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On Monday, the Alaska Department of Law released a report that identified potential gaps in the Public Official Financial Disclosure documents filed by 91 different candidates for state office this year.

The gaps were uncovered by department staff who consulted business licensing databases, property records, and a large national database called TLOXP. 

Among the 91 candidates flagged for possible omissions are all four finalists — one Democrat and three Republicans — in Alaska’s election to replace Gov. Mike Dunleavy.

Here’s what the report said about each governor and lieutenant governor candidate, in alphabetical order:

Dave Bronson and Josh Church

According to state corporate records, Republican Dave Bronson is the manager of Piper LLC, an entity owned entirely by the DWB Revocable Trust. That affiliation wasn’t listed on his POFD.

His POFD also doesn’t show him as being a director of an Arizona-registered corporation called Bible Archaeology Search and Exploration Foundation or as being director of the nonprofit Alaska Governor’s Prayer Breakfast.

Land records show him as having an interest in an Eagle River property that wasn’t listed on his POFD.

The POFD filed by Bronson’s lieutenant governor candidate, Josh Church of Fairbanks, didn’t list him as being director of the Amanita Heights Subdivision Homeowners Association Inc., a nonprofit, and it didn’t list him as having a financial interest in a Fairbanks property or in a North Carolina property sold last year. 

Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins and Zac Johnson

The Department of Law flagged three Sitka-related business ties that went undisclosed by Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins. These include his status as a “member” of Borealis LLC, a company at the same address as his self-named company, JKT LLC. 

He also has an undisclosed property interest in Sitka and was listed as director and vice president of Outer Coast, a liberal arts undergraduate program he helped start. His POFD lists Outer Coast as a tenant but not a business interest.

According to the Department of Law, Zac Johnson, an independent and currently serving on the Anchorage Assembly, has previously undisclosed business interests in Indiana with Charity Horse Shows Inc. and Traders Point Hunt Club, two organizations with addresses that are the same as a previously disclosed separate business.

Treg Taylor and Candi English

Republican Treg Taylor has been in a year-old dispute with the Alaska Public Offices Commission over whether or not he is legally required to disclose the full names of the tenants at properties he owns in Anchorage.

The largest of these properties is the rental and extended stay apartment complex, Inlet View Tower in Anchorage. 

Taylor initially did not list any renters’ names, but after a deadline to disclose them, he amended his POFD with a partial list that includes either a first or last name and an initial. 

The POFD filed by Candi English, Taylor’s lieutenant governor — and briefly, a governor candidate in her own right — is missing accurate information about six different properties, the Department of Law said. One is in Big Lake, another is in Anchorage, another is in Montgomery, Alabama; a fourth is in Seldovia, and a fifth is in Deschutes County, Oregon.

 A sixth property is listed in her POFD with only an Alaska zip code, but the Department of Law couldn’t find any ownership records for it. Two other properties were listed under another Alaska zip code, but the Department could verify only one in land records.

Bernadette Wilson and Mike Shower

The report for Republican Bernadette Wilson notes that she is president, director and shareholder of Denali Disposal, a garbage company, but her POFD lists her only as its salaried general manager.

The POFD for Shower, Wilson’s lieutenant governor candidate, had no known problems.

A decision that reversed Alaska Republican governor candidate Treg Taylor’s disqualification was motivated in part by a review that found 91 possible disclosure problems among 121 state-office candidates, Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom said Monday.

“My decision, I believe, was necessary for the integrity and the orderly administration of the election, and I believe this decision serves the public,” she told reporters during a news conference in Anchorage.

“There’s going to be a lot of people that think there were nefarious things going on. We don’t think so,” said Gov. Mike Dunleavy.

[GET MORE: What possible gaps were found in filings by Alaska’s four governor and lieutenant governor candidates?]

It wasn’t immediately clear whether any of the disclosure problems put candidates at risk of violating state law or if the state would require candidates to fix those problems.

Dahlstrom disqualified Treg Taylor and an Anchorage state House candidate on Aug. 31, following the recommendations of the Alaska Public Offices Commission, which cited flaws in their Public Official Financial Disclosure forms.

APOC is a regulatory agency of the Alaska Department of Administration that oversees campaigns and public officials’ financial disclosures, as well as lobbying activities.

Elected officials, members of state boards and commissions, and the governor’s cabinet, are required to use the POFD to disclose all business dealings worth more than $1,000 in order to discourage corruption. 

Taylor, Dunleavy’s former attorney general, and Republican state House candidate Jose Tagle failed to file complete forms within 30 days after they registered as candidates, causing APOC to recommend that they be disqualified from advancing past the August primary.

Dahlstrom followed that recommendation but then reversed herself four days later, restoring Taylor and Tagle to the ballot on Sept. 4.

Rachel Witty, the top civil attorney for the Alaska Department of Law, said during Monday’s news conference that the department had conducted a “limited and expedited” review of other candidates’ POFDs after Taylor’s disqualification in order to judge whether Dahlstrom’s action was legally defensible.

“This was done over the course of a day and a half. So I can’t emphasize enough that this is a preliminary review. We didn’t have time to contact candidates,” she said.

The resulting review found dozens of potential problems, including some with every other finalist candidate for governor — Democratic candidate Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, Republican Bernadette Wilson and Republican Dave Bronson.

Wilson and Kreiss-Tomkins’ lieutenant governor candidate, Zac Johnson, were the subject of APOC complaints on Friday about their disclosures, according to the Anchorage Daily News. 

APOC had not published the complaints as of Monday evening.

Dahlstrom said she was not aware of those complaints before making the decision to restore Taylor’s candidacy.

Candidates appeared to be surprised by Monday’s disclosure. None of the four candidates for governor responded to questions on Monday afternoon and evening about the issues raised by the Department of Law. 

“And just because there are potential discrepancies, that doesn’t mean that those candidates violated the law,” said Stephen Cox, attorney to Gov. Dunleavy.

Cox was appointed as attorney general following Taylor’s departure, but was rejected by the Alaska State Legislature in May.

Cox said he worked with Witty and the Department of Law on the review; the extent of his involvement wasn’t immediately clear. 

The Department of Law’s investigation is unusual, if not unprecedented. APOC typically operates on a complaint-based system, with most actions taken when a member of the public alerts the commission to a potential problem. 

The agency is chronically underfunded and understaffed. Ten years ago, it had 13 staff; today it has nine, and APOC has struggled at times to fill those positions.

Until last year, Taylor served as attorney general, head of the Department of Law. He’s now running as a Republican for governor, and the decision to both disqualify him and restore him came from a Republican elected official.

Witty said that “unequivocally,” the review “was completely an initiative of the Department of Law as we assess litigation risk.”

When asked whether candidates will be fined or required to correct the potential discrepancies before the general election, Witty said that’s within the jurisdiction of APOC to investigate. 

“We don’t know what APOC is going to do,” she said. “If  they find there’s reason to believe there is a violation, they can refer that to the APOC commission to take action on, and at that point, we’re talking about different fines and in the form of penalties.”

Moving forward, Dunleavy said, he intends to recommend that the next governor and next Legislature review APOC laws and regulations with a group of former elected officials.

“That’s something that I’ve been thinking about quite honestly for some time, and this just kind of hits home that it’s long overdue,” he said.  

More than 600,000 Alaskans are scheduled to get $1,200 payments starting Oct. 1 through the Alaska Permanent Fund Division.

The payout includes a $1,000 PFD plus a $200 energy dividendapproved by the Alaska Legislature this spring. The PFD amount is the same as a year ago — which was the lowest adjusted for inflation since dividends have been issued in 1982 — with the extra $200 due to extra revenue the state got from…

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