Dunleavy's legislative expert claims incompetent lawmakers 'f***up' transportation funding

(Official photo from the State of Alaska Office of the Governor)

Jordan Shilling, who really should take his talents to the private sector, is supposed to be Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s point man who deals with the Alaska Legislature.

Note what he said below about legislators, calling them incompetent and claiming they “f***ed up” state transportation funding. He also attacked Iris Samuels of the Anchorage Daily News, who is doing the best political reporting in Alaska.

Dunleavy needs a new point man. Lol, as Shilling would say.

Sen. Bert Stedman, an expert on the state budget, says Shilling doesn’t have a clue.

Here is what is really going on:

Legislators worked with the Legislative Finance Division to identify old state appropriations with funds that were not encumbered.

Legislators used that money to help qualify for the 90 percent federal match for hundreds of millions worth of transportation projects for the next fiscal year. Stedman said the list was based on a thorough review and not done lightly.

In short, the money was available. Shilling is wrong.

But Dunleavy vetoed the transfers, which means that the state share of federal highway funds could be cut by as much as $600 million. The exact number is not clear.

What is clear is that the Dunleavy administration has not told Alaskans the truth about this mess. The state is clouding the picture by claiming that everything is normal. It’s not.

Here is a list of about 40 road projects that have been delayed by the snafu.

I first wrote about the situation June 18.

Dunleavy vetoed $70 million in transportation match money that was transferred by legislators from dozens of older projects, money that budget analysts said was legally available. The $70 million was necessary to qualify for about $600 million in federal matching funds.

A big part of the money, about $37 million, was transferred by legislators from the Juneau access project, an effort that had long been stalled.

The timing on all this will be critical to examine.

In April the Legislature began moving to transfer the money that had not been spent as matching funds, including the $37 million that had not been spent on the Juneau project.

But on May 23rd, after years of inactivity, Dunleavy resurrected plans to use the money. This was no coincidence. It was not an accident.

The Department of Transportation and Public Facilities rushed to throw a plan together to spend the money to build part of a ferry terminal project that would cost $77 million. It is important to understand that there is no money to build a dock or a terminal.

The Haines borough put together this list of documents that contains many unanswered questions about the Dunleavy plan. The refusal to do a feasibility study is one of the biggest problems.

Grand Portage Resources, a small mining company that seeks an ore terminal, is celebrating the Dunleavy decision: “Development of the ore terminal is not contingent on development of the passenger ferry terminal - it can be developed prior to (and independently of) the passenger ferry facility. However, having the ferry terminal proceed first is highly advantageous as it would result in the development of infrastructure that will also be necessary for the ore terminal, particularly the new access road and bridge. This reduces the time and cost required for future ore terminal development.”

The Dunleavy administration pretends that the miracle rebirth of the project is all part of the Dunleavy master plan, not an attempt to prevent the Legislature from using the money to qualify for a few hundred million federal dollars.

In the meantime, the Legislature approved the budget for the fiscal year that began July 1 with the $37 million from the Juneau work transferred to help qualify for hundreds of millions in federal highway funds.

But Dunleavy vetoed the $37 million transfer, claiming the money was not legally available.

In the end, the state is missing out on hundreds of millions in federal funds, with road projects statewide delayed or at risk of being cancelled. The Juneau project appears to be a poorly planned boondoggle because there is no complete budget or analysis.

In that context, I highly recommend this story published today in the Anchorage Daily News by Samuels about the Dunleavy administration’s signing of a $28.5 million ferry-related contract that an “oversight board said the state had not proved that the project is economically viable.”

This new contract is the result of the terminal rebirth in May.

“Dunleavy administration officials say the new terminal at Cascade Point, located 30 miles north of an existing terminal in Auke Bay, will cut ferry time from Juneau to Haines and Skagway by two hours,” Samuels wrote.

“But the chair of the Alaska Marine Highway Operations Board — which was created by Dunleavy four years ago — says the department hasn’t shared “some kind of business plan or feasibility study” to establish that the terminal is necessary and economically viable.”

• This column was originally published at Reporting from Alaska, an independent political analysis and commentary website by Alaska reporter and author Dermot Cole.