The Haines Borough expects to receive an estimated $125,000 in additional money for next year’s budget following recent Congressional reauthorization of Secure Rural Schools funding.
How the unexpected money will influence the budget currently under consideration by the borough assembly has yet to be decided.
The program has been restored for two years, including $125,000 for the current fiscal year.
The money is intended to buffer communities in the western U.S. from the effects of the downturn of logging on federal lands, which previously helped fund municipal budgets.
Established in 2000, the program has been on uncertain footing for several years. The amount of the aid has declined in recent years. After a one-year authorization in 2013, the program expired in September.
While preparing its budget for the coming year, Haines Borough staff didn’t include the money at all, said chief fiscal officer Jila Stuart.
“It is good news,” Stuart said this week.
The money is intended to be spent for schools and roads, but reauthorization doesn’t necessarily mean a check is going to the school district or road maintenance will improve.
Stuart said the money can also be used to replace other borough funds already earmarked for school and road projects.
Manager David Sosa and the assembly will have to decide how the money is used, Stuart said.
“We are assessing how this money can and will be applied,” Sosa said this week.
She said $125,000 is an estimate of the amount the borough will receive, based on information that funding will be 95 percent of what was received in the last funding year.