A day before a charter-mandated deadline, the Haines Borough Assembly on Tuesday adopted its $12.3 million budget for the upcoming fiscal year on a 5-1 vote.
Assembly member George Campbell cast the sole vote against the spending plan.
Campbell, who in previous budget hearings tried unsuccessfully to make several changes to the document, appeared to have given up on his efforts to rein in spending.
Campbell said he wasn’t “going to waste time trying to amend anything” as the other assembly members had made it clear they were fine with the budget.
“Publicly, one last time I’m going to say that I am very disappointed that we are approaching this budget cycle business as usual,” Campbell said, pointing to waning state and federal funds. “I think this is the time we should be buckling down and looking forward and trying to cut our budget and change the way we do business.”
The document essentially maintains the status quo, aside from creating an executive assistant to the manager position to replace the vacant community and economic development director job.
The borough is expecting to take in about $395,000 less than the $12.3 million it plans to spend, or about $11.9 million. The difference will be made up using fund balances and unanticipated revenues or savings from last year.
Interim manager Brad Ryan had proposed cutting the deputy clerk position to half time, but the job was restored to fulltime via a budget amendment made by assembly member Margaret Friedenauer last month.
Debra Schnabel was the only resident who testified at the budget’s final public hearing on Tuesday, requesting that next year the assembly look at allocating money toward maintaining and improving the borough’s trail system.
Assembly member Friedenauer said next year she wants the assembly to take more initiative in forming the draft budget before it is released by the manager in spring.
“I look forward to the assembly taking a more active role in the budget process this year before the budget process starts, whether that is with the new manager before the next elections or as soon as possible after the elections. I just believe that we, as an assembly, have a responsibility to take a more active role in pre-budget priority setting,” Friedenauer said.
Several assembly members at previous public hearings expressed concerns about issues in the borough’s organizational chart, which shows how staff and boards advise or report to supervisors.
The organizational chart is approved along with the budget every year.
Assembly member Ron Jackson said those issues need to be hammered out, but shouldn’t hold up passage of the budget.