Superior Court Judge stops halt on small business aid

ANCHORAGE — Alaska Superior Court Judge Philip Pallenberg issued an order on Friday that will not pause the $290 million in pandemic aid for small businesses. Several Valley businesses appeared on the list of 1,600 Alaska businesses that received aid through the Paycheck Protection Program. Several Federal aid programs are disbursing funds to Alaskans and Alaskan businesses to the tune of nearly four million dollars.

“I think one of the bigger question is what’s going to happen when it’s all over with, which is hard to answer but for example the 600 extra dollars a week is supposed to end at the end of July. Now, congress may do something and that may not be the case but at this point it is the case and the impacts of PPP and the others will eventually peter out, but then there may be something else coming along and whether the economy is going to sort of kick in enough to start picking other things up so the two kind of dovetail together, I mean of course that’s a question we can’t answer,” said economist Neal Fried.

Pallenberg’s order stops the hold on $290 million that is set to distribute to Alaskan small businesses. Matanuska Telephone Association was the largest recipient of PPP loans in the Valley, listed in the range between $5-10 million and retaining 267 jobs. Alaska Directional, New Horizons Telecom Inc., and Tikigaq Corporation all received PPP loans between $2 and $5 million. Tikigaq Corporation listed 341 jobs retained.

“There’s been $1.3 billion or just about that that has flowed to Alaska businesses so you know obviously that’s been substantial in terms of the amount of money,” said Mouchine Guettabie with the Institute of Social and Economic Research. “If you divide that 1.3 bil by overall Alaska wages, you find that obviously the number of jobs that have been lost although substantial, would’ve been a lot bigger had it not been for PPP.”

Capstone Family Physicians LLC, Mat-Su Health Services, Mat-Su Services for Children and Adults and Wolverine Supply all received PPP loans between $1-2 million.

“One of the issues is that a lot of the aid, the original aid is essentially running out and so getting this $290 million in the hands of businesses is obviously immensely important and is going to make a difference potentially between being able to survive or build a bridge to the other side of the crisis or being able to shudder the doors permanently,” said Guettabi. “From my perspective I think that I would prefer the state to do too much than too little right now because the shock is just too large and so obviously they need to be careful. They need to make sure they stay within the bounds of the law but the shock to the economic system, to business balance sheets, to the likelihood of businesses surviving is just massive. It seems like the decision today essentially is going to allow the program to move forward and at least start allocating some of those dollars so I think that the quicker money gets in the hands of businesses the better. There is no doubt that time right now is incredibly expensive. There are businesses that have been running on fumes.”

Guettabi is an associate professor of economics at the University of Alaska Anchorage and noted that over 40,000 Alaskans are currently receiving unemployment insurance. Valley Businesses receiving between $350,000 and $1 million include 5150 Global Solutions, A Perfect Fit, Adams Inc., Airframes Alaska, Alaska Aggregate Products, Alaska Family Services, Alaska Line Builders, Alaska Roteq Corporation, the Alaska State Fair, Alaska Thermal Fabrications and Alaska Auto Incorporated.

“The economic shock is nothing like we’ve seen before,” said Guettabi. “We had the recession for three years from ‘15 to ‘18 and we only lost 11,000 jobs. In the span of three months there’s been more than 100,000 people that have filed for unemployment insurance and there are 40 or 43,000 that are currently unemployed so we’re dealing with something we’ve never seen before.”