Uphill Funding Battle for Gustavus Capital Projects

As you may have read in the Fairweather Reporter, the Gustavus City Council has submitted four capital projects to the Alaska legislature. The total amount sought is just under $3.4 million, with the total cost for each project ranging from $70,000 to $2.4 million. Funding for for approved projects (if any) will become available shortly after July 1, the start of the state's fiscal year 2014. We will not know for certain whether projects are funded until sometime in May at the earliest.

 

You may also have heard that FY14 is going to be a tough year to get funding for state capital projects. On February 21, as manager of one of the projects, I joined council members Noel Farevaag, Jim Mackovjak, and Morgan DeBoer in a 20-minute teleconference with our Senator, Dennis Egan, our representative, Beth Kerttula, and members of their staffs to brief them on the city's capital requests. They were cordial and interested, and promised to do what they could, but warned us not to expect too much in this funding environment; they have received far more in capital requests then they will be able to fund.

 

So if any or all of the city's capital requests are important to you or your neighbors, you and they might want to contact Egan and Kerttula immediately  to let them know what projects are important to you and why. It sounds like decisions are being made in the next hours or days regarding what projects will make it into the state's capital budget, so now is the time to act if you care.

• You can review the city's submissions here: http://1.usa.gov/W6C2nQ 
• Short messages that convey how the projects will affect you are the most effective.
• I suggest we all keep our messages positive, unless you really don't want to see any  of the projects funded. It's fine to explain why a given project is your personal top priority, but if people start sniping at projects they don't necessarily favor, I expect all will be rejected.
• Contacts: Dennis Egan and Beth Kerttula. Given the short times involved, phone calls, e-mails, and faxes will be better than letters via snail mail.