DOT asks Legislature to restore roughly $5 million for maintenance, cites fleet, staffing and winter-response gaps

The Alaska Department of Transportation asked the Senate Finance Subcommittee on Transportation to restore roughly $5 million to maintenance and operations and pressed lawmakers for additional funding to repair guardrails and maintain roadside waysides.

“For those to be restored in the budget,” Dom Pinone, the department’s director of program management and administration, said of the prior-year cuts, adding the department did not realize the surplus that had been anticipated. Pinone also presented a new $1,700,000 motor-fuel-tax-funded component to address a statewide backlog of damaged guardrails, saying, “When our guardrails are damaged, they themselves become a safety risk to the traveling public.”

Committee members pressed DOT on how the proposed wayside maintenance appropriation would be spent; the department said the funding would support vegetation clearing, refuse management and sanitary services to lengthen the months waysides remain open. Northern Region maintenance chief Jason Sakalaskos said the department will assume maintenance of some waysides previously managed by the Bureau of Land Management after a public land order change along the Dalton Highway.

Senators and DOT officials also focused on workforce and fleet capacity. DOT showed statewide vacancy rates were roughly steady year over year but warned of isolated pockets of severe staffing shortages (for example, Cordova was reported with one of five maintenance positions filled). Sakalaskos explained that, in many remote cases, the department is flying in staff and covering lodging and airfare to backfill stations temporarily because those locations lack available local hires.

State Equipment Fleet manager Brad Bialsmaa described persistent mechanic shortages and outlined a request for additional operating funding to contract mechanic support when vacancies leave stations with no in‑house coverage. “When we're short a mechanic in a station that only has one mechanic, then we have no presence there,” Bialsmaa said, calling the contracted-mechanic tool an important supplement to hiring and training efforts, including CDL training the fleet funds for new hires.

The department acknowledged rising use of winter maintenance contractors since 2023 as regions faced extreme weather and staffing pressures. DOT officials said contractor use targets priority 3 and 4 routes and severe events, but that contractors typically do not include sanding/brine services in those agreements, which can limit responses during large temperature swings.

Senator Bjorkman recounted a cluster of accidents on the Kenai Spur Highway and asked why an additional contract had not been in place for that known trouble spot. DOT and Central Region manager Burnell Nickerson said day‑to‑day icing is typically addressed by station staff, contractors are used for large events, and local station knowledge plus traveler alerts (511) are part of their mitigation strategy. Nickerson said spring thaw and seepage have amplified icing events this year and that contractor contracts are limited in scope.

DOT officials said they would provide follow-up information requested by the committee, including residency counts for DOT employees (separating Marine Highway staff), the equipment replacement schedule, and more precise estimates of expected federal reimbursements tied to recent disaster response efforts. The subcommittee did not take a formal vote on the budget request; DOT’s requests will be incorporated into the committee’s ongoing budget review process.

The subcommittee adjourned at 08:33. DOT will return to provide follow-up data and schedule details requested by senators.