Kenai City Council members passed the city’s budget Wednesday, after making a few last minute changes. The city spending plan outlines how much money Kenai expects to take in and send out for the 12-month period that starts July 1.
In all, the city expects to take in around $50 million, nearly a third of which will come from taxes. Another roughly $11 million is expected to come from other governments in the forms of grants, while the city expects to collect more than $9 million in charges for service.
The city expects to spend a little over $60 million, more than a third of which will go to city projects. Another $18.5 million will go to salaries and benefits for city employees. And a little over $10 million will fund basic city services.
The council also passed a status quo mill rate, or property tax rate, of 4.35 mills. That translates to $435 in annual property taxes for each $100,000 of taxable value.
Before passing the city budget, council members added roughly a quarter of a million dollars in one-time spending.
First, members unanimously approved a roughly $46,000 grant to support the Peninsula Piranhas Swim Team in their efforts to keep the school at Kenai Central High School open. The pool is scheduled to close next month after Kenai Peninsula school board members folded it into budget cuts earlier this year.
Kenai City Manager Terry Eubank says the grant would be used to offset utility costs associated with keeping the pool open. And he says it’s contingent on the swim team hashing out a plan with the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District to take over pool operations.
“Obviously, distribution of funds wouldn't take place till we had the grant agreement and all those provisions in place, and we still have to work on that,” he said. “But it sounds like everybody's working in the right direction.”
The council also added $70,000 in spending to the Kenai Municipal Airport fund. A recent city survey found Kenai failed to collect around $136,000 in landing fees and parking at the airport. The city chalks that up to the honor system it currently relies on to collect those fees.
The extra money approved by council members will fund a pilot program in Kenai to better bill planes landing at the airport. Eubank says the new service, from company PLANEPASS, will rely on aviation data to track airport landings and then generate bills based on those records. Kenai will be the first airport in Alaska to try out the new billing system, Eubank said. A portion of the recouped revenue would go to the company providing the billing service, but he says the program revenue will offset the administrative costs.
“Staff over there believe the increase in revenue would be about $130,000 a year,” he said. “That’s our current leakage for this activity that’s taking place that’s not being caught. So it certainly more than pays for the fee that's being expected here.”
The biggest budget addendum approved Wednesday is $180,000 for upgrades to the audio and visual equipment in Kenai City Hall. Council member Bridget Grieme brought the amendment forward.
“Our infrastructure is dated and doesn't offer that accessibility, which, if we don't continue to move forward and meet residents where they're at, I think it would raise the question as to whether or not we're really participating in open and accessible government activities,” she said.
She says it’s too early to know exactly what the remodel would look like, but city staff say they’ve looked into speaker-detected microphones and screens on the council dais.
The fiscal year covered by the budget adopted Wednesday starts July 1.
