During a press conference held on Tuesday, Alaska officials provided an update on where the state stands with regards to dolling out relief funds and loans. An update was also provided about how the updated travel policy is working in-airports, whereby nonresident travelers must now pay for a test upon arrival to the state if they cannot provide proof of a test within 72 hours of departure.
Alan Weitzner of the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority offered details about grants: “In total, with the dedicated staff from Commerce, AIDEA, and the Juneau Economic Development Council, we should match the number that are working with Credit Union 1 for the original applications. For small businesses that have applied for grants through Credit Union 1, significant improvements in processing those grant applications have occurred over the last two weeks. The Department of Commerce has issued some additional guidelines with Credit Union 1. We’ve been working with them steadfastly to find ways to find a process with input and direction from Credit Union 1 on that. That’s been very helpful.”
Weitzner pointed out how much Credit Union 1 has distributed thus far: “Credit Union 1, through their processes, have distributed $22.6 million to Alaskan businesses. There’s another $10.3 million awaiting the accounts being opened to be distributed to those businesses. So, in total, about $33 million will be going – at this stage – to those parties. We’re looking at, with the increased and enhanced guidelines, quickening processes as well as the processing with the new portal, that significantly more capital will be getting to the businesses in-need within Alaska.”
Heidi Hedberg of the Department of Health and Human Services discussed how the updated travel policy is going thus far: “When it comes to compliance, what we have seen since we launched this new travel mandate on June 6, was that people are compliant. The folks that are not, it’s really about the education and telling them why we have this travel declaration, what the requirements are, and how we’re trying to protect them and trying to protect Alaskans. We are offering the third option of the $250 [cost for nonresidents to test for COVID-19 in the airport], so it’s really to offset what the costs are. We continue to look at our numbers. Thankfully, because of the Alaska travel portal, we are able to have real-time tracking of every person that comes in, the option they’re selecting. So, if we see that this is working, we’ll continue to do it and we’ll just evaluate as we go through.”
