By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
Assembly members will face a few final “decision points” Thursday night when they review the latest draft of the city’s 2020-21 general fund budget.
The decision points include the question of offering signing bonuses to new police officers and whether to hire a lobbyist for the city.
The special meeting starts at 6 p.m. at Harrigan Centennial Hall and is open to the public.
City Controller Melissa Haley said the general direction from interim administrator Hugh Bevan was to keep services at their present level. Thursday’s meeting will be the first since former Coast Guard officer John Leach has taken over as administrator.
The Assembly has already acted on a number of decision points at previous special meetings. Among the changes from the FY20 budget were:
– increasing the salary for the library director.
– creating an assistant controller position in the finance department, part of a succession plan in the department.
– keeping community affairs director as a position in the city organizational chart, although there was no consensus on whether the duties would be directing community affairs, being a lobbyist or a grant writer.
– eliminating an engineering position in the public works department with the retirement of one of the engineers.
– taking $185,000 from the general fund to cover payments on a USDA loan for upgrading the Green Lake hydro.
– increasing local support to schools to $7,618,993, a 4.6 percent increase from last year.
“We’ve had previous discussions (on the changes) but we’re making sure they’re front and center to make sure everyone is good with them,” Haley said.
A special meeting on internal service and enterprise funds will be held 6 p.m. March 19.
The Assembly started budget discussions earlier than usual this year, making decisions on school support and on enterprise funds, including capital projects and rate increases to keep services at “status quo.” Bevan submitted his budget before stepping down as interim administrator on Saturday. He wrote a four-page introduction to the budget, with comments about the past year, capital projects, “action plans” and looking into the future.
“The key challenge facing the City and Borough of Sitka continues to be the alignment of governmental services provided by the municipality to its citizens with sustainable revenue streams to not only pay for the operating costs of services, but also to provide for replacement of the infrastructure necessary to provide those services,” he said. “Our municipal government continues to provide a comprehensive and complex array of services to our citizens through the collective efforts of our elected Assembly and our dedicated municipal employees.
“The financial condition of the City and Borough of Sitka remains stable with a substantial level of combined reserve working capital. We will continue to provide the best possible service to Sitkans while carefully managing the resources they give us to do the job.”
The budget is available on the city web site.
