Good afternoon to call this meeting in the Senate Transportation Committee to order.
Time is 1.31 PM. We're in Butchovich.
Room 205 in nation's most beautiful capital city of Juneau, Alaska.
Today is Tuesday, February 3rd, 2026.
I hope you all had a lovely Marmot day yesterday and whistled appropriately.
Members present today are Senator Stedman.
Senator Tobin, Senator Keel,
Senator Rauscher, and myself,
Senator Bjorkman.
Let the record reflect that we have a quorum to conduct business.
Welcome everyone to Senate Transportation.
Like you to turn off or silence your cell phones and join me in extending a warm
Senate transportation welcome to our recording secretary Heather Ramseth
and our LAO moderator Doug Bridges.
The only item on our agenda today is an overview from the Department of Transportation
and Public Facilities of their proposed reorganization.
Here from that department is commissioner Ryan Anderson and his trusty deputy commissioner
Catherine Keith
Welcome back to Senate transportation both of you. Please come to the table put your names and affiliation on the record and
Begin your presentation
the Senate Transportation Committee.
Yeah, we're, yeah, thanks for having us here today.
For the record, my name is Ryan Anderson,
the commissioner of the Alaska Department
of Transportation of Public Facilities.
Today we are hoping to just provide the committee
a good overview and an opportunity to ask questions
about what the department is proposing
for some structural changes to the Department,
really in response to a lot of factors,
you know, that we'll go through to,
yeah to to go just through that with everyone.
It's something that, you know, with structural changes we've actually been doing them over
the past few years.
I mean, we're kind of constantly trying to adjust our organization as the world changes
on us.
And so I think this is what you're going to see today is really just that some of the
next steps, that we are proposing right now that you see in the budget.
So that will begin the presentation.
to talk about, you know, DOT and our statutory mandate.
And that's something we always want to keep.
We always remember as we go through any change
in our department.
You know our, our statuary purpose under 1905, 125.
And I'm just going to read it because I think it is a really good,
you now, when this was crafted, I
think is it really a good purpose for a transportation organization.
carrying out a highway planning, construction, and maintenance program that will provide a common
defense to the United States and the state, a network of highways linking together cities and
communities throughout the State, thereby contributing to development of commerce and industry in the
State and aiding the extraction and utilization of its resources,
and otherwise improve the economic and general welfare of the people of
most of what transportation does and the importance of it.
So we're definitely, you know, staying focused
and keeping that in mind as we move forward.
The other piece of that though,
what has changed is just our operating environment.
And this happens over time.
I think, from the sense of right now,
you we'll have some more slides
about our internal and external pressures,
but there's, times are changing for us.
The fiscal situation, of course, has some challenges right now.
You look at the public expectation for all of us at DOT and, you know,
out there for the Public on the highways, the airports, those types of things.
I mean, information moves fast.
Public communications is different now than it used to be.
Really, just trying to get ourselves aligned so that,
you you can be responsive and be that organization that people expect of this.
We'll take a brief pause here for just one moment.
Briefities.
We're back on the record 136 now commissioner deputy commissioner. Please continue. Okay. Thank you, chair
So this next slide it's really kind of a
Deeper dive into our internal and external challenges at you know at DOT
Like many organizations we have workforce turnover and experience gaps and we're always looking to find ways to to do more
You know retirements. We have the seasonal labor patterns in Alaska
It's fairly itinerant.
The, you know, it was very competitive hiring markets.
It seems like it's getting more competitive
and potentially with the Alaska gas line,
things could become very compeditive.
You know and some of these things
where we're trying to build good training programs
and at the OT we do a lot of on-the-job training
because that can do organization.
Another challenge is we were calling
it distributed functional ownership,
You have multiple organizational units that overlap.
And so you don't necessarily get the same things happening
in the different areas of the state.
And, so we're looking at improving on that.
That kind of goes into this fragmented ownership
and accountability where also when we are doing a lot
of handoff some of these projects that we work on,
they go through different phases and they can be hand off,
you know, in terms of different entities working
project types and so trying to make sure we're caring for that and then we have this big thing
with legacy processes and systems. Technology obviously right now is moving pretty fast and
we want to keep up. So we are always looking at how we can improve there. For external drivers
of course the physical environment right that drives us and we were well aware of that.
Cost escalation and inflationary pressures I mean that's been driving the construction program.
And, you know, a lot of the, uh, some of
the stress we've been seeing there, um,
it's really just that, that whole piece
of how we're managing,
um in that times.
Um, it is a, the scale and complexity,
you now, for DOT,
you, know we are not,
if you look across the nation,
we were a moderately sized DOT.
Um but,
you our geography
can make things complex.
And there's a
lot to geography when you get into
culture and everything else.
So, from that perspective,
it can be fairly complex,
And then the federal funding and oversight expectations,
I mean, they've always been there,
but there's a lot of new funding types,
a lotta different ways that, you know,
we're being provided funds,
and with those become a series of rules,
and yeah, there're definitely a
lot different sets of rule that we are following.
So, y'know, we aren't,
and what we were trying to say here is,
it's this combination of factors,
these pressures that really,
yknow from our perspective,
decide if you know how we're going to make changes.
For the record, Catherine Keith, Deputy Commissioner of the Department of
Transportation and Public Facilities. The slide that we are looking at here, it
speaks to our operating vision.
for the department and these are certainly not new concepts.
We've been speaking about being modern resilient and agile for a couple years
looking at not only internally how we want to have these values but also
externally for our transportation system itself.
When we look at modernization, there has been tremendous progress within the department
since we established the data modernization and innovation office.
Through that, we've been able to work across all parts of the state to bring our subject
matter experts, folks that are skilled at these tools and, you know, hunger for that
innovation and pull it together to do useful things for both our staff and the public.
is our GIS-based concern reporter.
If you haven't had a chance to take a look at this,
it's on our website.
But it allows the public to go in now in pinpoint
a specific spot on a Pacific Road
and tell us what the problem is.
It gets to our staff at the appropriate area
and then from there we can track our response time.
We can at a statewide level
get trends for where there's corridors that have continuous problems.
So definitely encourage everyone to please go take a look at that and you're piloting
it right now and we'll start to communicate about it more broadly as we go.
We also have modern tools that you may have seen with our typhoon hollong response where
we're actually now leading the nation in disaster response GIS tools, that combine live data
to compile that with on-the-ground imagery through GoPro's
where we can overlay all of the different data sets possible
and even incorporate some artificial intelligence
to analyze what we're seeing to be able to put together a disaster assessment
that then homeowners could use for reimbursement and other things.
