Anchorage Daily News

From $1,500 for Mountain View's spring cleanup to $70.6 million for Fish & Game's new sport fish hatchery, the capital budget passed by state legislators this week touches just about every aspect of life in Anchorage.

Feel like a little surf and turf? There's $2 million to upgrade swimming pools and $2 million to design and install an artificial-turf football field at Service High.

How about some earth, wind and fire? There's $25,000 for landscaping at Chinook Elementary, $25 million for the Fire Island wind farm and $21.75 million to replace or renovate five fire stations.

It will be weeks before anyone knows how many of the 378 projects worth nearly $663 million allocated to Anchorage in this year's budget will remain, but it's safe to say there will be cuts. The governor indicated she'll trim the $2.3 billion capital budget, which was part of a $2.9 billion spending bill passed Sunday just before the Legislature adjourned.

"We will scour and scrutinize and cut," Gov. Sarah Palin said earlier this week.

BIG MONEY

Some of that scouring and cutting should have come from lawmakers before they passed the big spending bill, said Rep. Harry Crawford, D-Anchorage, who was on the losing side of a 33-6 House vote that approved the capital budget.

"It was just way too big," he said Wednesday.

Crawford would have preferred to save more of this year's $7.7 billion surplu -- the result of high oil prices and increased taxes. Lawmakers saved $5 billion of the windfall and spent the rest.

The line-by-line list of capital-budget projects for Anchorage fills 30 pages -- a stack of paper so thick, you can barely get a staple through it. It is filled with so many seven- and eight-figure numbers that the eyes blur at the sight of all those zeroes.

It could have been even more massive, said Rep. Kevin Meyer, R-Anchorage, co-chairman of the Finance Committee that wrote the budget.

"We said no to a lot of stuff," he said.

They also said yes to a lot of stuff.

Anchorage hit it big when it came to roads, schools and fire departments.

"I asked the city manager if I could work on commission this year," joked Jim Lamson, who as the city's capital program development manager came up with the wish-list for Anchorage roads.

Many of his wishes were granted: The Legislature wants to spend cash or bonds on 64 road projects in Anchorage costing $170 million.

Lamson said he writes the Anchorage wish list after consulting three sources: community councils to gauge neighborhood needs, maintenance workers to see which streets most need repairs, and the mayor's priority list. Then he goes to Juneau and lobbies for the money.

THE JACKPOT

An all-encompassing wish list like Lamson's is just one way to pull in the dough.

Sometimes state money appears like manna from heaven.

Pastors Jason and Beth Armstrong of the Free Methodist Church didn't ask anyone to help fund their food pantry, which provides free groceries to an average of 60 families each month.

Yet there's $5,000 allotted to them in the budget.

"It was nothing we initiated," Beth Armstrong said. "Rep. Gruenberg's office called us and said we have put together this request, and you're in it.

"It was quite a surprise, and it felt good that he would think of us and the work we are doing."

Max Gruenberg, D-Anchorage, said he and Sen. Bill Wielechowski, D-Anchorage, teamed up to request $5,000 apiece for food pantries run by Free Methodist Church and the Latino Lions Club, both of which operate in their northeast Anchorage district.

"They're the only two food banks in our neighborhood," Gruenberg said.

And though $5,000 is a sliver of Anchorage's total haul, it's like hitting the jackpot for the Armstrongs. The money will go far at the Food Bank of Alaska, where pantries can buy non-perishables for 18 cents a pound.

"That translates to over 25,000 pounds of food," Beth Armstrong said. "That's essentially a two-year supply of food for us. That's hundreds of lives impacted every month."

WINNERS AND LOSERS

More than 140 projects are slated to benefit the Anchorage School District at a cost of about $13 million to the state, but some schools did measurably better than others.

Service High in South Anchorage got $2.2 million -- everything on its project wish list except for an $800,000 sprinkler upgrade. Hanshew Middle School, also in South Anchorage, got $285,000.

Elsewhere, Chugiak's Mirror Lake Middle School was overlooked entirely and East Anchorage's Bartlett High School asked for $2.7 million but only got $40,000.

Both Hanshew and Service are in Meyer's district. Meyer oversees the writing of the capital budget, but he said he can't go overboard with gifts to South Anchorage: "If it's all going to my district, I don't get support for the budget, and then it doesn't pass, and then we don't adjourn, and then we have problems."

School superintendent Carol Comeau said capital-budget appropriations sometimes feel like a free-for-all. Parents and school groups approach legislators, and legislators approach schools in their neighborhoods.

This year, Comeau said, the school district took charge. Most requests went through Comeau and a special committee.

Still, about two dozen schools got nothing at all.

"We are grateful for what we get," Comeau said, "but it does create disparity."

A NEW GUSHER?

The spending package could mean a lot of Anchorage jobs. Lamson said the road appropriations could support 2,000 jobs over the next three years as the money is spent.

But Scott Goldsmith, a University of Alaska Anchorage economist, said the cash influx won't be like the spending spree that marked Alaska's early 1980s gusher of oil money.

"The general expectation then was the party would go on forever," Goldsmith said, "whereas today the expectation is this is kind of a windfall, a one-time deal. So that should temper any exuberance."

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Find Beth Bragg online at adn.com/contact/bbragg or call 257-4309. Find Megan Holland online at adn.com/contact/mholland or call 257-4343.

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10 biggest capital allotments

$70.6 million -- Sport fish hatchery upgrade, improvements and construction

$46 million -- UAA Health Sciences building

$25.6 million -- Airport, south terminal seismic and retrofit

$25 million -- Fire Island wind farm

$25 million -- Port of Anchorage expansion

$22.1 million -- Dowling Road/Old Seward/Minnesota connections

$20 million -- Seward Highway, Windy Corner safety improvements

$19.5 million -- McLaughlin Youth Center renovation

$18 million -- Airport, taxiway and runway improvements

10 smallest capital allotments

$1,500 -- King Career Center new signage for shop areas

$1,500 -- Mountain View Community Council spring cleanup

$2,000 -- Fire station No. 7, Wi-Fi equipment

$2,500 -- Mountain View community patrol

$2,500 -- Russian Jack community patrol

$2,500 -- Northeast community patrol

$2,500 -- Nunaka Valley community patrol

$2,500 -- West High library equipment and furniture

$2,500 -- Klatt Elementary, installation of existing video equipment

$3,000 -- Fire station No. 15, Wi-Fi equipment

A tale of two high schools

The lists below show funding items requested by Service and Bartlett High Schools. The items they received in the state's new capital budget are in bold.

SERVICE HIGH SCHOOL

Requested:

Sprinkler upgrade: $800,000

Repair bleachers: $125,000

Install artificial turf field: $2 million

New computers: $61,000

Winter sports equipment: $7,000

What Service also got:

Science equipment, instructional aids and supplies: $20,000

Vo-tech building and trade supplies: $20,000

BARTLETT HIGH SCHOOL

Requested:

Hydronic circulation pump and controls: $250,000

Motor control center: $200,000

Electrical generator load bank: $250,000

Lighting upgrade in gym: $60,000

HVAC/duct cleaning: $125,000

Artificial turf field: $1.75 million

New score board for football field: $50,000

New bleachers for football field: $30,000

New press box for football field: $30,000

Smart boards for classrooms: $40,000

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