I'd like to call this meeting of the House Transportation Committee to order.
It is now 1.02 p.m. on Tuesday, February 3rd, 2nd,
February 1rd.
Groundhog Day 4th,
February 2rd 2026 in Barnes Room 120.
I should just stick to the script.
Members present include Representative St. Clair,
Representative Nelson, Representative Studes,
Co-chair Ayeshaide and myself Representative Kerrick.
Let the record reflect.
We do have a quorum to conduct business
and please take this time to silence your cell phones today.
Before we begin, I'd like to thank Jordan Nicholson
from House Records and Susan Quigley from the Juneau LIO
for staffing our committee today,
our Committee A today as my staff Griffin Succayo
and Meredith Trainer from my co-chairs office.
Thank you both for your help.
On today's agenda we are bringing House Bill 216 back before the committee from Representative
Holland's office.
This is the transfer of railroad land to Whittier.
Following that we will continue our presentation from last Thursday on winter road maintenance.
And we'll end our meeting today with a presentation of DOT on defining advanced construction and
federal aid sources.
So with that, we are going to have House Bill 216 back before us.
I'd like to invite the bill sponsor staff to just very briefly reintroduce yourself and
the Bill before we open public testimony.
Thank you, Coach Eric Eric.
My name is Aiden Nickel, Staff to Representative Holland, and
the BILL HB 216 gives the limited and specific authorization.
for the Alaska Railroad Corporation
to transfer five parcels of land to the city of Whittier.
Great, thank you, Mr. Nichols, for that quick introduction.
Do we have any questions from committee members?
See, oh, representative Nelson.
I apologize.
Well, I'll just ask the question, and then
if we need to move on.
The question that I had was,
I know we were tied on time last week.
I'm sorry.
Thank you, Madam Chair, to quorum.
Yeah, I apologize.
I'm learning.
Through the chair, it was mentioned last week,
I believe that 40% of Whittier's budget has been spent
or is annually spent on these leases, correct?
That is my understanding, representative, through the Chair.
how long that's been going on and what the total dollar amount is?
Through the chair, Representative Nelson,
we actually have in the room Jackie Wild,
who's the city manager.
If it's all right with the co-chair,
I would like to invite her up.
I believe she will be better equipped
to answer that question than I will.
Welcome, Ms. Jackie Wilde.
Thank you for being here.
And I wouldn't have mentioned you earlier.
I didn't know you were here,
but thank you, for joining us.
Thank You, Chair N.
Representative Nielsen.
Hi, I'm Jackie Wild with this City of Whittier.
To answer the question, it is not 40% of the budget.
It is 40 percent of gross revenues on master lease lands.
And that has been in effect since 1998.
Follow-up.
So since 1988, how much has the City
These particular leases and estimated of just over two million dollars
Or to me
Okay, thank you
I do also just want to note we do have online Megan Clemens our external affairs manager with the Alaska Railroad and
The vice president of real estate for the railroad corporation Christie Terry also online for questions
do we have additional questions for any of our
folks. Seeing none, we are going to go ahead and open public testimony on House
Bill 216. I see no one online to testify. Is there anyone in the room who would
like to offer public testimony on house bill 216? Seeing, none. We are gonna go
And we have to, House Bill 216 back before us,
offer a final opportunity for folks to ask any questions.
I'd also just like to note we did set an amendment deadline
for House bill 216 and did not receive amendments
to the co-chairs offices.
Seeing no additional questions,
I would look to co chair Aisheid for a motion.
Thank you, co-chair Kerry. I
Move that house bill
216 work order three four
dash l s
zero nine four six
Backslash a alpha move from the transportation committee with individual recommendations and attach fiscal notes
Seeing no objection housebell 216 has been moved from committee. We're going to take an Addis to sign the paperwork addis
House Transportation Committee is back on the record.
Thank you to our DOT folks for hanging out
for that bill presentation.
So next we are going to go back to
our winter maintenance and operations presentation
from last week.
We had finished at slide 19, but I'm actually
going ask us to back slide 18, which
is titled Central Region Challenges and Opportunities.
Before we begin, I just want to note
we have a lot of folks from DOT who
We obviously have Andy Mills from our commissioner's office and our handy-dandy
Dom Pannon also from DOT here in the room.
Online, we have Kristen Langley Division Director at DOT, Jason Sackalaskis also
from Northern Region DOT. Brad Bilesmouth, our state equipment fleet manager at
who's our maintenance and operations manager,
who I believe is probably going to be first up here
in answering some questions.
But I'd like to invite Mr. Mills and Pannon
up to the dais.
And Madam Gautier, if you'd liked at the table,
of course, he'll come.
But believe I'll leave this part and he
will do the next presentation.
That sounds good.
Thank you.
And Madam Co-chair for the record, Andy Mills, Legislative Liaison, and Special Assistant at the Department of Transportation and Public Facilities.
An initial congratulations, both of you did an excellent job with some of the most complicated last names, so thank you.
And you're correct, we do have, again, a good group of folks for any questions that the committee may have statewide.
So, knowing that there's a question, I may.
pause and let that question be prompted.
And as you correctly put, Mr. Nickison online
is the appropriate person to give the initial answer.
So I'm gonna turn right to Representative Nelson.
Thank you, Madam Co-chair.
Appreciate the presentation that we had earlier
and we were running up on time about Brian versus salt
a very informative and it focused a lot on the key nine
and some of the measures you guys are taking down there.
The Glen Highway and the Moose Creek Bridge and so I know that there's multiple challenges with that particular chunk of road and beyond
but the steep grade the narrow bridge
Corners and also this winter with the
Basically the water coming out of the side of The Hill the spring that was
Overflowing and freezing on the road nice saw do t cruise out there a lot. So my question was
Do you know at this point, how many hours your guys have been out there or how
many total times they've been
out with either steam trucks or graders or I know that it's a really broad
question but it a narrow part of the road which is one of
the major thoroughfares through our state and so just would like to have a
little bit more understanding of I mean I only see when I drive by there but
just from your guy's perspective how much time you've spent out
if possible.
Mr. Nickison, I believe that will be for you.
For the record, Burrell Nickinson, Central Region Maintenance and Operations Manager,
just want to make sure everybody can hear me.
We can. Thank you!
Thank You.
Through the co-chair, Representative Nelson, excellent question.
And I actually have that information at my fingertips.
We're talking about the north side of the Glen Highway, just east of Moose Creek
Bridge, which is just north of Palmer. This is an area where we have seen over
the years both subsurface water as well as surface water come down into that
This year just happens to be one of those years where it's coming out of out
of the ground, out at the rock face and out the
ground. It's not something that maintenance and operations can control.
It is a continuous problem. Again, we never know when it is going to happen
and then this year is just one those year when
it does. You asked specifically about the number of hours
I have this a spreadsheet where the local station there in Palmer has been tracking it.
The number of hours we have so far is 231.
That's as of I believe last week.
sometimes up to five individuals that are out there trying to treat that
problem. This was noticed all the way back in November and it is ongoing.
The type of work that's involved is obviously thawing that ice, trying to get as much of
it as possible and obviously trying create a clear surface for a
clear driving surface which then requires graders to usually take out
whatever ice is there and then also we we heavily sand that area so and it is a
The crew out there is trying to jump on it as soon as possible
With that does that answer your question and I'm happy to entertain any more on that
Follow it
Just a follow-up comment
I think you guys have done a tremendous job and it's also the tremendously challenging areas it rolls right into that narrow bridge
and so I
That's yeah, I appreciate the
the context and the data that you provided, but just want to say that
you guys are doing a good job in a really challenging area where it's kind of
blind coming from both sides into a very narrow bridge. So thank you for your answer.
Through the co-chair again for the records grow nixon central region maintenance and operations manager
Very much appreciate the kudos on that one representative Nelson. It is a tough area
I will say that design our design section has taken notice as well
If you're aware
We had an environmental assessment that was done. I think back in the 90s. There was gonna get rid of that curve
That is that environmental Assessment
I hope I have my knowledge correct is now expired with FHWA. It's just too old.
So I do believe that the design section is looking again at that section of the Glenn Highway
and trying to figure out what to do about that curve, that bridge, and of course,
the main problems in the area. But again, thank you for the kudos. I'd hope you don't mind if
I pass that on to the crew. Great. Um, I think we're good to continue the presentation now.
