State transportation officials say they’re planning to charter private ferries this month to fill some of the gaps in ferry service in Southeast Alaska.

The Alaska Marine Highway System’s regional service has been shut down since January, following the breakdown of the Matanuska ferry.

The Department of Transportation put out a request for information last week giving potential operators about 24 hours to express interest in filling in this month.

Deputy Commissioner Mary Siroky said Monday that the agency received several responses. She told lawmakers on the House Finance Committee that there’s the potential to move both people and freight between Juneau, Haines and Skagway soon.

“We recognize that if we can move palletized freight, we would need to give those communities some amount of time so that they could get freight where it needs to be,” she said. “We’re hoping, by the end of this week, have a good idea of how we might be able to fill in for some service that we recognize people need.”

The public notice specifically sought services to the villages of Angoon, Hoonah and Kake. Residents in those three communities have reported shortages of food and other goods during the ferry shutdown.

The ferry Tazlina is slated to return to service early next month restoring connections to much of the upper panhandle. There are also plans for special runs to Cordova to accommodate the commercial fishing season. 

The state hasn’t announced plans to restore service to other communities left off the winter schedule. Those include Prince William Sound ports as well as the island communities of Tenakee Springs and Pelican.

Under a draft schedule, they might not see a state ferry until the end of the year. 

Sen. Bert Stedman is unhappy with recent remarks by a state transportation official that the Legislature is to blame for the ongoing funding crisis in the Alaska Marine Highway System. Stedman on Thursday (1-16-20) fired off a news release with a short history lesson on how the ferries were nearly zeroed out last year.

The Sitka Republican thinks Mary Siroky, Deputy Commissioner of the state Department of Transportation, was off the mark during a January 15 meeting of the Marine Transportation Advisory Board in Anchorage when she suggested that last year’s deep cuts to the Marine Highway were a policy decision by the legislature.

In a phone interview with CoastAlaska News earlier in December, she said much the same thing.

“I think it’s important for people to recognize that the legislature made a big policy statement when they reduced the Alaska Marine Highway System’s budget by $43 million dollars,” Siroky told CoastAlaska’s Jacob Resneck.

Stedman co-chairs the Senate Finance Committee. The Senate Majority press office fired off a terse news release on January 16 with a reminder that the administration’s original budget proposal last year would have ended all funding for the Marine Highway on September 30, 2019 — effectively closing down the system. That didn’t happen, Stedman argues, because senate negotiators were able to restore $77 million in marine highway operating and capital funds that the governor had proposed diverting elsewhere.

In an interview with KCAW a day before the meeting of the Marine Transportation Advisory Board, Stedman suggested that the legislature was trying to preserve a minimum level of ferry service, rather than see it disappear altogether.

“We, in last year’s budget, had a reduced funding level for the Marine Highway,” Stedman said. “And the goal was to insure that there was Marine Highway service to the landlocked communities — communities with no road service. We have Cordova now, with no Marine Highway service. And Cordova’s landlocked any way you look at it, there’s no road to it. We have problems along the corridor of Chatham Strait. Angoon is an example, trying to get lunch stuff for their kids at school. And then there’s the travel issues, too.”

The “travel issues” Stedman refers to are the inability of people to travel in and out of communities like Angoon — which has no airport — for medical appointments, shopping, and school competition.

The quick response to Deputy Commissioner Siroky’s remarks about the ferries might signal that Stedman feels the legislature is in a stronger position to negotiate this year. The governor is facing a possible recall, and in Southeast Alaska that effort has been fueled by cuts to the Marine Highway.

Nevertheless, Stedman says he’s committed to working with his legislative colleagues to keeping the ferries in business.

“We’ve got the financial ability to operate the Marine Highway at a larger funding level than it was funded in last year’s budget,” said Stedman. “What we don’t have is the votes. And when you don’t have the votes, you’d better compromise.”

Governor Mike Dunleavy’s proposed ferry budget would be a slight increase in spending on the Alaska Marine Highway System. But senior state transportation officials warn that long gaps will be the new normal.