I could clearly go on and on that's not the point of our presentation here.
But it's an important part of how we move forward as a department and is pivotal.
Resilient is the same thing we want to be able to respond quickly and being agile as different external factors are thrown at us, whether it's through disasters, storms, if it is new funding opportunities, changes in funding, budget deficits, all of these things requires us both internally and within our transportation system to
wait out and weather out the storms and things that are coming our way
So if you look at the vision as to the why how it is that we're
Setting ourselves up the guiding principles then take these more concretely and we are taking time to talk about this because this is what?
Forms the restructure as we move forward. So any change that's occurred or
being discussed as we move forward it goes through these filters and it needs to follow
our guiding principles for any change. The first one is to modernize service delivery
and I did talk about that at length but because of our legacy systems and sometimes our siloed or
choose to retire as we have experts that go to different parts of the department, the knowledge that they've gained.
We can't have it then go with them or leave the departments.
So modernizing our tools is critical and it does have to do with improving our processes,
which then leads to people and how we're working together to implement those.
Yeah, thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I just want the public to know we've moved on to slide five.
I think you moved from slide four to side five so quickly.
I wasn't able to ask my question, which is pertaining to Slide Four.
You had mentioned Deputy Commissioner or Acting Central Region Director.
I'm not entirely sure of the titles that you hold right this moment about the data modernization
innovation program and I'm just curious as that was a pretty significant reorganization
that's happened relatively recently. So what are the lessons learned from that particular
reorganisation? How many positions did you move into that
particular division? how many are you moving in this particular reorganising?
I am also curious if you've talked to your career staff, your civil servants and heard from them about
their impact of that particular reorganization, and their feels about this impending new reorganisation,
and would love to hear a little bit about lessons learned and what you have come to glean as you
endeavor on this new and exciting journey it looks like.
Through the Chair, Co-Chair Tobin, thank you Senator.
Yeah, a couple of things, first of all, on job titles.
Yes, I'm the Deputy Commissioner of the Department.
We recently did have a departure of Director Sean Holland of Central Region.
He chose to retire, definitely miss him around the department.
So right now I am acting in that role, and we're thankful.
excellent crew there in central region,
so we do expect no change in service delivery,
but please communicate with us if you notice anything.
But onto data modernization and innovation,
that was about two and a half years ago that we-
created that new office and at the same time we also changed a couple other
things we had project delivery as a new division which then incorporated
several facets our standards our bridge section along with our planning so that
became more centrally focused on project
delivery we all so I changed our administrative services division to
program management and administration that's led up by director Dom Pannon
And so that includes now our federal aid,
anything related to our budget and services.
We absolutely learned a lot through that process.
That was a significant change for the department.
And one of the things that you'll see
as we talk through our implementation
is a slower rollout with a wot of engagement
across all levels of our staff.
And certainly there'll be this six month period
as you go through before we have an enacted budget.
But along those way, along that way we'll have and have been having conversations with our staff about how they'd like to see a roll out the phasing of it.
And then within that, what it looks like at different levels within the divisions.
As far as numbers of staff, we have to get back to you on that.
I'd have look currently at how many positions, unless commissioner, you have that handy?
For the DMIO, yeah, we'll have to get back to you.
I would say it was over 50, but we will definitely get
back on that.
For this particular one,
we're transferring 91 positions as part of our current effort.
Senator Tobin, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I do have a few follow-up questions
I'm curious about what is going to be your public outreach on this
There are many folks who are very passionate about DOT and public facilities
And I'd love to hear how we're going
To address any of the public's concerns or some of their fears about how they might engage in a robust public process
I would also love to hear you talk a little bit more
about project delivery.
We've had a few times where you've been before us
and have expressed that it's actually the project
delivery that has been hitting roadblocks, particularly
in some of our HSIP projects, not being able
to be on the current HSAP plan, but instead put
in advance construction.
And additionally, the slide deck that we saw at the.
beginning of this last construction season about why projects in particularly the
central region weren't ready for moving into the construction phase and it seems
like if the goal of DMIO was to be project delivery focused I don't
necessarily know if you're meeting that mark. Yeah through the chair Senator Tobin
yeah thank you those are good questions the data modernization DMio it certainly
accountable or oversight role that has more to do with regional
directors, pre-construction and construction engineers.
So data modernization was certainly there to accelerate
and improve the information that we have.
So to be able to make better decisions
and from there be be to improve service to the public.
So that being said, project delivery is absolutely
core to some of the changes that will be discussing here.
being able to make changes so that we can have a functionally organized
department with the ability to have more teams and resource pools amongst our
staff to be able manage the ebb and flow of projects across different areas of
the state. So we'll certainly talk more about that but absolutely project
delivery and the timelines any changes within projects that
core at what we've been identifying and working towards
addressing, but is absolutely the core of what
we're doing here.
Oh.
Thank you senator Tobin public comment. It's a great idea and to be honest. We haven't fleshed out a duration of public comments or an appropriate time
Certainly we could consider that as part of our statewide transportation improvement program public-comment period, which will be 45 days
That could be an excellent chance where we can add a portal as a part
Of that
But yeah, well, please stay tuned on that and we'll work with our communications team on it
Thank you, please continue
So going back to the guiding principles for change on slide 5
Frontline focus is another guiding principle and again, that's one
that we never can lose sight of,
that whatever organizational changes that
we do make, the reason for doing that
is that so our frontline staff have all of the support.
Our empowered to make decisions locally,
that there's a very clear decision-making branch,
and that the Support Services for our front-line staff
have are able to get them what they need.
resiliency through core capacity.
This is us being able to work together,
again, across all aspects of our state,
being to identify where in different parts of the organization.
We have pockets of expertise and rather than
For example, those expertise being siloed within one region if we have that capacity to be able to look more statewide at resource sharing.
We can best put those individuals to wear both their interests and their skill set lie.
The last two future ready organization and safety,
reliability and stewardship, with future-ready,
we are in looking ahead, just like with our,
you know, ferry system,
with the Alaska Marine Highway System,
we talk a lot about what we've needed to do
to future proof our vessels.
And that on the transportation infrastructure side continues to be important as even though Alaska may be isolated as a state.
We certainly, the technologies that are there globally have a direct impact on us as the department.
So looking ahead at whatever factors may head our way,
we do want to make sure that as an organization we're agile and able to meet those head on.
But again, not losing sight of safety.
We are looking at and talking with our safety professionals
across the department so that with an employee
and work site safety, we're finding new ways
to consistently meet the goals that we set ourselves for safety
As well as to Senator Tobin's point, public safety, pedestrian safety active transportation
finding ways that we can bolster those programs for faster project rollout.