Thank you, Madam co-chair for the record Andy Mills. We're advancing to slide 19
Which I believe starts the northern region section and so mr. Sakhalaskis on teams
We'll pick this up from here for next few slides
All right, thank you for record Jason Sachalaska's northern Region maintenance and operations chief before I continue can everybody hear me all right?
We can thank You
All Right. Thank You
I'm presenting here today from Fairbanks and appreciate to continue our discussion on
winter maintenance across the state. Before you can see, we started off here with our northern region
performance measures or targets here and how we've been performing this year. So basically,
this is a quick look pretty much from September to December, so this winter's operations.
are targets and the times we've achieved those targets.
And I'll say right now, Northern Region's performing right
now at about a 72% success rate at meeting our priority level
targets, so those are the priority-level targets
1, 2, 3, and 4,
and have a response time over the 12, 18, 24,
and 30 hours.
So I wanted to pause here for a moment and go over a couple questions that were also asked
during the last session to kind of cover those with regards to some of the brine discussions we have.
There was primarily, I believe, three questions that were asked,
so I will go ahead and cover those for Northern Region's response.
And if there's any further, more than happy to take those after these.
The first one I recall was, do we use brine corrosion inhibitors?
And the answer is yes, Northern region does use corrosion emitters
when there are using chemicals that are actually dropping the temperatures
that we have an additive.
that reduces the temperature for application of our brine so we can apply it at a little bit
holder rate. One thing to provide for context within the northern region we primarily only use
brin in two of the districts which is Fairbanks District and our Valdez District. And within our
Fairbank District we'll primarily use it in our urban areas immediately around Fairbanks.
Oh, sorry. Mr. Sakalaskas, I was trying not to interrupt your presentation on this slide,
but I did have a question about private operators, say like parking lot, cleaning up.
And there was a letter to the editor back in January about that for Fairbanks.
Using brine for sidewalk or parking lot clearing and how does DOT interact with situations like that if at all
Thank you coach Eric, so I will say I don't know that there's any
prohibitions to utilizing chemicals. I do know that there are several entities that do use a
multiple type of, I'll say anti-icing or assault, also applications within the Fairbanks area.
We do not specifically interact with those entities as they're kind of private contractors a lot
for the private entities and businesses in Fairbank's. Okay, that's what I was guessing.
Get some clarity on that. Um, thank you.
All right. I'll go ahead and continue on covering a couple of the brine questions we had from last
presentation, um, earlier sessions. We did get asked what is kind of
the most effective or is, uh, brin effective in our operations and what's the cost for those?
Overall, I believe we answered before I'll go back to what Braille said. It is a very difficult
thing to perfectly quantify, but let me give some context maybe on the question.
Again, primarily we utilize Brian in the Fairbanks area. Right now, we
So just for context if you lived in Fairbanks right now we have not applied
the brine solution across the roadway surfaces since
pretty much October because we've been below 20 degrees
Fahrenheit. With that said though we do actually apply brin in the form of what
we call prewetting and pre-wedding is applying a small
This occurs during the application of the sand and the intent of that is to
prevent what we call bounce and scatter and to lock in the aggregates into the
roadway surface for a longer duration. And what studies have shown is you can
reduce your sand usage up to around 50% potentially by utilizing a pre-wetting
Because as the aggregates pre-wet lands within the lane of travel and it tends to burn in or freeze in place to that location.
And so that reduces our material usage.
It actually helps with also environmental controls as you have less sand being applied.
to the roadway surface hence into storm drains as it continues in the spring etc.
And then also it does improve the overall safety as you do have sand present on the
roadway longer within the I'll say the vehicle lanes or vehicle are wheel wells or wheels
traffic areas. So we do believe you know our brine applications do our more cost effective
also our cost prohibitive to our actions and improving safety. So I hope that kind of covered
that question there a couple of the topics discussed before and then the last one was do we have
or do use brine to supplement for vacancies. How about saying no that's not being done at this
time although I do say with the use of brin it does make our operations a little more efficient.
reducing sand application and allowing crews to do other actions besides just
sanding the intersections in roadways so they can fund other tasks that they also have to
do as part of operations. I'll go ahead and pause there and make sure I kind of covered all three
questions from last session and see if there's any further.
Mr. Arasak-Alaskas I do have one other question that's unrelated to the brine but is on this slide
wanted to ask the question, do we have sufficient sidewalk equipment for the Fairbanks area and
staffing to support pedestrian walkways in the winter? Yeah, to the co-chair, Mrs. Garrett. That is
a great question. I will say that was going to be the next covered in that slide is talking about
our sidewalk equipments, so perfect lead-in, I'll go ahead and answer that question and kind of
We've listed out our sidewalk equipment here. We have found that we wanted to improve our
sidewalk maintenance or increase our sidewalks maintenance to meet some of the pedestrian
requests across the Fairbanks area. And we've actually
Also, contract about which I'll cover on the next slide, some of our sidewalk maintenance,
and you should see that primarily here in this winter. Anchorage kind of led that initiative,
I will say I believe last year with doing some sidewalk pedestrian contracting. We talked about
those kind operations to say that was efficient way for us to do that versus investing in more
Uh, contracts here this year, uh, some local contractors and they're assisting us in performing, um, pedestrian facility maintenance. So, I'll go ahead and go on if that fully answered your question.
Yes, it did. Thank you.
All right. Next slide, please.
So in moving on, we wanted to speak to some of the resources that we're utilizing to improve our winter maintenance operations in Northern Region.
As you can see, it will look back just for everybody's awareness of when we started utilizing winter-maintenance contractors.
And what we see is that primarily started in fiscal year 23 for us.
This is slightly before Central Region started using them,
but that was primarily because we were going through,
we had significant number of vacancies
within the Fairbanks area at that time.
So we are looking to still deliver the same level of service.
So, we reached out to contractors
to help with those services.
These contracts are very similar to Central Region in covering priority three and four roadways, allowing our crews to immediately stay on priority ones and twos during event response and then utilizing the contractors to cover three in fours.
As you can see this winter, we've utilized our roadway contract about four times in the Fairbanks area.
I would like to point out that I'll go through the next slide here in a moment, but we do
have a significant number of vacancies in our corridor location down out of Aldi's district.
And we've spun up a winter maintenance contract down there for some assistance and we utilize
that contractor once as well.
Just for a quick reference, I know I have dollars shown out there, and what we have is about a three-year average expenditure on
winter maintenance contracts of about $240,000 a year here in Northern Region, primarily focused in the Fairbanks area.
And at this time we're right around $190, $195, 000 spent this winter.
So in short, we're kind of on target for that average level of expenditure and response.
Of course, that can change as Mother Nature delivers us many different storms.
So we'll see how that turns out this year.
Next slide, please.
So I want to take a moment and illustrate that I spoke about some of our vacancies we've had over the past few years.
This is still a challenge for us but I also do want to highlight a couple locations that we
have seen increase recruitment which is definitely helping our service delivery and overall maintenance
throughout the year. It's specifically like to note our adult in district right now. Last year at
this time when kind of talking with the legislature we were seeing with 14 positions they get and at
We believe a lot of that's due to the flexible work schedule up there, kind of the 2x2 work
schedule of adult and district, which does have a little bit of pay incentive to it too.
It also offers us flexibility with be able to move our operators around during their
off shift and work in other locations across our region.
over a general downward trend for most of the northern region districts and in some other districts
in other regions as well. The one note I did want to say we are still having difficulty in
I'll say our Valdez district and that's primarily in our Cordova area and
that was what I just said that we were looking at some winter maintenance contracting to
And also out in our Western District, we continue to struggle with some of our recruitment efforts out there.
Some of those positions, too, are a little more, I don't want to say specialized, but they are little
more focused because they're airport operating positions.
There's a bit more training and experience that needs to go with the duties at the airport
with regards to not only operation and airport,
but performing airport firefighting and rescue.
if necessary as part of their job duties as well.
So there's a couple more requirements
and training associated with those
so it's not quite as easy to fill.
We are working as we are across the state
to improve our vacancies.
Primarily now we'll also offer a program to,
I'll say offer
training for CDLs and the state is covering those costs so we can send staff to CD L trainings
to get their CD l at which time then they come back and work within the station to
basically be trained on how to operate snow removal equipment. So that's been pretty effective for
us too as part of our looking to overcome our recruitment vacancy issues.
