Skagway clinic projects $394,000 overrun tied to a doctor's contract

Skagway's Dahl Memorial Clinic projected in August that it would overspend its 2026 budget by about $394,000, a figure its board included in an Oct. 29 update to the Assembly. That assumes every pending grant comes through.

One doctor's contract hit the budget for more than the whole gap.

The clinic hired the doctor Oct. 1, 2025, then decided in late December not to extend the contract but paid it through April 30, Executive Director Albert Wall wrote in an August memo attached to the update. He put the budget impact at about $480,000, including $202,500 for traveling doctors to fill in, $120,000 in lost clinic revenue and $114,625 in salaries.

Wall told the Assembly's Finance Committee in August that within about a month the doctor wasn't closing patient charts, so the clinic couldn't bill for those visits. After consulting the borough attorney, the clinic paid out the contract, which meant paying two providers for six months.

Wall said he didn't expect the clinic to end up that far over, "but I do think there is a likelihood we will be over budget." The rest of the budget was on track, he said, helped by a fee increase in February and a higher Medicaid rate.

Grants could change the picture. The budget counted on $1.375 million in grants, and two of them, worth $750,000, weren't awarded. Others were still pending in August. "If none of that money comes through, then we're in a hole $1.375 million," Wall said.

It isn't the first overrun. Wall wrote in April that the clinic overspent its 2025 budget by more than $1.3 million.

On Thursday, the Assembly introduces a draft budget that would more than double the clinic's sales tax subsidy, to $4.3 million. It also holds a hearing on a resolution stating the borough's intent to shift Skagway's health care to the clinic's nonprofit.