Federal awards to Alaska reach $1.84 billion early in new fiscal year

Federal agencies have awarded $1.84 billion to Alaska recipients so far this fiscal year, according to a USAspending.gov snapshot pulled Wednesday. That's a sharp jump from the $20.48 million shown in the Oct. 12 snapshot. The new federal fiscal year began Oct. 1.

The figure reflects money awarded, not yet paid out. USAspending reports $0 in outlays so far. The average award is $7.10 million.

Alaska now ranks 35th among the 56 states and territories tracked, between Mississippi ($2.12 billion) and Kansas ($1.62 billion). California leads the nation with $33.69 billion across 4,550 awards.

Nearly all of Alaska's total, $1.83 billion, comes through the Department of Health and Human Services. That includes $1.05 billion in Indian Health Service tribal self-governance compacts and funding agreements and $718 million in Medicaid grants to the state. Direct payments total $1.06 billion across 33 awards, while grants add $774 million across 101 more.

The largest recipients are the Alaska Department of Health ($766 million), the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corp. ($207 million) and the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium ($162 million).

The 259 contracts, grants, direct payments and loans exclude subawards, the portion of funding recipients pass along to other organizations. Early October snapshots showed the count reset to zero as the new fiscal year started.