The ferry Malaspina sails out of Juneau’s Auke Bay terminal in 2012. It’s one ship in a shrinking, aging marine highway fleet. A new bill would turn over management to a public corporation. (Ed Schoenfeld/CoastAlaska News)

Legislation changing the way the Alaska Marine Highway System is run was introduced Friday.

House Bill 412 calls for ferry management and operations to be transferred to a publicly owned corporation. Ships and terminals would remain state property.

Southeast Conference Executive Director Robert Venables worked with legislative staff writing the bill. He said it would take control of the ferry system away from politicians and political appointees.

“It provides an executive board that has deep maritime and business expertise into a model of governance that brings labor and management together working towards common causes and common goals of delivering the best predictable service to the state and the traveling public,” he said.

Southeast Conference pushed for development of the marine highway in the 1950s. It’s continued its strong involvement in the system since then.

The state-funded ferry system has reduced its fleet and sailings over several years due to budget cuts. The age of the fleet also means frequent interruptions in the schedule.

The state Department of Transportation and the Southeast Conference agreed to begin working on the idea about two years ago.

The legislation is based on studies done for what’s called the Alaska Marine Highway Reform Project. Its research includes a review of other ferry systems. It also gathered information from community leaders, passengers and businesses that use the ferries.

“We’ve been talking a lot of concepts lately and this is an opportunity now to have and to hold the actual statutory language that would create the public corporation,” Venables said.

The bill has been assigned to the House Transportation Committee. Co-chairwoman Louise Stutes’ office led the effort to write the measure. She was not immediately available for comment.

No action is expected this year, so the bill will have to be reintroduced for the next legislative session. But backers expect field hearings before then.

The post New bill would change ferry system management appeared first on KRBD.

Crew members tie up the fast ferry Fairweather in Sitka. It and other marine highway ships will sail less in the next budget year. (Ed Schoenfeld/CoastAlaska News)

This week’s legislative budget compromise shuffled the source of some of the money that pays for the Alaska Marine Highway System.

But it doesn’t increase — or decrease — the number of routes or sailings.

Ferry spokesman Jeremy Woodrow says the system will stick with its existing summer schedule, as well as a draft version for fall and winter.

“So the marine highway system’s budget, if it were signed today, doesn’t change a whole lot. So the proposed schedule that’s out there for review and comments, that will still move forward as is, as will any other future plans the marine highway system [has] for 2017,” he said.

The funding shuffle uses more money from the state’s general fund, which pays for the majority of the operating budget.

Before the compromise, the ferry budget took more money from another fund. Woodrow says that’s used as a backup in case of emergencies.

“It’s important to have that buffer there for other items that come up throughout the year. When there’s deferred maintenance costs that are unexpected on vessels, it’s good to be able to dip into that system fund,” he said.

Without that money, the system would have to lay up a broken ship or ask lawmakers for additional money.

Ferry officials say the budget, for the fiscal year beginning in July, will result in a 7 percent reduction in sailings. That’s in addition to cuts the year before.

A public hearing on the fall and winter schedule will be June 22.

The post Ferry budget changes, but schedule doesn’t appeared first on KRBD.