Mr. Sacalaskas, we have two questions.
I put myself in the queue first and then my co-chair,
but the equipment operator positions
in these locations include the airports.
I know you mentioned that for one of these areas,
but are the 54 positions in Fairbanks
inclusive of the Fairbank's airport positions?
Great question, co-chair Cara.
They do not cover Fairbanks International airports
in these numbers.
They cover other airports, such as some
of our smaller rural airports like, I'll say Cotsabew
or Dead Horse Barrow, some of those other larger airports
that we are responsible for operation.
But they do include Anchorage or Fairbank's
International Airports.
And we also have a question from Co-Chair Ayeshade.
Thank you, Co. Chair Kerry.
Mr. Psycholakis, I had a questions about,
you made a comment about the Dalton crew.
You said they had, a flexible work schedule,
which I assume means it's different
from the other work locations.
Can you just briefly describe how that's
different so I have context?
Yes through the co-chair co chair. I said I say flexible work schedule meaning it's slightly different than in some areas
And what I mean by that? It's a two-by-two work scheduled so they work two weeks on and two
Weeks off we do have that schedule on other locations
We have some in Fairbanks and actually some out in our Western District as well
Trying to incentivize some of those positions. So when I speak the flexible, it is a scheduled two on two off
but there is flexibility in that they're off for two weeks which is normally a decent amount of
duration of time to where if we have emergency needs or need have needs to fill other operating
positions for some time go help with delivering service in response to a storm event. We can
assign those operators or ask them to work over and they may work in additional week.
In a location and then still be able to return to get sufficient rest a week off
To return till their normal work schedule on the Dalton. So it offers us flexibility
I guess I'll say across the region and actually across this date as we've worked with other regions as well to
Utilize staff across state
follow up
So kind of related to this it was context for this follow-up question that is
Of all these positions that are filled, what percent would you say are
filled by females and what are you doing any outreach to increase that
representation? Because the context is, I think we all everyone here would like
to have all the vacancies filled. So if you can tap into another group that
might be useful, so can you just give me some context for that, please?
Yes, through the chair, I believe that was representative Nelson. Sorry, kind of hard to
see from the camera here. It's representative. I shied, it's okay. Oh, oh, sorry.
So I'll say I do not have the percentages of I will say women within the positions
filled here. Our actually recruitment process is open to all applicants so I
do say we
look for anybody that's interested in working for us and try to fit them within the job
classifications. I'll say they qualify for. And one of the things that we really have opened
that up is kind of that CDL program. A lot of people don't maybe come up with the background of
driving larger trucks or can afford to come get a CD L.
So the department has really opened that door to say we do have grant processes that are federally funded to be able to offer that training.
We do cover the full training itself and even pay the individuals to attend and the lodging for it as well.
So, once you're done with that, in essence, you have a CDL which qualifies you for our
operator positions, and then at which time we train operators on the specific equipment
they're operating just because there are differences in what we operate.
So.
Thank you.
Thank.
So what you see in front of you here is northern region of this winter has had a I'll say a kind of a fair winter when it comes to
snowfall amounts kind
Of a regular winter
But what most people have known we've had some extremely cold weather here in northern this year
So while we have been responding to random snow events a couple of things that have challenged us is seeing some effects of extreme cold
and we've been performing a lot more water management here this winter. As you can see in the photographs
of this slide, this was one creek that basically froze out, froze to the bottom there,
and this is on a tote cut off called Little Tote River Bridge, and unfortunately we were
ended up overflowing. Did end up getting on the bridge there a little bit as you can see in the
pictures but crews were able to respond and return I'll say the water to a flowing status
within its channel again. So at this time it's performing well but we are seeing increased
overflow areas across the northern region. I will say to include multiple locations along the
So, while we're having a normal winter when it comes to snowfall, the extreme cold is
impacting us with regards to some of our old water flow issues that are present in this.
And Mr. Sackalaskas, I did want to pause here and ask, are we struggling in Northern
Region and Fairbanks Region with equipment challenges due to the Extreme Cold?
A little bit of that in the city of Fairbanks.
It's been literally so cold that the hydraulics
on our garbage trucks weren't working for a period of time.
Do we have any issues like that
with our state equipment fleet?
Thank you, Patricia, Carrick.
I will say yes, cold weather does impact our fleet as well.
We've actually got operational cutoffs just similar to the city of Fairbanks in which we do not operate our heavy equipment, unless it's an emergency stance below 30 below.
We notice operating below those temperatures really does increase equipment damage and basically impacts our operations pretty heavily.
So I will say we still work with our equipment fleet. We do have some down equipment.
But overall we may have seen a little bit of delayed response to some of our winter events because they were backed by snowfall followed by
hold temperatures in the range of minus 50 below. So some of those
restrictions to get cleaned up after winter storm events. We were
delayed in some those responses and I think that's why you saw some
some our targets drop here this year a little bit down like 72% as I
referenced a bit earlier. we might have been able to perform a
little higher level of meeting the time targets if we wouldn't have
been backed by cold weather directly after our winter storms.
please continue. All right. Thank you. Next slide, please.
All Right. Well, I just got done saying Northern Region hasn't had any, you know,
major winter events. We did actually have one major
winter event here in January. I don't know if many recall,
but it ended up closing the Richardson High Day for a couple days.
Just some fun facts in that storm that basically between January
10th and 18th. Valleys experienced about 51 inches of snow and then had an additional
five inches a rain on top of that. What that caused in the Valities area, as you can see in your
photos here, there was some avalanches that did come down to hit the roadway. And for those that
you've been around a little while, this is the Damilanche location. So it did impact the roadway
So crews were able to respond to that, basically be able
to remove, I'll say snow from the roadway,
performs an avalanche mitigation over the two-day closure
and we're able perform some guardrail repair,
which was damaged as a result of that avalanche.
Meanwhile, we also had the roadway closed up that trims camp between there and, I'll say,
kind of delta. In Isabelle past there we had basically a lot of rain that had a
lot warmer temperatures occur that five inches of the rain kind
of fell up through that area as well, caused extremely slick roads through
that. And limited visibility also with regards to
blowing snow. So crews work to restore that roadway
At this time, we still do have ice on the roadway, but we are working to all say group that routinely and keep that area sanded pretty heavily.
So those are kind of some storm events that will linger
with roadway condition and will cause us to use a little bit more. I guess I'll say materials throughout the winter in response to these
I will say Chinook storms or warm weather storms in the interior Alaska where it turns to rain and we got frozen pavement temperatures.
And Jason, I might add in here, Andy Mills for the record.
On this particular event, there was something of concern.
Now, we saw a social media post that had a fabricated image that
was kind of recycling some old material and some
old themes.
And so it's something that our communications team, so I'll just
raise this for your awareness.
As we communicate more and more with the public,
there is, of course, a need for us to be vigilant
about misinformation, mal-information,
AI-generated content.
And so there are protocols that the communication team
is working on to identify those types of images,
to authenticate them, and to get messaging out quickly
so that those don't run their course before.
And this was one of the interesting things,
where it was was the first major ones I saw sharing an image
Accurate for the event
Jason back to you
And Mr.. Mr. Sakelaskis and Mr Mills just I want to note for a time
We are gonna try to wrap this presentation up by 210 at the latest and I know I
Want to talk about northern region all day, but I only went on this committee representing northern regions specifically
so if we could maybe
Kind of just touch on the slides a little bit more generally and then if folks have lots of additional questions
We can note those for another hearing
For the record Jason Sakelesk absolutely actually never care if I can go ahead and do that
So moving on to the next slide there, this is the last northern region slide of the deck and it's kind of one noting one of our last challenge or some of
our other challenges here with regards to kind adult and highway.
Overall wanted to touch on while roadway conditions and weather do give us,
do I'll say give issues at times.
One of the things we want to point out here real quick is that there's limited commercial support for getting these kind of vehicles unstuck
Normally when there is a traffic accident, it can block the entire length of pair width of roadway and actually cause rosary closures
These can be extended periods of time. Want to because of unlimited commercial supports along the route?
and the expense of time it takes to get appropriate resources to those locations to respond to
those incidents. Also, we do have limited communications along the route, so that can also focus in
when some of the challenges associated with that. And what's that? That concludes the original
presentation. There are some questions. Thank you very much. Please continue.
and for the record Andy Mills that transitions us to the South Coast where
Mr. Zimmerman will take over.