Any questions before I move into slide six?
So this is kind of getting into the meat of it on the slides
and what we're proposing here.
One thing you'll see on
the right-hand side is our DOT structure.
And really, when you look at strategic assets,
we've been doing this.
You know, we been managing the international airport system,
the marine highway system.
The equipment fleet, you know division of facilities,
measurement standards, and commercial vehicle compliance.
As their own assets.
I mean, they each have a director.
They're working through,
you kindof a specific set of parameters,
have significant value in assets and funds.
And so, they really need to be treated differently
as we work through things.
And, so those are set.
I mean, we've been operating like that,
and so for us,
we feel like, that's been
operating fairly well.
On the right-hand side,
you'll see the cross-functional teams,
and this is where you will see things
like the data modernization and innovation.
And this is things that you know we've set up over the years and recognizing you
know program management administration. We're trying to bring our finances
together. The DMIO was with the technology and having a kind of a one-stop shop for
technology in our systems. Part of this the highway safety office we're
strengthening and really adding more resources there and so that's that is a
And so you'll see, and there's, oh, there is a new one,
Alaska Trails and Local Access Systems,
that's a New Program that we've developed
as part of that Transfer the Recreational Trails Program
to DOT and recognizing that that is something
that, you know, is high interest to the public
and a lot of good opportunities there as well.
So those things are ongoing.
The two main focuses right now, though,
would be in the infrastructure development,
which would the capital side.
of the puzzle, and then maintenance and operations.
And what you'll see as we go through is, you know,
we're not proposing to get rid of their regions.
What we are saying is that,
you now, geography still is how the work gets delivered.
You know we have engineer fives,
they're range 27s, pre-constructioners,
construction engineers that are all geography focused,
and they are out there to execute.
What we're saying is, functionally, we need to have that, everything needs to come together.
And that's where we are proposing an infrastructure development director, and a maintenance and operations director.
Instead of having three regional directors that are tasked with capital,
operations, the whole gamut of what happens in that realm.
So that is really the big shift we were proposing.
at that level where we're saying we are shifting from this geography based decision making the
leadership there to a functional based. Have we talked with our staff, folks that have been around
for a long time? Yeah, absolutely. Some of these ideas are things that they've been talking about
There's a lot of inconsistencies across the state and how we address, you know, the maintenance
on our roadways.
And people have talked to us a little bit about how do we kind of bring that together.
The budgeting on that side is a big, can be a challenge in how different folks are working
through that.
If you talk to some of our strategic assets like the statewide equipment fleet, they'll
say, man, we'd be really interested to be able to go to one person to talk about equipment.
and not three different regional directors.
So we're hearing a lot from folks about how this could work
and what could make it successful.
So that's how we are designing it.
Those conversations are going on right now.
What's in the budget right
now is the shift to an infrastructure development director,
maintenance operations director.
As you go in between those, you know,
from the, I would say from
the operations piece, superintendents below.
There's no changes being proposed and we'll get through some of that.
So it's a real narrow window of where you see these shifts from geographic-based to functional- based on that
Senator Tobin, Senator Keoh.
Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
I appreciate this and I think it is fascinating and
a lot of difficult language to just get to the principles.
So I have never once met anybody at a local maintenance shop or
in a regional headquarters who said what we really need to do to make this place run better is centralize more stuff in the head shed.
And I don't know that I've ever talked to anybody in
the Head Shed who's ever said, what I really
need is more complexity so that we can do it more fine-grained and
to the regions. So what are we doing that's different?
Yeah, through the chair, Senator Keel. Yeah the difference here is this idea that
if you look across the state and the way we do things like on the design and capital program
that there would be a person that would
they can all be done in similar ways.
We all recognize that when you get into the geography of things and how you build a road
can be different up north versus that.
We're not talking about that level.
Those we continue to push down.
It's when we're looking at our funding programs, we are looking how we allocate resources across
the state that someone's looking out for that, like on the maintenance and operation side,
for example,
we've had a lot of discussions about road priorities and
Those are things that, you know, we don't, it's difficult
to have that consistent approach across the state the way
we're set up right now.
So it is really a big consistency piece of it.
I mean, a lot of the execution in these pieces,
you now, when you get into the,
you on the capital side is pre-construction engineers,
construction engineers on a maintenance side.
We have maintenance operations chiefs.
Those aren't changing.
It's really that we're going from, you know, three division directors to two that went from a span of a geographic span to a functional,
you now, overseeing the design and construction, over seeing the maintenance and operations.
Mr. Chairman.
Senator Keel.
So, kind of, Jeff Addison's old shop.
Statewide program planning.
Yeah, through the chair, Senator Kiel.
I'm not sure about that one so it's not something that I am familiar in my career of 25 plus
years of DOT that it has always been regional directors.
20-some odd years in this building, I can't count the number of times.
We've centralized something to reduce costs and make it more efficient and more effective.
And then a few years later, we've decentralized something
to cut costs, and making it efficient, effective,
and a three years we have resentralized something, to cuts costs.
I'm trying to understand what, as we go through the rest of the presentation,
I am going to keep listening, try and figure out what we're doing,
seven years ago, whether it's any different than what we did 27 years
ago. That's what I'm trying to figure out.
Senator Tobin.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I have a very similar inquiry as Senator Keel as I believe very strongly in
local control that folks who are placed in local communities better understand the needs
of those in which they serve and our Constitution is very clear and that we want to ensure that
folks are closest to their government structures and we reduce state oversight. I'm just unclear
and I hope that you can provide more clarity to the rest of this presentation about how you're
by consolidating decision making into the hands of a very few, which I see on this slide,
which in my experience creates bottlenecks, creates decision-making stalling.
And so I would love to hear from one, again, your experiences and some of your reorganizations
that happened very recently about how you plan to address those dynamics that often occur when
Yeah, through the chair, Senator Tobin, yeah, well we can get through this the slides and absolutely address those things
Yeah when we talk about
Decision-making I mean and the functions own the decisions
I'm in that's that really to get at this consistency piece
That we've heard a lot from people about you know the different regions and different
Decisions being made based on different factors and so really trying to give a handle on that is what we're
going for there. I mean there's still DOT has is very good about delegations and
delegating authorities and those all go down you know as we go through those
range 27 and you now staff and below so we're not yeah we would last thing
I do is great bottle next with this and we were definitely this is to create
some efficiencies as you go though you'll see this as I'm partially what we
is address a five and a half million dollar cut we took last year so we're
trying to do our best to minimize impacts so
we can keep staff we keep the maintenance camps open we
can't keep those things going so absolutely you know we are there
with making sure that at the ground levels and the
communities that we have the people and and
the relationships and things but as we go through we'll
we will be sure to hit on those more. Please continue.
