Haines Borough interim manager Julie Cozzi released her draft $12 million budget for the upcoming fiscal year Tuesday, which includes a proposal to add more offices onto the borough administration building and creation of a community and economic development director position.
The community and economic development director would replace the executive assistant to the manager position, currently held by Darsie Culbeck.
Culbeck approached the assembly in January asking for a change in job title and responsibilities, including an increased supervisory role over the pool, community youth development and parks and recreation departments.
According to Cozzi, Culbeck wouldn’t automatically be given the job, though he is “encouraged to apply.”
Funding for the position will come from a combination of part of the executive assistant to the manager wages and funds that previously went to the borough’s Washington, D.C., lobbyist, which Cozzi is proposing to discontinue this year.
“This restructuring has resulted in no increase to the budget,” Cozzi said.
According to the draft budget, the annual salary for the new position would be $62,000.
Mayor Stephanie Scott said she isn’t sure whether creating the new position is how the community wants to address the need to spur economic development. “We will discuss it. I think that the community agrees that economic development is the lifeblood of the community and we have a responsibility to take action.”
Other significant personnel changes include combining the deputy clerk and public facilities clerk positions into one job, changing the assistant assessor position to assessor, increasing the administrative assistant position in the lands department from 30 to 40 hours per week, and eliminating the part-time seasonal parks laborer for public works.
Cozzi also suggested adding three offices, a new records room and a new, larger, ADA-compliant assembly chambers onto the administration building. “This ‘government campus’ would provide a very accessible, efficient place for the public to interact with its government,” she said.
The cost of the addition doesn’t appear in the budget, but Cozzi said she would begin with a design if the assembly is amenable to the idea.
Scott said she doesn’t see the addition “as something we can do at this time.”
“I don’t think that the borough should invest in any new buildings unless it can be demonstrated that there is a savings or some kind of value to the community that is apparent, and I don’t see that,” she said.
The draft budget also includes $27,000 in revenue from an impending phone tax, which would tack on a monthly fee to local phone bills. The tax will need to be approved by ordinance, though the ordinance has not yet come before the assembly.
The budget proposes no increase to the townsite service area mill rate and a lower areawide mill rate across the board, except for the Historic Dalton Trail Road Maintenance Service Area, which submitted a snow removal budget that results in higher mill rates for that area.
Regarding funding of nonprofits, Cozzi used the same method former manager Mark Earnest implemented last year, setting aside $32,500 in a “community chest” to be divided among qualifying nonprofits at a later date.
Cozzi also took a page out of Earnest’s book regarding the swimming pool. “It looks like we will come in under the projected fiscal year 2014 revenue,” Cozzi said of the pool. “It is recommended the pool stay open during the summer months with a similar schedule to last summer, and we may want to consider raising the fees.”
Cozzi also decided to take $259,000 of permanent fund revenue – the maximum amount allowable under code – and transfer it to the areawide general fund. For the past several years, managers have not been taking the full amount allowable, putting the excess revenue in a “savings account” within the permanent fund.
Cozzi also proposed making the budget process a biennial endeavor, meaning the assembly would visit the budget once every two years. “The idea intrigues me,” she said, and pointed out the City of Seward adopts a biennial budget and claims it has improved the quality of the city’s financial planning.
The assembly’s first budget meeting is Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. It is only an introduction and won’t include discussion, Cozzi said.