Juneau harbor board to weigh urging full funding, higher cap for state harbor grants

Juneau's Docks and Harbors Board takes up two resolutions Thursday, Nov. 19, urging the governor and the Alaska Legislature to fully fund the state's Municipal Harbor Facility Grant Program at about $20.6 million and to raise its yearly grant cap from $5 million to $7.5 million. If the board approves them, they go to the Juneau Assembly, which would decide whether to adopt them.

The program pays half the construction cost of city harbor projects. Cities pay the other half plus all design and permitting costs. Haines, Juneau, Kake, Ketchikan, Kodiak, Unalaska and Wrangell have committed local matching money for fiscal 2028 projects that depend on the state's half, the draft resolution says.

The state created the program in 2006 after handing most of its harbors to local governments, the resolution says. It says the program has been fully funded only twice in 17 years. An Alaska Municipal League survey put the backlog to repair and replace former state harbors at no less than $500 million. The program got nothing this year, and Kodiak is also asking for full funding.

On May 8, Rep. Jeremy Bynum, R-Ketchikan, moved to add that year's $18.2 million harbor grant list to the capital budget. His amendment failed 6-4 in the House Finance Committee after Co-Chair Calvin Schrage objected.

The $5 million cap dates to the 2006 law, which set it so a large community could not take all the money in a given year, the second resolution says. It cites a federal inflation calculator showing $5 million in July 2006 equaled about $7.5 million by July 2023, and says construction and shipping costs in remote Alaska have outpaced inflation since the pandemic.

At a Nov. 4 joint meeting with the Assembly, Juneau officials said floating breakwaters are eligible for the grant and that a $7.5 million local share could be matched to reach $15 million toward replacing the Statter Harbor breakwater.

Port Director Carl Uchytil told the board Oct. 29 that staff applied for a fiscal 2028 grant for Statter Harbor Phase IV. The state transportation department ranked that $1.25 million request sixth of eight, and a $600,000 Juneau request for a float at the Echo Cove boat launch last.

Any state money would come after the 2027 legislative session, according to the state's call for projects.