An Anchorage firm staffs the State Department's internal watchdog

The people who staff the State Department's internal watchdog increasingly work for an Anchorage company owned by the Kodiak regional corporation.

Koniag Professional Services holds a master agreement, signed in March, to provide staffing for the department's Office of Inspector General, the office that investigates fraud and waste inside the State Department. The agreement runs through 2031 and is worth up to $75 million.

The department has been placing orders against it steadily. The latest, worth $490,344, staffs executive support and the fraud hotline, the line where employees and the public report misconduct. Earlier orders cover the inspectors who conduct reviews, front-office administration, and the writers and editors who produce the office's reports, together worth about another $970,000.

It is an unusual arrangement. The inspector general is meant to be the independent check on the department it sits inside, and the day-to-day work of that office is being run by contractors from a single firm rather than federal staff. The company was selected under a federal program for disadvantaged small businesses, and the work is performed in Arlington, Virginia, not Alaska.

Koniag Professional Services is a subsidiary of Koniag, Inc., the regional corporation for the Kodiak archipelago, owned by its Alutiiq shareholders.