Moving on to slide seven, we start to talk more specifically about the maintenance and operations division.
So in this instance, the focus is on maintaining that frontline service.
So these are the crews that are out there plowing snow, they're keeping our airports open.
They're doing the repairs that the public is used to seeing out on our roads and airports.
So with having one statewide maintenance and operations director,
just want to be clear, this isn't a centralization of what we do.
When you look across the regions, each of our regional directors
currently have a maintenance in operations chief and they also have
pre-construction engineers and construction engineers.
And those are making decisions on how we implement our priorities
regions. So in this instance, rather, having the three different regional
directors implementing maintenance and operations priorities differently across
the 3 regions, we do have one that's helping us to establish standards, best
practices, just ensuring consistency, which is a very large complaint that we
Again, in empowering locals in decision making,
this is a big part of this
is when we have our superintendents now
more directly communicating with that division's leadership.
And these are things we're talking about right now
is what that structure looks like.
Perhaps it's super attendance that are reporting directly
to the maintenance and operations director.
It could be that we've management,
our maintenance managers supporting
There's a lot of things that are being discussed right now with our maintenance and operations team to sort out what everyone would like to see as we progress with this.
So the districts again to be very clear. These are not changing our districts and maintenance camps those locations everything stays the same
The folks that are out in Bethel they stay out and Bethele, but we do hope to make it
easier across all of the district's to more rapidly get the support that they need
We're also looking at the support services component,
which you may have noticed in our,
the governor's proposed FY27 budget.
And in this instance, our support Services,
which have been dispersed throughout the region,
we'll have dedicated administrative staff
supporting our M&O department here.
So the
work that's very specific to our operating budget to
our overall maintenance and operations.
Those staff will be within one group and again for consistency
across the state. This will provide great
opportunity for that and it may seem silly that we need to go through a
process like this to help ensure that our resources statewide can
that they can collaborate, that if we have an urgent situation in the northern area
that we could get folks up from South Coast, it's still difficult to be able to resource share
in that way. And so this is a big step in this direction where there's those maintenance and
to be empowered to make shifts as needed.
I'll pause for questions.
Thank you, Deputy Director.
Senator Tobin has a question.
I apologize, and this is on me.
What is the difference between a district superintendent
and a regional director?
Yeah, through the chair, Senator Tobin.
Right now we have three regional directors.
That's a PX position, range 27.
Our superintendents, they each head up.
Our districts are maintenance and operations district right now our regional are superintendents
They report to typically a maintenance manager or to our maintenance in operations chief that maintenance an operations
Chief then reports to a regional director
Tobin thank you, and you mentioned the range of a Regional Director. What is the Range for a district superintendent?
Commissioner Anderson, what's the change? Yeah for the record Ryan Anderson through the chair senator Toban
I mean, it's the LTC, so it is a wage group range,
so how about we get you the dollar values as a response?
Yeah, for sure.
Thank you.
Deputy Director, I have a question.
You mentioned a number of times that many of these changes are in response to complaints
about inconsistencies or some other incongruity of how people execute things in different areas
of the state.
Could you give us some examples of those things?
What are these changes meant to fix in regards to complaints that your department has heard?
Who are the people making these complaints and what are they?
Yeah, thank you, Chair Bjorkman.
For the record, Catherine Keith, when we just stay within maintenance and operations.
because they're certainly different on the capital infrastructure side.
One example could be the prioritization of our plowing, snow clearing.
Right now, what we've been working towards consolidation of information there,
but in order to get information and how we have communicated that across the regions is not consistent.
Another example can be procurement and supplies.
going out for contracts to support, say snow plowing,
our different regions will go about that in different ways.
So when we're negotiating on different aspects,
that's not always consistent.
So if someone in Central Region
would have a different experience in a Northern Region.
at our airports across the state even though we have airport operating manuals that are
there to help drive how we operate each of our airports regionally how
we go about being able to provide emergency lighting or how
we're using chemicals versus salt on our
to get consistency in, but in practice,
it's not always how it occurs.
Commissioner, do you have better examples?
Yeah, Chair Bjorkman, yeah, there's a lot here.
I mean, one thing that we see a lotta is,
you know, you'll have one geographic area,
one region, they'll some good success in an area
that wanna take forward and bring to another.
I think something that's comparable
for the keen eye would be,
you the use of salt on the roads.
You know up on the northern region they take kind of a different approach to the central region and then south coast down here
They do things a little different too
But to be able to bring all those together when we're tackling a challenge and we have the complaints
I think can provide a lot of benefit
And I thing that's something you know the commissioner's office has been trying to do over the past couple years
Another example, you now AGC in terms of project delivery, and I when they're seeing projects come out in the street
From that front they've sent us letters
that they would like to see more consistency in how we're doing that across the state.
That's another one.
There was a recent example on the utilities front.
We issue utility permits, utility relocation agreements,
where we had different regions interpreting the law differently.
And so we have to actually back up and provide statewide guidance on certain aspects because.
we had the complaints from utility companies asking us to step in.
So there's a fair amount of examples where we feel like if we could combine these things
functionally, there is a lot of opportunity there to kind of make sure we're doing the
right thing across the board and make that we are, you know, if there are an area that
has a good way of doing things, we were carrying that forward across this state.
Thank you.
Senator Rouscher has the question.
Thank you, through the chair.
So your question was, who are these people complaining?
Guilty.
Just to give you an example of inconsistencies of,
when you have a district that goes from Valdez
all the way up past Heli,
you meet a different
type of clearing, you meet different types of plowing,
different type, so the way equipment's utilized,
and it's very noticeable, okay?
There's a big areas, and then when you go to
the airport in Anchorage, say,
that's the different area you're headed to or Kenai.
So, somebody who travels the state a lot
notices a lotta inconsistencies
and some of the things that were mentioned here.
I know that the commissioner has probably heard me.
talk about inconsistencies, and so I'm not saying that this plan is perfect because I don't
understand it completely yet, which is why I am all ears to hear, but if they're going
to work on consistencies and plowing and all the other different things that she mentioned
and I mentioned, I think that I'll hear what they have to say and appreciate the fact that
They're actually looking into it, so I just want to say that.
Thank you.
Senator Keel.
Thank You, Mr. Chairman.
