Haines Borough officials received an unexpected invoice last month for almost $3 million of work on the Lutak Dock renovation project — work that may not be covered by a federal grant for the project. That means the borough could be left to foot the bill.

Tomorrow, assembly members will discuss what to do about the invoice, which hasn’t been reported until now. A meeting is scheduled for Wednesday at 5:30 pm. 

The unanticipated bill marks the latest wrinkle in a $25 million dock project that has been mired in miscommunication and debate for months. Some residents want to fully restore the large, aging dock that serves as the borough’s main cargo shipping point; others, worried that a big dock could be used by mining companies to ship ore, want to downsize it. 

The contractor overseeing the project, Turnagain Marine Construction, sent borough manager Annette Kreitzer the invoice in April. It lists design, permitting, and project management among several line items. 

Kreitzer said a federal grant administrator told her the borough likely would not be able to use a $20 million federal grant awarded to the borough for the project. That’s because these costs allegedly weren’t pre-authorized by the agency overseeing the grant, the Maritime Administration of the U.S. Department of Transportation, known as MARAD.

Mayor Tom Morphet told KHNS that borough officials will “need a lot of examination of how this happened.” 

Turnagain president Jason Davis wrote in a letter to Kreitzer on April 8 requesting “prompt payment” regardless of whether the federal government will compensate for it. Turnagain did not return a call for comment by press time.

If the borough can’t draw from federal funds to pay the bill, the assembly may have to dip into the roughly $5 million that the borough and state allocated to match the federal grant, Morphet said. 

The bill came just months after Turnagain spent $10 million on steel that wasn’t approved — and wouldn’t be reimbursed — by MARAD. The contractor indicated earlier this year it would sell the steel to recoup the cost.