Assembly ups spending with excess tax revenue
New elected assembly members Debra Schnabel and Tyler Huling are sworn in on Tuesday, Oct. 26.
The Haines Borough Assembly voted unanimously on Tuesday to amend the fiscal year 2022 budget by $433,000, allocating funds from excess tax revenue.
The borough generated $1.2 million, or 61%, more in sales tax than it had budgeted for the 2021 fiscal year.
With the budget amendment passed Tuesday, the assembly added 12 new spending items. The biggest allocations were $121,000 for water fund debt payments, $117,374 for school bond debt payments that the state no longer reimburses, $82,155 to create an emergency fund and $70,000 each for a new junk car storage facility and landscaping at the harbor.
In a memo to the assembly, borough fiscal officer Jila Stuart explained that paying off water fund debt “would save the utility roughly $11,000 per year in debt service payments which comes to roughly $1.15 per customer per month.”
In other assembly news, the assembly certified the 2021 borough election results. Assembly members-elect Tyler Huling and Debra Schnabel were sworn in on Tuesday.
The assembly unanimously voted to authorize borough staff to apply for loans from the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation to fund water and sewer studies and master plans. Staff anticipates a $500,000 price tag for the sewer system study and plan and $100,000 for the water system. The sewer study would take two years and would require inspection of 50,000 feet of pipe, public facilities director Ed Coffland said at the meeting.
The assembly unanimously voted to authorize the borough to auction off to the public two old vehicles: a 1994 Chevrolet pickup and 1979 Dodge fire truck.
In other borough news, new manager Annette Kreitzer lifted mask requirements in borough buildings on Oct. 21, citing the decline in COVID-19 cases and no known community transmission in Haines.