Sometimes the work granted out is decided by the ties of the contracting company and a political party. Not only corruption, but "efficiency" is not the primary goal.

A few years ago, the Alberta government contracted out all the laundry services for hospitals across the province. Reasonably paid union workers were replaced by minimum wage workers. Tax payers supposedly saved lots of money, the CEOs of these private companies had CEO salaries doing the same kind of work a senior civil servent would do for $400,000 a year. It's only a coincidence that the owners of these companies were long-serving members of the governing party.

I can't say what your situation is in Alaska. But I would not be surprised that some infrastructure money is tied to partisan interests.

Are you interested in hearing about my new system of democracy yet?