Budget Cuts For Alaska Military Construction Projects

Anchorage, Alaska — The Alaska Army Corps of Engineers is facing drastic budget cuts to its military construction program for the next fiscal year. Commander of the Alaska district, Col. Reinhard Koenig, says the corps was planning on $500 million worth of projects for fiscal year 2013, but that number was cut to $18 million, to fund two projects. It's a big hit compared to the current fiscal year that budgets about $345 million for nine military construction projects in Alaska.

"We had expected some pretty big programs out of that. A lot of those we don't see in the program right now and quite frankly, some of them, about 100 or 150 million of it was shifted to a FY 2014 program," says Col. Koenig.

John MacKinnon, executive director of the Associated General Contractors of Alaska, says the cuts were not unexpected, but they will be felt by those in Alaska's construction industry.

"It will affect the tradesman, the trades-people that are out there doing the work. The companies will still have some work, but they'll have to cut back on employees to adequately handle the work they have," says MacKinnon.

The budget for FY 2013 still waits on approval from congress.