So Commissioner, thank you for a couple of examples.
Things like how we interpret the law, you're making sense, right?
But the other examples, I guess, are leaving me a little confused.
A warm day in the winter isn't above freezing in
the Chairman's district.
In Juneau, you don't have any snow or ice to fight
And and and that same principle applies across your snow and ice fighting chemical choices and your equipment choices
and those are staffing needs
And we're going to standardize those things I
Mean the the needs are so different across the different regions of the state
You I'm lost
Yeah through the chair senator kill
Yeah, there's areas where it is beneficial to standardize and there are areas
where you absolutely have to use the local, you know, that local knowledge
and ability, to get the job done.
I think the types of things on the operational side, when we reference the chemical,
you have, so across the state, we have different, like superintendents, for example,
that have a different level of experience with that.
So we'll take some of these airports up.
North or maybe Kodiak, some of those areas where we'll get a new crew on and you know
They're not very experienced with with fight nice
And so we've sent folks from gnome or dead horse down to make sure that we can get that done
That's taken a
While for us to get to that point where you now because they're separate regions
You know they they become kind of separate silos of sorts
Pretty good now. One example from Senator Rauscher is, you know, if you go up in the northern parts of the state,
how they clear the roadways and the widths are
different than how their doing it potentially, in some areas of
South-Central, and that's strictly, just a function of
some decisions that are being made, whether it's budgetary or whatnot, that,
you Know, I think if You had a person that is kind of overseen
the entire state would put a different lens on that decision
because of the consistency across the state.
I think when the public is driving the highways,
you know, when you drive from, let's say,
Fairbanks to Anchorage, you kind of expect the same thing,
not a market difference when
you hit a certain mile point.
So those types of things.
I mean, we got to keep it founded in common sense.
The last thing we want to do is start applying, yeah,
something that happens up in Dead Horse to Juno, for example.
But this is where in this model,
You know, that good local knowledge at the superintendent level, we're not changing that.
And this is to get above that to make sure we are having that look across the board.
Senator Tobin.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I appreciate the dialogue here, because I think, again, I, along with many of my constituents, are very concerned.
And, and I'm thinking specifically about AMATS.
have the ability to really talk about what we would like to see for our community.
I think the same for FAST, I
think that's going on for Matsu, the opportunity to
really have a good robust dialogue with local folks, local stakeholders.
And now our AMAT's committee has somebody who I believe lives in Fairbanks
as sitting on it. And there is a deep concern I have because
this then decentralizes a decision-making from the local community and
puts it into a place
that is not necessarily locally informed or locally rooted or local accountable.
So I would love to hear a little feedback about how you're going to ensure that decision making again stays and retains with the local community.
That it's not going be concentrated in Fairbanks or in Anchorage or potentially in Juneau, where some of these positions might sit.
Yeah, through the chair, Senator Tilben.
Yeah first to correct the record, Deputy Commissioner Keith lives in Ingrid, she's lived there for quite some time.
That perception of local control and how we want to do that is just something we'll have to work out like in Fairbanks
We have the the chief engineer right now and acting Northern Region Director on the fast planning board
You know she has lived in fairbanks all of her life
I mean, you know, we don't have an MPO
So we have that the matt sue if I was in the mat sue
I would be concerned because the way it was set up was a central Region director from Anchorage is in a mat su
So I can see where we should fix that
So I think there's a lot that we can work through and fix on this that, you know, to get to your point.
And I agree that that local control, I mean, we've been, as we go through further,
you now we're talking about things in the Keeneye where we need to
get a local office in The Keneye.
We have a Local Office in them at Sioux.
We're talk to the municipality of Anchorage about embedding staff with the
municipality and the Anchorage mayor's office to
to get people closer to where the work is but that's at the staff level.
I mean, some of this stuff is where people are doing the projects to be with the
work and so they're having the communications day to day because you're going to
get, I believe you are going get more out of that when you get into like a specific project
and our staff and how they are working on it at that level,
director level or above. Although you know we're there trying our best on that
front as well. Thank you please continue. For the record Catherine Keith moving
on to slide eight infrastructure development.
So in parallel with establishing that single statewide maintenance and operations director,
we would also have a statewide design engineering and construction director.
They'll be tasked with that infrastructure development.
So right now, for awareness, we have the three regions and
then each has a pre-construction engineer, construction engineer.
And those regions then take projects, whether it's community driven through the MPO.
or our national highway system.
Those projects then go through the region.
And then we do work through with the dynamics
of prioritization from one region to the next,
whether it's our payment maintenance operations program,
our highway safety improvement program.
Just our general funds across the state,
then currently we work with
the regional directors and others in the regions
to identify priorities.
and and move those forward. What we're doing different here is aligning these
regions so that project delivery again it goes to the standardization, has the
pre-construction engineers and the pre construction and construction engineers
then those all reporting up to one division director.
Right now our pre-construction engineers, they work together quite frequently, same thing with
our construction engineers. They're meeting and working through issues that come our way,
whether it's through federal highways, any regulatory changes, or concerns that contractors
are bringing up through Association of General Contractors, AGC. And in this instance, it
formalize, not formalizing, it's putting it together officially so that we can establish
a system moving forward that then everybody understands and it formalizes it, so you guys
So, with one design engineering and construction director, again, going back to the benefits
of this, and to Senator Keel's question about standardizing, I absolutely hope that we can
standardize some of our practices as we move forward.
That doesn't change the fact that there's locally driven decision-making that has to
happen.
It's not overriding that.
But we do want the public, the legislature,
to be able to look at the department
and know what our processes are, what
our expectations are for performance,
and that they're the same across the state.
For contractors that work with us,
that do across
the State and different regions, different highway corridors,
right now it's very difficult for them,
because we'll have different applications of our contracts,
change, despite our efforts certainly through memos and other directives.
So those ways of working within the regions, they've developed for good reason over time,
but we'd like to be able to find something that's common that anyone interacting with
But again, projects, they're going to be developed with communities, project managers in the
regions, those don't change. Our regional staff still work where they've been working,
they develop projects. They maintain their community contacts because those are, well,
especially what we're hearing, has to come first and foremost. But they will be able to have the
component within that group where they're getting tailored administrative
support for the needs of this division that I'll pause for questions please
continue okay chair bierkman for record Ryan Anderson so this slide really gets
back at the fiscal context for this because we're absolutely you know
As you can see in 2026, we took a 12.2% reduction in highways and aviation.
I mean, that is our group that plows the roads and gets that good work done in the potholes
in this summer.
And so when that happened,
we had choices to make.