Good afternoon Marcus Zimmerman, chief of maintenance and operations for South
Coast region for record. Can you hear me okay? We can thank you. Good
afternoon. I'd like to talk to you a little bit about some of the south coast
region challenges that we've had this winter and some
Our first slide here will kick us off.
We'll kind of like Jason had described
with our total number of events this winter
with 69 of them across the region.
This region includes Southeast Alaska
and the Kodiak Aleutian District.
We had 131 targets
and we had 113 achievements for an 86.3%.
achieved targets on our priority level. It's one through four. So we still have a little bit of
room for improvement but overall I think as we move through the slides here and look at some
of the challenges for southeast district especially that was a pretty good rating so far this winter.
Last winter, we did do a little bit of contracting for sidewalk maintenance here in Juneau.
A small amount was expended on that.
This year we have expanded our process here, in Julyau a bit farther to some more sidewalks.
We've currently spent as of the 31st of December, $23,000 on sidewalk, maintenance contracts.
One, that's a snow haul contract primarily around moving snow off of areas on sidewalks
here in Juneau that you can't just push it to the backside or blow it off.
So we've got a couple of sidewalk contracts that work simultaneous together here
And so far it's been successful with all those contracts. It would have been quite challenging
to stay up on sidewalk maintenance this winter in Juneau. Next slide, please.
Not only Southeast Alaska had some challenges this year. We had a very stormy
wave actions on the 1-3 end of our runway there and on Alaska closing the runway for 72 hours.
We had to stand up a contract to have some emergency lighting work done out there.
Our crews had a clear debris off of the runway which included pretty large rocks.
and do a little bit of repair to some asphalt at the end of the runway.
This happened during one of
the busiest times of
the year out there in Onalaska.
It will happen at
the beginning of
the cod fishery season,
which is where they bring all the fishermen in and all of
the cannery workers.
Having the runway closed at that time where that storm was quite significant,
Being on top of things as soon as they needed to and could get out there safely to get things back in order for the
Flights to start coming back into touch our group there
next slide, please
Do we have a question representative students we do but I can wait and he's
Completed is Juneau if you wish madam coach sure let's go ahead and do that. Please continue
Thank you, so Juno had record setting snowfalls in December several days set snowfall totals and
then the overall month
was
80.7 inches of snow for December which ended up being the second snowiest month ever on record
so quite challenging here in Juno for the snow falls the storm total was 47. 7 inches
from December 20th started at like 3 a.m. on December 27th and went into early January.
And now we'll take that question representative students.
Thank you, thank you madam co-chair.
Thank You, Mr. Zimmerman for being here.
I can't help but note that Kodiak was left out of this report here,
It just kind of dawned on me, and for some crazy reason, we're part of the South Coast,
which is hard for me to understand, but we are living with that.
What we have a hard time living is we've been told for years and years, at least my
ten year here in the legislature, about Sergeant Creek River, which overflows, freezes and
And every year we're told that it's going, that DOT is addressing it, and thus far I haven't seen it.
So, this is my opportunity to complain and I'm going to really take advantage of it
The second issue is we have the largest Coast Guard base in existence as you're well aware of, I am sure.
And there is a whole community.
the other side of the Coast Guard Base, but it seems when they clear the roads,
they go as far as the coast guard base and every single year since I've been
here, when there is a weather event, I'm getting calls because the people that
live in Bell's Flats can't get to town and they can get
to the coastline base. And so it really alarms me to see a community
through the chair, Representative Stuitz.
As far as the Russian River
or sorry, Sargent Creek goes.
I do know that there is a bridge project out in that area.
I don't have details on project status.
We could take a look and get you more information on that.
I...
Personally, I wasn't aware that there was issues up the stream there where the where it was flooding out
homes and causing icing and things like that on the roads
We can definitely look into that and get more information and give you a project status update or
Sergeant Creek in Russian River area
Thank you, Mr. Zimmerman.
I would be very grateful to, if you would do that, it would give me an opportunity to let these people know that in fact that you are cognizant of it because it is truly a critical issue where, at some point, cars can't even cross there because the water has flooded the bridge so significantly.
appreciate that and and if um through the co-chair rubber to send in the
students to address your second question or comment
um i believe marine hill is the one that is beyond
bells flats if that's correct i do know that
the district superintendent share and clark has instructed the crew there to
clear to the top of that hill the on going
because we have heard that same uh concern that you know going to the coast guard base you
know does something for some folks but does not take into account the folks that live in bells
flats so hopefully you'll see uh better services we continue through the winter and the uh and
with more if we had more storms this winter that will see better service out there
Thank you, Mr. Zimmerman.
I really appreciate that.
I have talked to Sharon several times,
and she's been, I know that you guys are overwhelmed
and understaffed, and
she has been very, very willing to try and help out
in whatever we can, so I would appreciate any,
any additional efforts going in that direction.
Thank-you.
You're welcome.
Thank You, Mister Zimmerman,
I'm looking to see if we have any
additional questions.
Representative McCabe, did you have a question?
No ma'am, thank you.
Okay.
I used to live in Bell's flats.
That was a flat threat.
Ha!
And Mr. Zimmerman, I think it would be great
for the committee to see the status report
on that Sergeant River Bridge that was mentioned.
I'd think that'd be good for
the Committee to have
please continue. I think we were on slide 29.
Thank you.
Skagway and Haynes also during that same snow event received record setting
snowfalls. We had definitely severe weather conditions
up on the Klondike highway which is one of our
entrances into Canada and into the road system
Connects the lower 48 and Alaska the Klondike highway had 287 hours of road closure already this winter starting back in November of 2025 that's pretty significant last year we did not have we only had a hundred and
I'm not exactly sure, but it was not near that.
It was 100 and some hours of road time closure
on the Klondike Highway.
So very significant already this year for closures
due to avalanche blizzard conditions,
drifting, things like that,
we also had 43 hours
of closure on Hanes Highway due
to avalanches as well.
as opposed to last year where there were no closures due
to avalanche on Hanes Highway.
So very significant weather event.
We did authorize emergency contracts
for additional resources to help clear snow.
We brought folks in from Ketchcan,
our south, our maintenance folks from our Keshcan station
to up in Hains.
We also asked Northern Region.
for support as well with staffing.
They sent an operator to Skagway.
They also sent it operator
to Hanes and an Operator to Juneau,
along with a snowblower resource
that we needed here in Southeast
that they brought it down from Fairbanks
and got it onto the ferry for us.
And that same night ended up getting snowed in and Hains
stuck around and helped us plow for a couple of days because they couldn't get out of pains.
So luckily we were able to get the resources we needed for Juno on the ferry
and down here and then northern region supported us even even more there by staying around a
couple days plowing. Mr. Chairman, actually on this slide, you know, we heard stories with some of
now on south coast to the equipment sharing with northern region and it just always brings up
this question to me of and I guess this is a question for mr. Mills how are we doing on
having equipment in central and south Coast regions because you know one of these times we're going
to have this level of storm event in northern Region and South Coast and i don't want either
It just, it seems like that equipment sharing is great.
That's a great success story.
But I do, what do we need more of on South Coast
to have to prevent that epic travel
for some of that equipment?
Yeah, I'll take one initial stab.
Andy Mills for the record.
So a previous regional director did say you don't.
build your church for Easter Sunday, right?
So there's a limiting factor as to, you know,
how much you resource up to considering,
is it a 100 year event, is that a 500 year
event and I think that's the reason that you've seen
the approach on contracting supplemental assistance
when we need to scale up.
But as for equipment, we're very fortunate to also have Brad Beldzmann on the phone from our state equipment fleet.
And I'll let Marcus call out to anyone else who would like to specifically talk about how they share in capacity.
For the record, Marcus Zuberman, thank you for the question, co-chair Eric.
Yes, it was great that Northern Region was able to help share the snowblower that was needed here
in Juneau. At the time they didn't need it as part of their pooled equipment up there in Fairbanks.
You know, we do have resources in Juno.
At that time, you know we had broke down equipment and things like that, so that's where the request
To see if they did have anything available to share with us down here
So I'm happy that they were able to and I guess if Brad has anything additional to add as this is a fleet
question as well and
I think right before you answer mr. Biles my I just want to maybe
Clarify are there areas of need in central or south coast region where?
