Daily Sitka Sentinel

City’s 2024 Budgets On Agenda Tonight

By SHANNON HAUGLAND

Sentinel Staff Writer

The Assembly at its meeting tonight will take up for final reading ordinances on the fiscal year 2024 general fund and enterprise fund budgets.

Approval of leases for space at the Marine Service Center on Katlian Street and appointment of an Assembly liaison to the Baranof Elementary School renaming committee also are on the agenda.

The meeting starts at 6 p.m. at Harrigan Centennial Hall.

Ordinances amending the FY2023 budgets; providing additional funds needed for the Mud Bay repeater; and for purchase of a dump truck also will be taken up, as well as a resolution to apply for grant funding for the Wachusetts Storm Sewer Rehabilitation project. 

Busking

One of the items on the agenda is first reading of an ordinance to allow entertainers other than musicians to get a permit to perform and solicit donations. Currently the code says that musicians may get a $10 permit to perform in designated areas.

Thor Christianson and Kevin Mosher sponsored an ordinance to change “musicians” to “persons, including juveniles, entertaining the public, by speaking, acting, dancing, singing, playing a musical instrument, or other performance.” 

Budget Ordinances

The Assembly passed the two FY24 budget ordinances on first reading at their last meeting. The first ordinance covers the general fund, special revenue funds, and internal service funds. The second 

The second is for enterprise fund budgets. The enterprise fund budgets supported by user fees include water, wastewater, electricity, solid waste and harbor moorage. Rate increases in the budget are 3% for electricity; 6% for water; 8.5% for wastewater; 6.75% for solid waste, and 7.3% for moorage. Other enterprise funds are for the Gary Paxton Industrial Park, airport terminal and Marine Service Center.  

The budget cites the effect of 5% inflation on operating costs as among the reasons for the rate hikes.

City staff said the overall takeaway from Assembly budget work sessions were to continue taking an “optimistic but cautious approach” on the general fund budget. On the revenue side, sales tax revenue is projected to grow by 3 percent, reflecting “conservative increases from the level of growth seen during last season’s tourism season.”

The expense side reflects growth as well. “Both inflation, increased tourism, and maintaining momentum on improvements in municipal operations continue to impact the expenditure-side of the budget, resulting in an increase of 14% from spending anticipated through the end of the current year,” the budget memo says.

City Administrator John Leach said in his budget letter that the economy remains volatile since the pandemic, with inflation “stubbornly high.”

“This puts pressure on the CBS across the board but has an out-sized impact on the cost of capital projects,” he said in the letter. “While there are more opportunities for federal funding, those are offset by unfunded mandates. Filling positions within the CBS continues to be a challenge and could potentially limit the capacity of the municipality to obtain and implement grant funding.”

A fiscal note included in the FY24 staff budget memo says among the projects this year are to replace utilities in a section of Lake Street, repairing the lift station at Lake and Lincoln Street, and an effluent disinfection system for the wastewater treatment plant in accordance with a new regulation. The city proposes using DEC loan funding for the projects.

The Assembly at tonight’s meeting will also consider Health Needs and Human Services Commission goals, and an appointment to the Sitka Library Commission.