A popular after-school program may be a casualty of the Haines Borough’s budget this year, as funding for the environmental education class is being shifted to replace a bridge in Excursion Inlet.
Takshanuk Watershed Council has received funds for the Chilkat Forest Investigators since 2009 from the borough’s Title III forest receipts. Until 2009, the borough received the federal funds, which are primarily calculated based on the area of national forest located within the borough’s boundaries.
Because what the money can be used for is restrictive, the receipts sat accumulating year after year, largely untouched. By the time the borough received its last payment, the pot totaled about $511,000, said chief fiscal officer Jila Stuart.
Since then, the Chilkat Forest Investigators and its sister program EcoProductions have received between $16,000 and $50,000 a year from the forest receipts, Takshanuk Watershed Council executive director Meredith Pochardt said. The money has also been used for sporadic projects like building trails, pulling weeds and other forest-related activities, Pochardt said.
The forest investigators program serves about 24 students in second, fifth and seventh grades. Each grade meets once a week after school for hands-on ecology education: falcon training, rodent identification, and nesting tree cataloging are just some of the activities students enjoy, said program leader Mario Benassi.
Right now, the forest receipt fund has $272,274, and manager David Sosa is proposing to spend all of it on replacement of a bridge in Excursion Inlet. The bridge connects the town core (the landing strip, float plane dock, Ocean Beauty seafood processing plant) to Excursion Inlet’s main recreational draw and water source, Neva Lake.
(The borough installed a different bridge in the late 1990s, according to former assembly member Jerry Lapp. That bridge, only eight feet wide, connects the town core to Duncan’s Subdivision, which primarily consists of vacation homes and lodges.)
Chief fiscal officer Stuart said PND Engineers assessed the bridge several years ago and results showed the structure was extremely old and past its useful life. The company estimated replacement at several million dollars, she said.
Since then, the borough has been in discussions with the Forest Service about using a bridge on Prince of Wales Island as a replacement instead of building a new bridge.
“The Forest Service went out there and said that they had a bridge from Prince of Wales that they thought would work there that they weren’t using anymore. All they would need is the money to get it moved up to Excursion and get it installed and get it permitted,” Stuart said.
The borough applied for a $500,000 federal grant to replace the bridge, but was denied last year.
According to the 2010 U.S. Census, Excursion Inlet has a population of 12. But the community also includes 121 parcels on the property tax rolls, businesses that pay sales tax, and the Ocean Beauty processing plant that provides most of the borough’s raw fish tax revenue.
Former assembly member Lapp said he supports replacing the decrepit bridge.
“That money has been sitting there for quite a long time, and if there is a project that benefits our community then we should go ahead and do that. Those people down there are paying taxes and they are part of the borough,” Lapp said. “It’s our obligation. We don’t do a whole lot down there.”
Spending all the remaining forest receipts on the bridge, though, eliminates the funding source for the Chilkat Forest Investigators. Instead of applying for funds from that pot of money, Takshanuk would have to vie against other local nonprofits for a share of the borough’s $32,500 “community chest” or find some other way of funding the program.
Program director Benassi called the move “another hit on education” in the midst of already-dwindling education budgets. “I’m not going to speak ill of the bridge idea, but it’s probably not the best value for the dollar, in my opinion,” he said.
Takshanuk director Pochardt said she knew the bridge project had been in the works for years and doesn’t oppose it, but would like to see $50,000 to $70,000 of the forest receipts money set aside for continuing the program for several years.
“It would be nice if it wasn’t zeroed out entirely,” Pochardt said.
Since the Haines School will have early release on Thursdays next year, Pochardt said she is hoping the Chilkat Forest Investigators classes could continue and fill that gap.
“If there could be a chunk of (the forest receipt money) reserved for this after-school programming on Thursdays next year, it would allow organizations to offer programs on that Thursday block,” Pochardt said.
Takshanuk’s education and outreach director Pam Randles said she doesn’t understand why every cent of the remaining forest receipt funds is going to the bridge. “Does the bridge cost that exact amount or are we just trying to get rid of this money so we don’t have to deal with it anymore?” Randles asked.
Budget decisions concerning the bridge and forest receipts are still under consideration by the assembly.
The assembly will hold its next public hearing on the budget at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 26. New policy enacted by Mayor Jan Hill requires people wishing to testify to sign up outside of the assembly chambers prior to the start of the meeting.