We just don't have a piece of equipment that we really need for some of these extreme weather events
or is it more we share from Northern Region when Northern region can spare it and there's these major weather
events. So I guess that's more my question.
For the record, Brad Bilesma, DOT equipment fleet manager, can you hear me okay?
We can, yes.
My answer or the answer would be to kind of echo what both
Andy Mills and Marcus have said
Andy's reference to not building your church for Easter Sunday is certainly a part of it. We don't
Have the fleet or or The manpower or other resources to respond to a
What you might call a apocalyptic statewide storm event
but we do have resources to share and that three reasons certainly have done a very good job of
sharing both personnel resources and fleet resources, to do that. And we help with that, we maintain,
we call it a daily rental pool or a pool of vehicles and equipment that is not necessarily
help in that way and to kind of answer your question there is always a need for more equipment
maybe not specifically in any one particular region and we're accomplishing that just by
sharing and moving resources last year in kind a converse to what we were talking about at the end
snow event and landslide event that ended up closing the parks highway and we
searched resources from central region to help out in the northern region so we
attack it in that way and then as Marcus mentioned the contractor community all
three regions have very good relationships with with the with contractors
Thank you, mr. Viasma. That's extremely helpful and
Just to reiterate them
They're sharing across the regions. So we have what we need in each region
when we had these
Kind of more extraordinary events and there's availability
We do some of that sharing that I'm trying to just summarize. I think that's what I am hearing
Coach Eric Eric that that correct
And for the record, Andy Mills, for one more thing,
Coach Eric Eric, last year there was, of course,
a reduction in M&O from a UGF standpoint.
But there also, and Director Panone,
or, again, Brad could probably fill in more,
but we are running short on time,
was the extension of time on vehicles.
So it's a strategy that the department had employed
over the last decade or so, where you extend the life of an existing asset to try and get
more out of it, but that, and Brad can speak to this much more, bringing it to a simple
sort of summary would be, the longer of course you use an asset,
the more downtime it can have,
the less expensive it is to keep running.
Note to give is rather than new equipment, we do also want to focus on the equipment with a serviceable life and keep it up and running.
So extending the life does have its own detrimental impact as opposed to just simply adding more equipment into the mix with the old fleet.
Great. Thank you for that, Mr. Mills.
I apologize for. Thank you to the committee for the latitude on that series of questions.
We have about five or six slides left. I'm just going to ask Mr. Zimmerman to kind of
again summarize them fairly quickly and if we do have a lot of
questions we'll be happy to bring this subject up again later.
Thank You Mr Zimmerman.
Thank
you for
the record Marcus Zimmerman, South Coast Region Maintenance and Operations Chief.
So this next slide, the governor issued a state disaster declaration on January 6th,
2026 that covered the December storm events here in Southeast Alaska.
The state emergency operations center asked that the state public facilities division
clearing some of their critical roofs on their infrastructure so the state supported there.
We also supported here in Juneau with our avalanche specialists helping make decisions
with the city and borough avalanche specialist. We've also supplied some
way to measure 3D model the snowpack, so we were able to help in that capacity.
We also used drones that the state DOT has to look at different snow packs up on the mountains here around Juneau.
We did also for the south coast avalanche specialist.
Avalanche is using ifus infrasound down on Thane Road here in Juneau, which was a pretty cool
Thing the day that he told me about that. He was super excited
He's been working on a research project for the last
Two years and this last storm cycle he was able to actually see or hear
Avalanche activity and our next slide will show that what that looks like
So, again, Juneau did get additional staffing resources thanks to Northern Region additional equipment here.
Thane Road up to this point of the slide show was closed for 93 hours due to avalanche activity and this lower the photo on here shows the infrasound and avalanche detection.
We don't have to actually be seeing the mountain sliding.
Each of these little dots is an indication of movement on the
mountain. The road was closed at this time.
So this does show that there was activity there while we had the road
closed. We can see that we can
see this in the middle of the night.
We see it in low visibility conditions.
So some pretty cool new technology that is.
has got great potential for our avalanche detection systems here in Alaska and that's my last slide.
Great thank you representative Stutes. Thank you madam co-chair I just have a
quick comment there obviously due to the weather situation was a lot of additional expenses this
request would be when we have our subcommittee meetings.
Don't sit and tell us we're fine.
This is all the money we need when
we know that you needed increase.
Step up to the plate and let us know
that if you need an increase in a certain area
because of these incidents, we are not mind readers.
We need you.
to let us know that information and in the past couple of years it's always been we're fine,
we are fine and then we end up with a big hole in our budget. So that's my request to you. Thank you
I think I'm a mind reader. I can tell that Representative Carrick wants more equipment for
Fairbanks. That's pretty easy.
I just want all the other regions to stop borrowing our equipment.
I am kidding. Actually I really appreciate the comments on sharing equipment and it
I love that we have a working relationship across regions and can do that.
But I concur with Representative Stutz that just because the department says there's a need doesn't mean it's going to get funded right away,
but it is good to know in advance some of the needs that you have as well as current needs,
especially based off of some these very significant winter maintenance events
we just saw within this last year and the sort of expectation that
significant events. Thank you again, Mr. Zimmerman. We have about 10 slides left.
I'm going to ask that we just if there's things you want to really make sure we
know we can do that but that, we go through them really quickly here and if
committee members have a very strong interest in any of these topics we've
discussed we, can, do a separate time for that later.
Representative me that oh no question. Okay. So for the record Andy Mills. I don't know that there's a slide that in particular that we again
Director Langley who can talk as fast as I can if not faster like you're from the east coast
She could probably cover hers fairly quick, but I I do think that would take at least five or ten more minutes and
The state equipment fleet might be worth just
I'm sure
Brad can cover that
So, I would suggest maybe just the state equipment fleet slides real fast.
We can always bring some of the innovation pieces into a future conversation.
I think that would be great.
And we, just for the committee members' information, the co-chairs do plan to have a whole hearing
on the State Equipment Fleet at some point.
So that's going to come up for committee as well.
Should we go to Ms. Langley then?
Ms. Langley, feel free to help us breeze through these last few slides.
Thank you, co-chair, Carrick. For the record, Christine Langly, data modernization and innovation
director with the Department of Transportation. So this first slide is a dashboard which you can
access with a QR code on the right. As Mr. Zimmerman mentioned and he listed many large numbers when
avalanche has impacted the roadway for a total closure of 729 hours in 2025.
We are working and we are in many other areas to proactively mitigate avalanches as opposed to
be reactive. Andy, next slide please. We have been working on three new methods that we have
put up and I apologize for the dates that you see on the slide. This one was done in January of
system. This system requires essentially line-up site in order to detect an avalanche. So it's
very good in the locations where we know exactly where the shoot is. We have a very high interest
in one or two locations and this one was installed just the other day on the mile 21 of the sewer
highway there. Between Anchorage and Kirkwood.
Ultimately, this reports automatically, we intend to tie this into 5-1-one and ultimately
get to a place where we are closing gates on the road in order to proactively assist
the traveling public.
The next one is the radar system.
This is one that, or I apologize, the next is infrasound, and this is
the one we had been using for research and we were excited to see it come to fruition
on the Seward Highway as well.
This one is good because it does not require line of sight.
We can deploy it in an area where we can listen
so we get beyond that first ridge
and maybe into that second,
and this too will provide automated notification.
The third one, next slide, is just entertaining to say.
So this is genuinely called the boom-wish,
and the Boom-Wish is currently down in tops and paths.
We are training staff on it.
and probably laughing at the name a little bit. The benefit of this is it does not require
ammunition so this deploys I believe some of my staff has referred to it as a very large potato
gun and so, this uses propane to create a you could think of it is a bolus of air that projects
out and knocks the avalanche down. It is much safer for the public it can recharge in 20 seconds
and can shoot up to 30 times. This means that our ability to proactively close the road, clear the
or mitigate the avalanche clear the road and get the Rebecca open will be
greatly increased over where we are today with the howitzers.
