intelligence, data and analytics, and machine learning technologies, Saige builds innovative and highly efficient operating models that dramatically improve business results for clients. With a wealth of government experience, Saige has successfully partnered with various state and local governments to adopt cutting-edge technologies, modernize legacy systems and improve public service delivery. For more information, please visit saigeconsulting.com.

Media Contact
Courtney Burns
cburns@saigeconsulting.com