U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski has sent a letter to Gov. Mike Dunleavy, urging him to include $23 million in his coming budget for the replacement of a state ferry.
Dunleavy spokesperson Jessica Bowers declined to say whether the governor’s draft budget — due by Friday, Dec. 15 — would include the matching funds needed to secure a $92 million federal funding award that Murkowski announced last month.
The Alaska Marine Highway System has already been promised $416 million in federal funds through the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. That includes $131 million announced by Murkowski’s office in November. Of that, $92 million was awarded for the long-planned replacement of the Tustumena, which serves Gulf of Alaska communities..
To receive those funds, Alaska must provide $23 million in state funds, according to Murkowski’s office.
“I urge you to include those funds, which the state’s applications committed to providing, in your December budget proposal to signal to the state Legislature that it is a top priority to secure these awards,” Murkowski wrote in a letter sent to Dunleavy on Dec. 5 and copied to chairs of the House and Senate finance committees.
The governor’s proposed budget, due a month before the Legislature is set to convene in Juneau in January, is just that — a proposal. The Legislature can, and often does, change it significantly. But the governor’s draft is a starting point for lawmakers and influences the final funding plan.
In an interview last month, Murkowski, a Republican, said the state ferries had been allowed to go “into a death spiral” and “break down” because there had not been necessary “investment in operations and maintenance.”
“I will be critical because I think there are some who feel like this is just kind of a nice-to-have,” said Murkowski.
According to figures compiled by the state Department of Transportation, annual ridership on the Alaska ferries had been declining each year since 2014 amid a budget crunch that saw less and less funding go toward the Marine Highway System. But that decline accelerated after Dunleavy, a Republican, was elected governor in 2018 and proposed in his first year to cut the ferry budget by half.
Ridership dropped from more than 237,000 in 2018 to around 190,000 in 2019. Even after the pandemic, the system is struggling to rebound. Preliminary numbers indicate around 150,000 passengers traveled on Alaska ferries in 2022, far less than the pre-pandemic low.
Murkowski was instrumental in including key provisions in the 2021 federal infrastructure law specifically meant to help the Alaska ferry system. She said last month that she was “getting a little bit anxious” about the state’s use of the funds.
“The clock is ticking here. These funds are not without limitation,” said Murkowski. “If I seem a little pushy on it, it’s only because I know how hard a fight it was to get the resources specific to Alaska in the amount that we’re talking about.”
Murkowski’s letter states Alaska could receive $600 million in federal funds from a single provision in the infrastructure bill, called the Rural Ferry Program. Alaska has so far received far more through that provision than any other state.
“We need to have a ferry system that is workable. One of the reasons that you have seen the decline in ridership is because nobody can count on the ferry,” Murkowski said. “Nobody can count on a schedule. So, if you’re the coach of the Petersburg basketball team, and you need to get your kids over to play a game in Wrangell, and there’s no schedule that you can rely on, you can’t book it.”
The marine highway’s aging fleet contended with multiple issues this summer that affected schedules, including understaffing that kept one vessel tied up all season.
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