These three new tools are all part of our
ongoing multi-pronged approach so we know that to
proactively handle avalanches that occur in clear sky conditions
times when you cannot fly we need this holistic approach to how we're handling
it and so were excited to bring these three
new tool online. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Ms. Langley. That was great. I think
Let's go ahead and save these last slides on the state equipment fleet until we are able to have a more
Full discussion on that and go head and set them aside
Thank You mr. Mills and all of our
Operations managers in the different regions for presenting to us today
We are going to now transition to at least the beginning of a discussion about advanced
construction for committee members' information. I think it's our intention to have a pretty full
discussion on advanced construction as much as the committee would like. So whatever we don't get
to today, we'll probably bring back up at a future hearing. But we'd like to go ahead and
transition now to our advanced-construction conversation. We'll just take a very brief at ease.
House Transportation Committee is back on the record.
Welcome to Mr. Mills and Mr Pannon.
And if all three of you would please introduce yourselves
for the records, and we can go ahead and begin our,
oh, Mr Moser, thank you.
If you could go head and
begin a presentation on advanced construction.
For the Record, Don Pannone, Director of Program Management
and Administration at the Alaska Department of Transportation.
explore and try to demystify and answer any questions that the committee has on advanced construction.
A financing tool that department uses to manage the throughput of construction projects for
surface transportation and through the Federal Highway Administration.
Moving to slide two, what is advanced constructions?
It is a tool.
that is explicitly authorized under 23 U.S.C. section 115 with guidelines established in the code of federal regulations that allows us to begin a project without committing federal funds and
using state funds for those expenditures until a point at which we decide to formally obligate and permanently obligates federal
funds to that project.
So federal reimbursement occurs later when we have the authority, when
we had room in our budget, or when
we decide to convert what is a advanced construction project to a formerly
obligated federally funded project.
And it does commit future federal funds, and these funds are outlined in
our state transportation improvement plan.
So why is it an important tool for delivery?
Increase our project throughput in a given construction year when transportation needs exceed the amount of federal funding that we have on an annual basis.
So we can advance additional projects if they're ready to go beyond just the federal funds we've available.
It can also be used during a short construction season where we
have high mobilization costs or other cost drivers.
where project bids come in high, yet we want to make sure that we
proceed on all the projects that had planned to proceed.
It also enables obligations of specific fun types that are very hard to use.
So DOT has over 30 fun
types we get from the Federal Highway Administration.
Some of those have very specific uses.
And as we try to make sure we use all those every year, it's a lot like a game of Tetris.
And so we may have a unique bridge project or a carbon reduction project
that uses those specific funds, and maybe it can use up five years of those funds.
So, we will use up one year and then AC the rest so that in subsequent years we can find
a place to make sure we're capturing hard-to-use fund types.
So it's a strategic tool as well to makes sure that we are maximizing all the federal
funds that you receive.
We have a question from Representative Stutz.
Thank you, Madam Co-Chair.
project that would be federally approved?
Through the chair, Representative Stuitz, yes, we are required to have that program,
that project be in our step, so it's required
to be the step and we will, on subsequent slides, explain that it is held to all the
same standards as any other federally funded project.
I think I'll hold it until I hear the rest of it.
Thank you, thank you Madam Chair.
Do we have any additional questions?
Representative Mina.
Thank You, Co-Chair Character, the Co Chair,
how does that reimbursement process work?
So specifically the AC conversion
and what are those federal requirements
in order for us to get reimbursed?
Through the Chair Representative, MINA,
when we
to submit to the Federal Highway Administration that we want to advance a project using advanced construction.
We will also indicate what fund source in the future we think we're going to use when it comes time to get reimbursement.
That project then has to go through several months before it may occur any expenditures.
We may authorize that project in winter and it's not going have expenditures till summer.
So we may convert to federal obligations before there's any expenditures or we
may carry expenditures on the advanced construction up into when the project's
complete and at that point we submit to the federal government a request to use
any of our eligible fund sources and if there are expenditures we get reimbursed
for that and that's the conversion process.
Thank you
Okay, I don't see any additional questions at this time, so please continue
Thank You co chair kerrick
This slide is to provide just a little bit of context about how we phase projects
Federal Highway Administration and the Alaska DOT
phases the projects into discrete
phases
And ties funding to these discrete phases.
Phase two being what we generally refer to as design.
Phase three is all right of way acquisition costs or any right-of-way transactions.
Phase four is often the point at which we contract out for the actual construction of a project.
Phase seven is any utilities coordination and relocation.
When we AC or obligate federal funds, we have to do that for a particular phase.
We have know the cost of a particularly phase, and each obligation or AC authorization is tied to a discrete phase
And when do we typically use advanced construction?
We typically used it when we're ready to go to construction and either we haven't received
all of our funds for a given federal fiscal year, or when we're ready to go to construction on a project.
That's typically when you use it for phase four.
We do use advanced construction for other phases, but that's less common.
And then the last point is, we are able to use
We're using the hard to use fund sources.
So they protect funds, carbon reduction funds.
Those, we can move funds around based on when we have projects available.
We have a couple of questions here, Mr. Pernown.
I just kind of put myself in the queue.
First of all, when you look back at slide two, it says, why is this?
Why is AC an important tool in Alaska?
And I see basically these four items all referring
to kind of like last minute or short-term changes
that would allow us to essentially complete those projects
or make sure that a project gets off the ground.
But on slide three, we say, you know,
where it's most commonly applied.
and that it allows DOT to advance the construct
or pre-construction phases without waiting
for obligation authority and converting later.
It seems as though, however, we've used
that allowed authority a lot more visibly
in the recent past than the commonly applied authority.
I'm sure that's not the case.
I am sure it's just that we only hear as much
about the sort of situations where we're used AC
pre-construction authority.
But how typical is it in sort of a 10 or 15 year time
scale versus the recent past to kind of utilize AC
under this allowed authority for larger new projects in Alaska?
Thank you, Madam Coach Eric Carrick.
two different uses of advanced construction.
And there's the use within the year where we would likely
have a project proceed under advanced
construction and allow us to determine,
to give us flexibility on which funds we're going to use
to the end of the Year or maybe the following year.
And then there is the amount of advance construction
that we program in the STIP.
to increase the total number of projects that we plan on delivering.
That's how we've used it.
And I think that's the lens in which you may have seen or heard more
about how were using advanced construction.
We do have a slide showing the historical context for the past over 20 years.
We will talk about that there.
And I'd like to have Adam Moser, our FedH section chief,
also maybe elaborate a little more.
Yes, hello.
For the record, Adam Mozer, program management chief
duty and PF, and through the chair,
one example of within a fiscal year using AC is currently,
of course, at the federal level.
We do not have a full year appropriations bill
for transportation.
Our obligation authority limitation will sometimes be limited, so if there's a large
design project or otherwise that comes to us and it has to use that limitation authority,
because Congress does not provide all of that to the states until a four-year federal
appropriations bill has been passed, that is when we would often use AC within a given
fiscal year to move that design phase forward or other increases on a project.
with the expectation that we would convert that within the same fiscal year so we can keep projects
on schedule even though we may have constraints related to that obligation authority coming from
the federal government. I have followed but I think I'm going to leave it there for right now
because I know we have a lot more in the presentation but what you just said I believe Mr. Moser is
you know it helps us keep currently operating projects going and that's what I've seen you
know thus far or historically but it's not necessarily what we're hearing about in the
very short term recent use of AC. So I just I want to make a note that I do have additional
questions here but we can move on to Representative Stutz. Thank you Madam Chair. I think I'm a
Federal funding that has been awarded, but not received, we don't have it.
And so this project's moving forward.
You can use your AC until you receive that money.
If the federal funds have been award for this
project, can you utilize the anticipation of those funds for
this Project over here?
For the record don't be known through the chair representative students when DOT receives
our
Apportionment, which is the calculated amount that Alaska is entitled to federal funds
We then get as mr. Moser said
buckets of authority and limitation those aren't tied to any specific project until we
obligate
a project with authority to proceed.
So that tying of funds to projects happens first in the
step as the plan and then when they're ready to
proceed, it's when we have yet to receive the limitation
from the federal government that we might proceed
under advanced construction.
There are times when a Project in a given year may have
for due to right of way or utility issues.
And we would then use the funds for another project that may be ready to advance.
And then shift the funding between two different years, as we're allowed to do within the state.
Follow up?
Thank you, Madam Chair, quick follow up.
But once you've obligated the phones for, say, a right away.
and it's not quite ready, so you're going to use those funds.
The next year, you are obligated to complete that job
with those, with funds, wherever they come from.
