‘Relationships are key’: AFN Convention brings leaders to the table<\/a>]<\/ins><\/p>\nAccording to Nils Andreassen, executive director of the Alaska Municipal League, local governments want to be well-positioned to take full advantage of those federal funds which meant not using them to plug gaps in budgets.<\/p>\n
School bond debt reimbursement has long been a priority for AML and the communities it represents, including the City and Borough of Juneau, and Andreassen said he hoped to see the state fully fund that obligation to municipalities. There’s an expectation the state is in a position now to fully fund those obligations, Andreassen said, and the state’s been a good partner in how it’s approached previous rounds of federal relief.<\/p>\n
The infrastructure bill will provide a significant amount of funding in the future for things like broadband internet, water, sewage and transportation, Andreassen said, but school construction and maintenance weren’t included.<\/p>\n
“That’s been underfunded for a long time at the state level,” Andreassen said.<\/p>\n
Still, funding from the bill would provide “a huge leap forward,” for many Alaskan communities, Andreassen said, but municipalities needed to be ready to take advantage of opportunities. There is a lot of funding that some communities may not be aware of or have the capacity to write grants for, which is something Andreassen said the state could help with.<\/p>\n
“How do we keep track of all these opportunities,” Andreassen asked, “How do we put our best foot forward?”<\/p>\n
In Juneau, school bond debt reimbursement is also a priority, according to Katie Koester, director of CBJ’s Public Works and Engineering Department, as was transportation funding. The city has a list of priorities it’s drafting and will present to the Legislature in early February, Koester said, including school construction projects awaiting reimbursement. Koester said she expects that list to be presented to Juneau’s Public Works and Facilities Committee on Dec. 20 with final adoption by the full Assembly on Jan. 24.<\/p>\n
The city’s new electric bus was purchased with federal grant funds, Koester said, and part of the infrastructure bill will provide opportunities for rural transit across Alaska to modernize fleets.<\/p>\n
“Because (the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities) is not allowed to charge overhead for these grants, it becomes a burden to manage them,” Koester said in an email. “CBJ, and other rural transit agencies, are actively advocating for those federal pass-through funds to remain in the budget including the administrative support to process them.”<\/p>\n
Andreassen said transportation was a priority for many Alaska communities, and with many municipalities looking at federal funding opportunities for docks and harbors.<\/p>\n
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, was able to secure funding in the infrastructure bill for the Alaska Marine Highway System, some of which has alread found a purpose. Last week Dunleavy announced the ferry MV Tustumena would be replaced and DOT announced additional sailings during the winter season.<\/p>\n
• Contact reporter Peter Segall at psegall@juneauempire.com. Follow him on Twitter at @SegallJnuEmpire.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"School bond debt. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":531,"featured_media":79286,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":9,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[75,230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-79285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-news","tag-local-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/531"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79285"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=79285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}