The old Southeast region of Alaska's Department of Transportation and Public Facilities is expanding into a new "Southcoast" region. Basically, most of Prince William Sound is moving to the new region out of the Northern region, while Central (which will still include the Anchorage area and most of the Kenai Peninsula, as well as much of southwestern Alaska) loses the Aleutians to the new region. Alaska DOT&PF says this is being done in part to better balance the workload among its three divisions, and also due to similar interests among the new region's communities (which will include most of the ports of call on the state ferry system).
See http://www.dot.alaska.gov/comm/documents/SouthCoastFactSheet_DEC14.pdf (includes a map of the redefined regions).
The original configuration of Southcoast Region with respect to the road system added Cordova to our jurisdiction (along with Kodiak, Nondalton/Iliamna, King Salmon/Naknek, and the Alaska Peninsula/Aleutian Islands).
Shortly thereafter, Valdez and Thompson Pass were added as these two sites and Cordova constitute a single maintenance district. It didn't make sense to split them up between us and Northern.
When the new administration took office earlier this year, Cordova and Valdez/Thompson Pass were returned to Northern Region management. Valdez is the southern terminus of the Richardson Highway. It was deemed more efficient to have all of the Rich serviced by one region instead of all but the final ~40 miles. Cordova was returned so as to retain the single maintenance district.
All marine design is already done out of this region so the regional boundary change had little impact in that respect.