I mean, if you've used them over here, because the project's
not shovel ready so to speak, are you still obligated
to, complete, that, job when it becomes shovel-ready,
Later that or the next year
Through the chair of representative students once we do obligate funds on any particular phase of our project
We are obligated to complete that phase and the federal government is obligated
to
Reimburse us as long as we're compliant and I can let our program chief mr. Moser talk about
The amount of time we have to compete after a obligation
Yes, for the record Adam Moser through the chair to representative Stutes
Once a once funds are obligated they are available for a project until that project is completed and or closed
And we do have ways that we can if for some reason unforeseen
A project does not move to completion to request federal participation still in that Project
but generally we
strive to complete all the projects that we do start and obligate those funds on and just
point of clarification when one of the advantages of a seeing a project sometimes there will be
specific grant funding that may be specific to a product but because of recently we've seen at
the federal level holdups and getting that money for grants to the state to go to those projects
And then when we do finally receive those specific discretionary grant funding that is tied to a specific project,
then we can convert and obligate that grant when it comes in, because AC is not an obligation of federal funds.
But we have all of the other federal approvals that are required to move that project forward under federal participation.
Thank you.
Co-chair Ayeshade.
Thank You, Co. Chair Carrick.
So, on this slide, the very last bullet, you know, as I see that bullet that is an advantage
of using the AC approach.
But I don't see any downsides listed.
What are the downsiders or impacts, negative impacts of the using AC, approach?
And I assume there's some.
So just would like clarification on that, please.
So for the record Andy Mills legislative liaison at the Department of Transportation and Public Facilities as a downside to suggest
Certainly, I think we've when we're talking to policymakers
They look at their repaint the future repayment of that as the potential downside, but again if the project is ready to advance
Pay now pay later if it's ready-to-go-now
You're advancing that and I think again for our contracting community
That was the large part of the conversation last year was get projects on the street get that infrastructure
Accomplished and so you've seen us leveraging this tool to accomplish just that which we heard from policymakers
Which was to meet the demand of
our contracting community to get work on the street and spend the infrastructure investment
and jobs act dollars that that we have available to us. Again, I see that as a potential downside,
but again, if it's ready to advance, i don't know if i'd call it a downside but i think it has been
perceived by some as. Thank you. I have a follow-up to coach our eyeshides question. At the previous
match dollars that the legislature needs to appropriate.
I had asked the question of is there any pushback or risk to the contractors for having a project
be AC versus already obtained federal funds and the answer was no, there's no difference
to contracting community.
But I just want to note that it does seem like a disadvantage and I think what you just
accurate. If you're a contractor you want to know that if possible those federal funds are
secured and in the bank and DOT is paying you with funds that's already got to obligate as
opposed to AC funds. To me that, if I was a contractor I would probably prefer that.
So it seems like just a little bit of a contradiction from what we've heard before
potential for using AC funds to fill gaps for our early construction season this year.
So I guess I just wanted to note that and if you had any comment.
For the record, Don Penone. So when we're talking about paying back the AC, we are talking
or reimburse the state.
AC is not visible, it's transparent to the contractor.
So when we have a contract proceed under advanced construction,
we has the cash management and incumbent obligate the funds.
So from the contractors perspective, there's no difference or risk.
or liability for them.
What it does mean is that later at some point when we're programming future years of funds,
we have to consider whether we keep carrying this balance indefinitely, or perhaps we
have a low year where there's a major construction, statewide construction project,
or we'd have reduction in match, and we would then instead use those federal dollars
But in every individual contract, there's no difference to the contractor.
And for the record, Andy Mills, I might put,
I try to do my best to maybe put it in terms that maybe make more sense to
the average person for someone maybe listening on this.
It might be akin in my mind to someone who has budgeted in their personal finances
for a new vehicle because their current vehicle needs.
to be replaced. And so they're getting a zero APR loan with a few months where they don't have
to pay. So you're paying zero interest, you are using funds, your planning to spend, but you
are basically getting it and then you will start the payments that you had already planned on.
And in this case, we are meeting the need of that moment with
a mechanism that allows you to. Again, it's transparent to the contracting community,
transit because their current vehicle doesn't work. So if that assists in an analogy to explain
it's a timing piece and that's really the tool that we have is the timing
piece when something is ready. As a follow-up though do we potentially lose some confidence
from our contracting community if we use AC over a long period of time as opposed to
already obtained federal funds because it's kind of like if I pay a contractor
to come work on my roof on the house, if i give them cash in hand it is no
different than using a credit card but if im using the credit
card you know for five or six twenty grand purchases for my
roof at some point the contractor might sort of raise their eyebrows like are
you sure you can pay that? Credit card balance off and I guess I
Maybe it's a subtle nuance. Maybe. It doesn't make a big difference to the contracting community, but
You know, I've received a little bit of feedback to
the contrary that it does
It does inspire a Little more confidence when we know we have those federal funds as opposed to AC
And I'm sorry representative McCabe's been in the queue for a while
So that's my last bit and then I would like to go to rep McCabe
Thanks and through the chair. So I'm and I don't know who it's for probably Mr.
Padone.
So there is a bill working through another committee here that has a automatic
penalty for payment from the state to a contractor.
That's delayed more than a certain number of days.
This sounds complicated to certain extent.
I mean, I know you have you you
have a great hand on it handle on
How often does this cause a delay, the federal government repayment cause
a delayed that then causes you to have to delay paying a contractor?
Is that a thing or, and if so, do we plan for that?
Are you gonna have like a slush fund for these automatic penalties?
For the record, Dump it down through the co-chair, Representative McCabe.
That's an excellent question.
It does not create a problem for payments to the contractor.
When we enter into a contract with a contractor,
we have the same payment requirements, whether it's under AC or a federal obligation.
And we encumber the funds within the accounting system to be able to meet our payment deadlines regardless.
So the function of AC and the mechanism of a AC has no interaction with how DOT pays its bills.
It's good, thanks, yeah, I appreciate it.
Representative Mina, sorry,
I'm getting lost in my queue today,
so if you have a question, please get my attention.
Thank you, co-chair, Carrick.
Through the co chair,
I want to make sure I am getting this straight.
Is there a scenario where,
if your using a C,
you don't receive federal obligation?
Does that happen?
Through co Chair, Representative Meena.
that has not happened in the two-decade history and longer that we've had advanced construction.
Thank you. Follow-up? Follow up? Through the co-chair, just does it happen in other states?
Because I'm just trying to think, you know, if we have this ability to AC projects,
what's stopping the state from just ACing everything?
Mr. Moser speak to if that's ever happened in another state, or if he's aware of that ever happening, but our limiting factors, we do have a slide on that.
We can only AC up to our match.
So we have to have match on hand when we enter into AC.
And so that goes into our annual match request.
The limits are also within the step.
These projects have be programmed within this step, and then we also have
have to have legislative authority for the project itself at the time as well.
So those are the constraints, and I'll let Mr. Moser speak to General AC.
Yes, for record, Adam MosER, through the chair, Representative Mina.
And just an add-on on what constraints the use of just ACing everything from the federal side,
the transportation funds that come to us every fiscal year,
three years after the year that they arrive.
So if you were to just AC everything,
you would not actually be obligating those funds
and they would lapse.
You would lose those federal funds.
So it is a mechanism,
you want to obligate those fund,
you wanna use the obligation limitation authority
that you have, that's what qualifies a state
to apply for additional limitation
during that August redistribution period
that we've heard about.
So there's a big strategy there
in obliging funds when it's appropriate to obligate
having AC as an option when it's not appropriate to obligate,
or there may be better options in the future
when you can obligates funding in
the Future on that project.
And then as to risks with whether the federal government
would ever not convert at the time.
that you want to obligate the funds or convert your AC on the project. I'm unaware of that having
ever happened at another state level. The underlying analysis there would be if in the time that
you received your federal authority to proceed on that project and the
time you went to convert the funding on it to obligate funds, there
would have been something that happened that made the
point you would be also be asked to repay any previously obligated federal funds on the project.
So I don't think it's a risk of AC per se. It's more of something happened in that period of time
that made the entire portion of that project not eligible for federal participation.
Thank you. That makes sense. Representative Sinclair.
Through the chair quick question, it's kind of like the elephant in the room for me because AC was brought up pertaining to match federal funds.
Can AC be used as match for the federal, I don't know if it is I chair or what, the 70 million, we have to pony up.
Through that co-chair, Representative St. Clair, that's a great question.