“AMHS will provide significantly less services, leaving many communities without service for up to six months,” reads page 6 of the governor’s transportation operating budget released earlier this month.

The $49.9 million appropriation would be slightly more than the previous year. But there will be long lulls between ships.

“Communities will have service gaps. There’s no doubt about that,” Department of Transportation Deputy Commissioner Mary Siroky told CoastAlaska. “But I don’t know if a service gap is going to be six months, five months, four months; we don’t have that figured out.”

That’s been the reality for coastal communities on Prince William Sound and smaller Southeast town like Angoon.

Angoon Mayor Joshua Bowen says the city recently hired a private boat to take residents to Juneau for groceries and other supplies. Its 450 residents hadn’t seen a ferry for more than a month.

“We spent $13,100 chartering those two catamarans,” he said.

Some 47 passengers shelled out $75 for a one-way ticket — more than they would’ve for a state ferry — but, that didn’t cover the cost of the charter.

The city lost about $8,000 on the venture. It won’t be repeated any time soon. Bowen says the private sector can’t fill the gaps left by the state ferry service.

“I don’t see it working without some sort of subsidy,” Bowen said. “For the smaller towns that just don’t have the numbers.”

The ferry Tazlina was able to make a couple recent runs to Angoon. But only after the state brought heavy equipment to operate Angoon’s broken ramp.

Normally this isn’t necessary. The ferries LeConte and Aurora are designed to handle these small docks without assistance. But in a cost-cutting move, the state laid up the Aurora rather than fix it. And the LeConte is out for repairs until May.

Siroky says budget realities mean fewer ferries are the new normal. 

“There is no way that the marine highway system will be able to provide the kind of service they did the year before this,” she said.

Last year, Dunleavy’s austere budget proposal would have shut down the ferries in October. That didn’t happen.

Instead, he reached a deal with lawmakers who slashed ferry funding by $43 million. Legislators later tried to add $5 million back to the ferry budget — Dunleavy vetoed it.

But that initial threat to end ferry service and the compromise budget that’s led to less service has been widely unpopular in coastal communities. 

Now the governor’s facing a recall campaign. He’s changed his chief-of-staff, budget director and he’s also changed his tack.

Reporters at the Governor’s Mansion holiday party in Juneau asked about the state of the ferries. He said that help could be on the way. 

“We’re looking at the possibility of getting some help there with $20 million dollars out of the LNBA,” the governor said.

The Legislative Budget and Audit Committee reviews budget requests from the executive outside of the normal budget process.

“We’re looking at coming up with some solutions, long-term solutions for the marine highway system,” Dunleavy added. “We know it’s important to the people of Alaska, especially on the coast that use it.”

The Dunleavy administration commissioned a $250,000 private consultant study to remake the Alaska Marine Highway System. It was delivered in October. But the state has pushed back its public release until January.

DOT Deputy Commissioner Mary Siroky couldn’t confirm the governor’s numbers. She says she understands her agency is asking for something closer to $5 million.

“The department is working on a supplemental budget request that I don’t know where that $20 million number came from,” she said.

Meanwhile, Angoon is doing what it can to keep goods and people moving. Bowen says a city-owned excavator is being repaired. The hope is that it can operate the ramp without the state’s help so the Tazlina ferry will be able to return next month.

“We’re not just sitting here feeling sorry for ourselves,” the mayor said. “We’re trying to figure out ways that we can help the state help us. And we understand that it’s, you know, it’s an expensive thing. And, and we’re just trying to do our part to keep the ferries rolling.”

But fewer and fewer ferries are rolling.

The Tazlina is being pulled out of service on January 19 for modifications so it can sail with a smaller crew. That’ll leave just two ferries: the Lituya running between Ketchikan and Metlakatla. And the mainliner Matanuska crisscrossing Southeast.

But that larger ferry can’t get into to coastal towns with small docks: communities like Angoon, Tenakee Springs and Pelican.

Those towns will likely go without service until at least May.