The Alaska State Legislature passed the one of the smallest capital budgets in recent years before closing the session on Sunday. Unalaska secured more than $7 million, but some other communities in the region came up empty-handed.

Unalaska's water and wastewater treatment projects each received a little over $3 million, and in a last-minute addition to the House version of the budget, the city also secured $1 million to purchase a fourth engine for the powerhouse. City manager Chris Hladick says that’s not as much as the city had hoped.

“Our original request was $5 million, but the total cost of the project is $7 million. So that leaves us with about $6 million we’ve got to figure out how to finance," Hladick says.

The city has to purchase the fourth engine by June 15 in order to avoid stricter air pollution standards that go into effect later this year. Hladick says it’s not clear where the rest of the money will come from for the project.

Unalaskans Against Sexual Assault and Family violence also received funding from the state -- $25,000 for replacement of the siding on their shelter. But a request from the Iliuliuk Clinic for $180,000 for an expansion of the radiology suite and a CT scanner didn’t make it into the final bill. Clinic director Eileen Conlon Scott says the new equipment could have saved the state money in the long-run.

“The state alone, with just Medicaid patients, we estimated it would save close to half a million dollars a year, being able to do the CT scan, to rule out some conditions [so] we wouldn’t have to medevac that patient."

Scott says the clinic board of directors will have to decide how to proceed without state funding at their next meeting.

Other communities in the region didn’t fare as well as Unalaska, although King Cove received $2.6 million for a hydroelectric project. City manager Gary Hennigh says the money will be used to expand the city’s existing hydro system, adding another megawatt of generating capacity.

“It’s a pretty basic premise that if you can get Mother Nature to do a lot of your producing of energy you’re going to be a lot better off for financial and environmental reasons. So that’s what we continue to do.”

The money from the state will cover only part of the $4.5 million project. The city will have to take out loans to cover the rest, but Hennigh says the debt service is made up for in fuel savings. He says with the funding from the state, the project can be operational by 2016.

Adak received $30,000 from the state for new streetlights, and $6.4 million in funding from the federal government for runway improvement. Cold Bay also received federal funding for improvements at its airport, totaling about $3 million. Akutan and Cold Bay got $2 million of federal money for harbor improvements.

This year’s total capital budget was $2.2 billion, with roughly a billion dollars coming from the federal government. The bill now passes to the governor for his review.

You can view the full budget by House District here.