I'm in one was to get creative and see what was possible in terms of looking across the
organization and where we could find savings and make some things better.
or we could do like they did years ago
and start shutting down maintenance camps.
And I went through that, trying to reopen them.
And once you shut those things down,
it's difficult to get them reopened.
And, I mean,
I think all of you have had experiences there where,
yeah, those maintenance camps are pretty critical
to the operations on our highway.
So, and we had staff, our long-term staff
that were saying, yeah we should just shut down those camps
And so we said, no, what we're going to do is take this look across the department and we are going look for savings.
We started an effort to absolutely hold positions vacant, to start getting those savings immediately, looking across wherever there was any revenue sources to be had to make sure that those revenues were going towards frontline services and
we weren't spending on miscellaneous things.
There was a lot of good technology type investments we wanted to to that we held off from.
because we understood that no, we were down to basic services here.
And so you can kind of see that that was really as we went through and we
went though and tried to frame this up and start realigning things and looking
for the cost savings that, that is the approach we took.
You'll see a lot of these position transfers and realignments are really
to streamline and some, I mean I've heard the word centralization and
that's not in our mind of trying to centralize things for decision-making.
It's really trying
to put like functions together to see if we can find those savings,
you know, and maybe find some pretty neat things from putting people
from across the state together, to work on things together.
Because there is a lot of good talent and organization across
the State. And then just really, you
know keep make sure we're staying on mission for the public and that we are
able to keep on the roads and plowing and potholes and everything else.
That's, that's how we're tackling this reduction, you know, by the legislature last year that,
you, know. So we recognize that it's a message to us to, hey,
you guys got to look at what you're doing and try to figure it out. And that is what we are doing.
Senator Stanton has a question.
Yes, Mr. Chairman, touch a little bit more on the submitted budget that the governor made last
out of the legislature, and then what was signed on your operations of 12% negative?
Yeah, through the Chair, Senator Stedman.
Yeah so every year, in the past few years, we've been able to get kind of incremental increases on the governor's budget.
And those have, for sure, those, have held, it was last year.
I think it wasn't the last few weeks of session that the Legislature is about a $5.5 million reduction.
on the H&A side, some of it was, I think what the intent language said was 10% was towards
equipment reductions, and then it just was an additional across-the-board reduction,
and that held through the final budget.
Senator Stebman.
And if we don't like the results proposed here, we can just increase the operations of DOT and
go back to the old structure.
Or where are you in the actual implementation of this?
Yeah, through the chair, Senator Stedman.
Yeah we're progressing like Deputy Commissioner Keith said.
We're taking it slow, making sure we are having the conversations with our staff to do these things right.
And we find a lot of areas that needed to be improved, no matter what.
And that's always a real big positive.
We asked, reinstated the five and a half million for this year and then what you'll see on the next
slides is the savings we're seeing from this were offsetting the additional incremental costs or
asks that we would have had this here for all of the other items that, you know, we needed. So guard
rail repairs, those types of things that you see as our incremental requests in our budget.
Senator Rousher.
Yeah, thank you.
So I know I'm not the only legislator who is complaining
because I no other legislators who have spoken to you
about inconsistencies, where you could actually
see the line difference from one area to another,
whether it's.
winter maintenance whether it's summer clearing, whether summer maintenance along the size of the highway or how it has all been
and I know each one of us legislators are listening to hundreds of comments that we're getting from our people
and they kind of contact you directly too I'm sure
through whatever channels that you guys use.
But so I just want to say, I thank you that
you're listening.
And it's not easy to be able to tell, explain the differences.
It really isn't.
It went on for like an hour, meaning just
trying to explain that differences,
because it is kind of foreign from one area
to another to understand.
what the benefits of doing it differently
might be or what we've seen.
So I appreciate the fact that you were listening
and that your working toward this,
and I just want to thank you.
Please continue.
Okay, one other piece to this that we're excited about
is the return of payroll services to DOT,
and then accounting services.
And I think most of you are aware that it was
maybe a year and a half ago now that we took back a last moon highway system payroll just for the
fact that the those maritime those those three bargaining units those contracts are complex
and it didn't really fit you know we're with the department of administration and how they were
doing things and so we take that back we had some success there in improving our metrics and
the responses and making sure we are getting people paid right and this would be a further
And the same with accounting services
Senator keel
Thank You mr. Chairman
How deep have you so far had the opportunity to dive on the capacity of 17 PCNs?
To do the work because if memory serves when payroll is centralized
DOT sent 35 39 positions to
DOA out of payroll
I don't have the exact number, but it was a lot more than 17.
So have you worked out the employee hours, the units work needed to be done, is you be
able to do it?
Yeah.
Through the chair, Senator Kiel.
Yeah, I mean, our folks have absolutely looked at what we had before, and how things
are done now.
I'm mean there's a lotta changes that have happened in the payroll side of the world
But yeah, and so we're comfortable with this number
that we can make sure DOT is good on the payroll.
That part is, I mean, we would always be looking for,
I'm sure there's been this kind of golden chalice
of electronic timesheets forever.
It would be great to get a little bit more into that.
I am sure we'll still be under the umbrella
of the state of Alaska for time sheets and payment,
but this at least just gets us to using our staff
and making sure things are prioritized correctly.
Mr.. Chairman
You and I might spend a little time on on exactly how many positions how
many hours and how much hasn't hasnn't been modernized since those positions left I think three of us well
Please continue
Okay, and this is an important slide because this really outlines the staffing changes and what actually happens in the
2027 governor's proposed budget
So, you can see at DOT, we have a total of 3,453 positions.
What we're proposing is 24 positions deleted.
And that estimated ongoing savings is $3.74 million.
You can the break down on the 24 position for the currently filled, there were 10 positions
that were filled.
Some of those subsequently we've been able to move people and to make sure we are caring
for those.
And just for everyone's awareness.
We're moving these positions so that they align with what we're doing.
This isn't a person-based thing.
We are making sure and we've contacted all the individuals in these
positions to find a good place so they can continue on the work that
they're doin'.
So that is, we take care of our folks at DOT.
So there's 14 that we are currently vacant.
And then you can see the breakdown of the deleted positions.
There are three positions, partially exempt.
Three of those are in the commissioner's office that we're going to delete.
In the general government unit there's 14 and in supervisory there was four.
And then down below you can see the internal realignments, 91 positions.
And so what we were doing, we had in our components,
we have three separate components budgetary components for support services.
central and then northern.
And so what we do is we take those three components
and we make them into a design engineering
and construction support component
and a maintenance and operations support components.
