At separate meetings last week, commercial fishermen and Haines Borough officials identified potential funding sources for the harbor expansion project.
An estimated $10 million of the $30 million final project is unfunded, including mooring floats, a drive-down float, and a portion of the cost of a boat launch.
At a meeting of the Lynn Canal Gillnetters Association, members spoke for tapping into revenues from the raw fish tax, a 3 percent tax on fish landed in the borough that has brought into the municipality’s general fund an average $236,000 annually during the past five years.
In the past two years, the borough assembly has diverted a combined $80,000 of raw fish tax money to its harbor fund.
Board members of the gillnet group last week said they’ll meet with borough manager David Sosa to see about designating a percentage of raw fish tax revenues to harbor improvements.
The raw fish tax is being used to pay for tourism-related projects, said group chair Ryan Cook. “We need to put a voice in to the borough to have that money go to the boat ramp and the drive-down float.”
J.R. Churchill said commercial fishing is an “economic driver” in Haines, and that the fleet only has ever asked for $15,000 from the borough to fund a study. “As an industry, we’ve never demanded anything from this town.”
Fishermen say raw fish tax is used in other communities to support fisheries infrastructure.
But there’s also an argument for spending the tax more broadly, Jila Stuart, the borough’s chief fiscal officer, said this week.
“If you think of the tax as a severance tax set because an asset of the borough is being taken away from the people of the borough, it seems appropriate for that money to go toward schools and general borough expenses,” Stuart said.
“But you could think of it the other way, too, that we wouldn’t have that income without the fishermen out there catching those fish, and the harbor and the things that support them.”
At a borough-sponsored “open house” Thursday, manager Sosa said he would seek up to $200,000 per year from the borough’s Capital Improvement Projects fund for four years to begin paying for harbor project elements, including the boat launch, “aesthetics” and moorage floats.
According to the borough, a two-lane boat launch will cost $1.5 million, with the state Department of Fish and Game paying $1.12 million and the borough pitching in $375,000, or 25 percent of the total cost.
Sosa said he would seek $100,000 annually from the CIP fund to cover the borough’s share of the boat launch cost. He also said he’d seek $100,000 next year for harbor aesthetics and up to $50,000 the following two years for that expense.
In addition, Sosa said that to pay for moorage floats, he would seek $50,000 from the CIP fund each year for the next four years, as well as a Harbor Tier II grant from the State of Alaska. The grant would require a 50-50 match by the borough and despite state budget cuts, there’s political support for the harbor grant project, Sosa said.
The CIP fund derives from a 1.5 percent areawide sales tax and each year raises $750,000.
Projects it paid for last year included future borough road improvements ($180,000), deferred maintenance items ($107,000), administration building roof replacement ($75,000), new LED lighting at the harbor ($31,000), swimming pool improvements ($25,000), an extended boom forklift for the public works department ($45,000), and water and sewer line upgrades ($40,000).
A list of projects to be funded from the CIP fund is developed by the manager after consultation with department heads. The borough assembly decides actual spending from the fund when it sets the municipality’s budget each spring.
Harbormaster Shawn Bell said this week he didn’t have a firm estimate on the cost of floats, as an accurate pricetag would have to come after design. The borough has previously estimated the cost of the drive-down float at $6 million.
Fiscal chief Stuart said the borough will hold a budget “open house” in January for residents interested in commenting on spending.