Unfortunately, no is the answer to that.
can only AC, the federal portion, were required to have the match encumbered at the time we use AC.
Okay, thank you through the chair.
I heard that AC was a possibility and after reading your slides, I didn't think so, but that was the big question that I had.
Thank you.
Yeah, great question.
Co-chair Ayeshite.
Yeah. Thank You, Co. Chair Kerry.
Through the co- chair, since we brought up repayment or payment to contractors.
And for context, you know, I don't understand your timelines for paying contractors for work. They do
So and the context is totally different program, but we know that
You know the state of Alaska has been fine by the federal government for not meeting. It's timely
Processing of say like snap applications. So
What is the typical payment?
timeline for contractors using these AC funds, how is the state doing, and is there any
fines that the federal government can levy because you don't make timely payments?
Through the culture, I said an excellent question. So we do track
Timely contractor payments as one of our program metrics.
I don't have those with me today, but Director Christine Langley, I can work with her to provide those as a metric.
Late payments are subject to interest.
And when we have late payments, contractors can request interest payments on top of the reimbursement that they are entitled to.
There are also non-financial implications that also drive DOT to make timely payments.
And that is caring for our contractors.
They have to their payroll and we're working with contractors on multiple jobs.
We absolutely are committed to making sure that our contractor's are paid what they're owed timely,
just as a matter of principle as well.
Follow up.
Follow-up.
Yeah, I would appreciate that those metrics and I
would really like to see what the total interest that goes to
contractors because of late payments, you know, because you
mentioned that and that gives me a sense of how much we are
paying in additional funds for late payment. So I appreciate
that. Thank you.
Representative Sinclair.
Through the co-chair rep I shied in reference to that
legislation that you were talking about.
That for interest on late payments for grants, etc. Is actually modeled after one that is done for DOT and contractors
So they they're already doing it
It was they just took the language added municipality tribal
Non-profits, et cetera. So it's it model after legislation or statute already
Yeah, thank you through the co-chair. I appreciate that I just would like to see those metrics and as I said
But thank You for that clarification
and just for the record
the piece legislation that's been
Brought up as House bill 133
from Rebecca him shoot
Representative him
Seeing we only have about 10 minutes left, so I'd love to just continue this conversation where we're at
Get through whatever slides we can just want to note that we do have a full calendar on Thursday
But we will bring back up this
presentation at a future date as soon as we
can
And I really appreciate the discussion today
Feel free to continue
Thank You madam co-chair for the record don't plan own
I think we're moving to slide four, and slide 4 just provides citations and
technical references as to where this tool resides in law and
where it resides and the code of federal regulations.
And the requirements that it be included in our state transportation improvement plan.
And that, it is subject to all other requirements, that federal funds and
Also, here at the bottom is 49 U.S.C. 5304.
Title 49 is where statutes for the U S federal DOT live and for our planning documents.
And this is the portion that outlines that we can essentially move projects and funding around within the four-year period of the step.
So that if a project is delayed, we could swap, bring another project forward and swap them back.
if we need to and then use federal funds in the following year.
Going to slide five, this speaks to a question that was raised earlier as to what is our limitation
And the first, from the federal perspective, the caps on the AC balances from
the Federal Highway side were removed in 1995.
There was an allowance to go up to a year beyond what your funding was.
So your finding on an annual basis plus one year, and that was removed several decades ago.
The state appropriation and match requirements, as well as the step, we have to have legislative authority when we proceed with our contracts.
And we to the match secured when you proceed under advanced construction.
And those calculations are provided every year to legislature in our match annual match request.
Moving to slide six, so this, I think, is a great slide that illustrates how we've used AC over time,
and also how much the program has grown.
When we look at today's balances in AC, and they may appear to be high numbers,
but relatively speaking, the Program itself has gotten much higher than it was, say, back in 2004.
In the blue bars, how much the State Department of Transportation received on an annual basis?
And then the red line shows what our AC balance was as a percentage of how
much we were receiving on a annual base.
So you can see in 2006, we're at 200%, we are quite, quite overextended from our annual apportionments.
Right now, we're trying to target about one year of apportionments out and keep it within that range
Representative Mina through the co-chair just a quick question. What was going on in 2006?
Through the Co-Chair representative Mena, this is my eighth session with the department and so I can't speak to that
Maybe Mr. Mills can for the record, Andy Mills.
No, I don't have an answer on that.
I was somewhere completely different,
but we will put that down as something to get back to you.
On this slide, though,
I would love to put a little additional context
because your initial conversation did talk about valid
concerns about.
managing an AC balance and utilization of that tool.
And it's important, I think, contextually
to make sure we also add, it has been some time
since there was a geo-bond package.
The capital budget has had been lean.
And so from, maybe,
because a contractor's not at the table and they can speak for themselves in time.
I do want to suggest that we keep in mind the totality of infrastructure funding that's out there
and that again in response to our contracting community saying there's just there is not enough
work for the workforce we anticipated with this infrastructure bill and everything out
there that there are other factors that play with that and so again trying to manage this and you
levels are well within norm,
comparative to the relative scale.
It's important for us to keep that context in mind.
Co-chair Ayeshite.
Thank you, co-chare, Carrick.
My question goes to previous slide.
Just something I heard, I just wanna clarify.
You know where it says state appropriations and match requirements on the bottom third.
It said, you know, the state of Alaska must have legislative appropriation authority to
cover this.
And I kept thinking, okay, where is that in the budget?
And, I thought I heard somebody say it's in an annual match request to the legislature.
Did I hear that correctly?
Through the co-chair to the Co-Chair, Ayeshaide, yes, the match is we have a single match
appropriation with three allocations in the capital budget and there is a specific fed aid
highway allocation and that is where our match calculation for the on an annual basis is calculated.
Sixty odd million dollars for federal match that was vetoed could that affect this amount at all I?
Mean that's what I'm trying to compute. I heard match.
I know that about
62 million was veedled in match, so
Did that impact this match for AC?
Through the coach or to coach your eyeshide
Yes, I think it's fair to say that on our list of project sequences that we were planning to deliver new projects.
Some of those projects were AC'd and some of the match would be allocated for those
projects to get them put out on the street.
Correct.
Thank you.
I guess not including the rolling step that we now have,
but STIP projects can apply for between one
and four years, current and for years away.
And so my question is if a project gets into the STP
and it doesn't begin its construction phase
until that fourth year,
so we're projecting out quite a ways.
Can the department then utilize funds for that project in the current year to AC another project?
Is that is that something that we can do
It's through yet to the co-chair we I may not
answer this, I may not fully understood it, but we have to show AC usage in our
step. And so we're limited to that much AC
usage. If we displace a funding source anywhere within the four years of our
step, we either need to make an amendment to the step or swap where we
speak more specific. Yeah, I guess I'm trying to figure out the liquidity of
your ability to use AC for projects. So if the limitation on AC has to be in the
step and have to have, you know, have have the ability
to reimburse that with federal funds that we receive.
That seems like pretty open-ended for the department and so I'm just trying to figure out if if you have project
A in the step that begins in 2026
Construction season and you'll have Project B in this step. That begins not until the 2030
construction season
Can you take funds that we have said we will eventually need and use in 2030 and just?
bring them back to 2026 after that step is completed so essentially like take take from those projects that are
But that we've put in our step that our potentially going to happen in two three four years to fund today's
Projects
Project can project be used be use to fun project a I guess is the question and if we need to take it offline at some point
We can't do is
Coach Eric Kerrick, generally speaking, no, we can't use funding from another project
to fund another product.
We have to be fiscally constrained within this tip.
But we'd be happy to go over specific scenarios further.
So I think this probably is going to point as I need to just put a pause on the conversation
here.
And thank you for trying to wrap your mind around that question.
discussion in a future week. We won't be able to get to it this week, but
there are a lot of questions here and so I think it'll be good to bring everybody back and thank you Mr.
Moser for being here today and Mr Penone
and mr. Mills as always
So our next house transportation committee meeting will be this Thursday, February 5th at 1 30 here in room 124
As a reminder, we do have the House Transportation Finance Subcommittee beforehand, and we'll have a delayed start at 130, so that subcommittee runs from 1230 to 130.
We will be having just an overview presentation on the functions of the Alaska Marine Highway Operations Board,
Thank you to the members of the committee and we are adjourned at 2.59 p.m.