And that's the majority of these position realignments.
And then you can see, we also are moving eight positions
to really establish that highway safety office.
So we can have a good strong focus there.
And then we do have one division director that's reassigned to support AMHS and and that
Is yeah to continue that important AMH support
Senator keel thank you, mr. Chairman commissioner I
The 24 deletions are those within this same general design engineering construction support services or those throughout the entirety of the department
There's a few out the entireity of that apartment including in the commissioner's office
Okay, that that is helpful to know
So when I look at the 91 positions aligned and when you look
at kind of design engineering and construction,
it's not out of 3,500.
It's out at like 500 and some, right?
So that's a pretty big shift.
Yeah, through the chair, Senator Killie.
And this is support services.
So these are the supporting groups,
the actual engineers and whatnot.
You know, the whole thing, if you
look our budget components in the way it broke up,
So, this is the support services piece of that.
Commissioner, I think the underlying question might be,
if we can do without these positions in the future,
what tasks and deliverables were these
positions executing under the old regime,
and then what is not going to be done and completed
under the new regime.
I also come from a field where we're often told
that we need to make more bricks with less straw,
but is that the model here?
What do we expect to happen?
And just outline that, please.
Yeah, through the chair, or Chair Bjorkman.
So what we're trying to do is look at how we can work in the future
Realign and continue to provide the same level of service. We would love to
Provide better service to the public while also taking this reduction. I mean, that's the strategy here
So I'm mean to for these positions and where they were I
Mean some of these were deleted because they had long vacancy rates
and so
you know, some of it's so we're just right if we haven't filled it in over a year.
Those are the kind of things we have to look at and and how can we do things different.
I think we are constantly reevaluating how we can do
things differently. One of these positions is a deputy commissioner.
And so, you we know we re looking at what we
do and what how have we done it and you
know there might be some things that we don't do at that level but we
And so, just that whole re-evaluation to make sure that, you know, we're making the most
of the resources we have with challenging fiscal climates like this.
Thank you.
Please continue.
Okay, and this is one more piece of our puzzle as we are working through it.
And this kind of gets back to Senator Tobin's comments about, y'know, working in the communities.
And this is where, you know, I mean, from the centralization comments,
I'm mean we have been centralized in Fairbanks, Juneau, and Anchorage.
If we wanted to look at it like that, it was just in the past couple years
that we started a new office in Matsu Valley with today and with how we can work
on the capital side when you're in maintenance and operations.
You know that's boots in a ground.
But there are opportunities for us to maybe expand our footprint into other areas so
that people that are like the Kenai Peninsula, for example, you know, we've been talking
with Mayor Machiki about having space in that building to have a unit down there that would
be working on design, utilities, and we have hundreds of millions of dollars of projects
in the area.
So those types of things, to be flexible to make sense.
We're requesting authority, you know, we have some old buildings that we should dispose of and so we're asking to use the you
Know we'll go after those if we could use their revenue for that to kind of you
Know build out you now as we go to to make some more of these things happen expand our matt sue office
You know I think ketchup can is a place right now where there's gonna be a lot of work and to have a satellite office down there
where that works happening.
I think there's a big benefit to that.
Just those types of things is what we're trying to get at
on this one.
Thank you.
Senator Keel.
Thank You, Mr. Chairman, maybe a little more detail
on that, are there scenarios where we would use
this authority to replace state-owned space
with lease space?
Yeah, through the chair, Senator Kiel.
Yeah that's possible.
I mean, depending on where we're at,
I know like we'll always look for opportunities
to share facilities.
Like if it's the Keeneye borough
or like the municipality of Anchorage, for example,
people are willing to shared space
and those are great opportunities.
If we got into a place like Ketchikan,
I think what we'd look at AMHS space
and maybe there's some areas we could work together there.
We'd be looking for the most economical piece of it,
but I wouldn't want to rule being able
to lease some space out.
Mr.. Chairman be helpful to get a list of the the facilities that dear Tpf has today that they don't need
Looking at selling the interesting to see what the former functions were current functions are absolutely
For the record Catherine Keith
Now, regarding implementation, I want to lead this off by saying this is certainly draft.
This is why we're having conversations with our staff.
We have transition teams established, but right now, what is underway are these conversations
about the different layers of both our maintenance and operations division and that infrastructure
development division.
For example, we've had an old staff where we talk
through the concepts behind reorganization
when governors proposed budget was released for FY 2027.
We're doing the same thing on Friday where
we're ensuring that our staff have that opportunity
in a recorded format in the live meeting to be able
to listen to this presentation and then be
able to have feedback and have
that dialogue in upcoming months.
to continue to do that throughout the remainder
of the state fiscal year.
But what we'd like to after we have an enacted budget
is to start that formal alignment this summer.
And that means we would have updated organizational charts.
And those are available for the public.
We'd be able to have outdated policy and procedure
documents so that our staff knows any changes in process.
really clear for decision-making authority,
where things lie if it's any different than what it was.
But then as we go through to a fall
and moving forward from there,
that's where this monitoring and ongoing collection
of metrics will be very important
because for making changes to improve service
to the public or improving our project delivery metrics,
the only way we'll know that is through this tracking.
agile, fashion, be able to make any adaptations as we go from there, but just want to
make sure that all of our staff are clear and we can have an integrated system as
we move forward.
Please continue. And moving on to slide 14, measuring success and accountability.
a wide metrics to collect at the department, of course,
whether it's earned value metrics with projects
or a timely response when we have disasters that occur.
So what success looks like is across the board,
we wanna have metrics that the public expects of us
and that is able to also be realistic for the Department.
And we'll be monitoring these as we move forward over the next year and beyond.
And of course, we ensure leadership roles that we remain accountable for these outcomes.
And that's why we're here talking with you all about it.
And, and we look forward to future dialogue on this matter.
It's certainly going to be a rich conversation in upcoming months,
what this looks like.
And just welcome that and hope you reach out to us as you have.
Any questions or concerns and those things will roll into our monitoring plan in upcoming months
Center stepman, thank you, mr. Chairman egg one of the things we don't want to do is fix do details totally broken
So if there's budgetary constraints that you felt you know, you're facing that. You feel it's going to be detrimental
I would hope that he would
And then we can have some conversations with OMB so we could try to get any additions if
we were to do additions stick in the budget, because if we just add things with all good
intention, the governor just takes them out.
But we're open for discussion because one of the departments that we get the most concerns
It's either, you know, got a pothole or the snow's not plowed or what have you.
So it's just, if we want our phone quiet, we need to make sure your department can function.
And that would be appreciated, I think, from both sides of the table, where you're spending
your time running the organization, not listening to some of us express concerns out of our
Please continue
That concludes our presentation chair
Does anyone have any further questions I
Have one senator thanks mr. Chairman just back on slide 14
The monitoring and the check-ins with managers and staff and with regions and teams
Is there a third party that's going to be doing that monitoring in those check ins?
My general sense over the centuries is that the centurion doesn't tell the
pretor he's unhappy. The consequences are a little rough.
Yeah, for the record right now, some to the chair, Senator Keel.
We hadn't thought about a third party. I mean, I'm open to it. Of course, you know,
the whole point is to try to save some money here. And so there's a cost associated with that.
DOT folks are pretty direct, but yeah, we'll think about that and get back to you on that.
That's a, yeah I understand what you're saying.
Very good.
I had a couple of questions I just wanted to go back in regard to slide 8 about infrastructure
development and maintenance operations.
Contingencies on single points of failure based on kind of one or two people kind
of being in charge of making a decision and and how much information will that
one person be responsible for so if something happens you know the night
king kills a three-eyed raven and then we're all in jeopardy somehow because they
drove off the road
What happens, like what contingencies are in place
to protect the whole system from having a person go down, you know?
Yeah, Chair Berkman, that's a great, yeah, I think key man risk is
kind of a term people use for that. So,
the way it works right now is you have one person, right? You have your,
you're, the, okay, so if I'm a superintendent, let's just run a scenario,
if i'm superintendent in a region and there's big event,
my maintenance manager or a maintenance chief that's providing direction to me
and above them is a division director or regional director.
In this scenario you would still have that same hierarchy except that the regional
director would be a Maintenance Director. So there's no real change in terms of and then
and what happens is then they go up from there and it's a Deputy Commissioner or Commissioner
So that's the safeguards right now.
There's many times when you'll see either one of us,
the Deputy Commissioner and Commissioner,
getting involved in a disaster response or a big event.
Because that is what it takes and we're all a team.
So, that team construct is
what we are looking for in that Team culture.
So and on M&O side, the maintenance operation side.
They're the strongest on that.
What we want to see though is more reaching out
the snow blower goes down well maybe they got a couple extra snowblowers and
fairbanks that it's not snowing in fair banks right now and so we can move that
down to the key now we've done that um and and
so that happens more fluidly right. Now I have to get involved for those
decisions because they're separate decision-making
bodies. That's that's the type of sharing and we're doing it right
I mean, I'll be honest,
I'm bad because we're doing a lot in the commissioner's office,
but then not because
we want control or we wanna make decisions or anything like that.
It's because
we trying to maintain that team construct, you know, and so
we are kind of that connection point right now.
Understood.
I think
one of the main
undercurrents of concern
with the restructure
is that
People are wondering and have questions about how projects will be prioritized around the state if they don't feel that there is some
like
Regional champion fighting for the projects in their area. It's kind of like the the feeling I get and
Maybe at a future point we could talk more and spell out for members in the public
Exactly how project are prioritised around this state and who decides I think it's wise that
60 legislators don't get to decide which projects get executed and what you don t. That's probably
the way to go. But how is the public the contracting community and others? How are they reassured
that our transportation program dollars are being spent to the greatest effect where the
Is that process going to be endangered with this reorganization?
Yeah, Chair Bjorkman. I mean if what we're talking about is looking across the state it needs and one area has a bigger need than the other I
Think this model strengthens that if
What we are looking at is within that geographic region
We want to do looking and then you know allocating resources and I can I understand that as well
where we have northern region gets a certain amount,
central region, and there's kind of this unspoken allocation.
There's that too, right?
I mean, reality, I think, is that we need a set of principles
where, you know, we recognize that different contractors
work in different geographic areas,
and we gotta make sure we're taking care of that,
that you look at different communities
and what they need,
and the fair share there, but across the board,
I this model actually,
I mean, I'll be honest, right?
I was an Northern Region Director for five years,
and we were real competitive.
And if we could get the projects done,
then we can get funding and make fair banks grow
with the transportation program.
I don't know if that was fair.
So in this model,
I think when you looked across the state,
you could look at that from that perspective.
I would also just say you have these range 27
pre-construction engineers, construction engineers are classified, they're not PXs.
But there's an opportunity here to really, if we're looking for champions in areas,
I mean there is no reason why they can't be champions too, as you have been thinking about regional directors.
It might take some training, it might takes a little bit of work there, but I think there
is a big opportunity, I don't know, a good resource there as well.
Very well, Senator Steadman.
point of 60 legislators I think it'd be pretty easy to boil it down to 20. We can
do that pretty easily and work that out. Makes more sense. Okay, as long as it's
not seniority. Thank you for that. I wonder if you might provide an update.
Many have noticed that federal government has not released funding for the Alaska Marine Highway System.
Could you provide us with an update on that specifically and what are contingencies if we can't get that funding sooner rather than later?
Yeah, Chair Brierkman, yeah, we did a presentation to Senate Finance just yesterday on this one.
Man, there's about 400 million left in the program as we calculate it.
And we haven't received funds this past year.
Typically, a notice of funding opportunity comes out and then we can apply for the funds.
And then the way the criteria are set up, it leans towards Alaska to get these funds,
and there is some mileage, those criterion things that makes it pretty tough for
other states to compete with Alaska.
And so, you know, we've had the conversations with FTA.
We haven't gotten a lot of information from them, to be honest.
I know there's a lotta discussion with the congressional delegation right now
about the timing and when those funds may be released.
I don't know. This isn't the only funding program where this is happening.
But it's, I guess the important thing is they haven t released the notice of funding opportunity
for anyone to even apply for the funds.
So we haven't applied for them the opportunity hasn't been there there's not an award pending or anything like that
It's just that yeah, they haven even you know provided that opportunity at this time
Okay, thank you one final question
The committee had asked for some information at our first hearing
on the 22nd of January regarding changes to the step
that were made because of the reduced amount of match.
I don't think we've gotten that yet.
If you could, please get us the changes
to this step that we're made
because the amount
of matched available.
I think that could help inform conversations
as we move forward.
Yeah, to everyone.
Yeah. We're in our staff is working on that.
We'll get that to you very quickly.
Thank you. Anything further today?
Well, okay then. Thank-you for being here. We appreciate it.
The Senate Transportation Committee will meet again on Thursday, February 5th,
when we will hear Senate Bill 191, Railroad Whittier, as there is no further business to come before the committee today.
We are adjourned at 2.54 p.m.