Only a handful of residents spoke up about next year’s proposed $560 million municipal budget during a Juneau Assembly meeting Monday designated for that purpose and, aside from the expected objections to a mill rate increase, the concerns mostly came down to a $3 million rewrite of the city’s land-use code and spending $859,000 for an elevator at the Dimond Park Field House.
The proposed budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1 includes a $521.5 million operating budget that funds most municipal spending and capital improvement projects, plus another $38 million for the Juneau School District. It also proposes a 10.32 mill rate, up from the current 10.16 mills, due to the cost of the City and Borough of Juneau taking over three buildings from the school district as part of a consolidation plan to deal with the district’s financial crisis.
The budget, contained in four ordinances, is in the early stages of the Assembly’s annual review process, with the initial draft introduced April 1 and the Finance Committee beginning a detailed department-by-department overview on April 6. City Manager Katie Koester, at Monday’s meeting, said the next step is fine-tuning the budget during the coming weeks.
“In the Finance Committee over the next few weeks the Assembly will be making amendments to these four ordinances and hearing them in great detail,” she said. “And then they will come back to the body for another public hearing for the public to make comments on the changes that the Assembly has made before adoption.”
The second public hearing is scheduled for early June, with the Assembly required to approve the final budget by June 15.
Among the agenda items for the Finance Committee’s meeting scheduled at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday are grants and community requests, Eaglecrest Ski Area, and general obligation bond options.
An objection to the mill rate increase was voiced at Monday’s meeting by Charles VanKirk, who said as property owner in Juneau for more than 50 years he’s upset with decisions local leaders have made about the school district that are costing CBJ money — including hiring a person to monitor the district’s finances — and the increase will be a disincentive to people moving here at a time Juneau’s population is declining.
“We need to do something to lessen our taxes, increase the incentive for people to be able to live here,” he said. “How do young people make it when they’re making $16 an hour? It doesn’t work.”
The school district’s budget and its effect on the mill rate was also a concern of Sharyn Augustine, who noted the district made quick and drastic actions to resolve a projected $9.5 million deficit this year, only to discover the actual figure was millions of dollars less. She said that should be an indicator officials don’t need to rush into the consolidation plan, mill rate increase and other actions meant to address a sizeable long-term projected shortfall — noting, among other things, the current legislative budget contains an increase in per-student funding that could provide millions in revenue to the district.
Local officials have emphasized they are not factoring any possible increase in state education funding into their budget since Gov. Mike Dunleavy has indicated he will veto such funds unless policy priorities of his are approved by the Legislature.
However, among the adjustments that may occur during the upcoming committee process is the district may drastically reduce the amount of a zero-interest loan it is seeking from the city. The Assembly has authorized up to $4.1 million repayable within five years, but school board members have said they are more likely to seek $1 million — or perhaps nothing due to the revised budget for this year that now projects a small surplus after various reductions are made.
The request for an elevator at the Dimond Park Field House came from Joan O’Keefe, executive director of Southeast Alaska Independent Living (SAIL), who said CBJ is responsible for making the two-level indoor recreation facility ADA compliant.
“SAIL has been advocating for an elevator in the Dimond Park Field House for more than a decade, as there is no accessible route to CBJ’s only indoor track,” she said. “Consequently, many of our citizens cannot access the track, while others risk the stairs when it is not safe for them to do so.”
Last year $150,000 was allocated toward making the field house handicapped-accessible, but the project has bogged down due to some officials suggesting less expensive platform lifts rather than a conventional elevator, O’Keefe said. She said parks and public works officials are among those opposing that alternative and, since $141,000 remains of the original funds allocated, $859,000 is needed in the coming budget to cover the $1 million estimated cost of an elevator.
“I’ve heard mentioned the possibility of adding elevator funding into a larger pot of projects and putting it to the voters in the fall as a bond initiative,” she said. “No. The ADA is the law. It is not acceptable to leave compliance with the law to the voters to decide…It’s been the right thing to do for more than a decade Let’s finally make this right.”
As with the comments made by the other residents, Assembly members offered no comments or commitments either way to her suggestion, in keeping with bylaws where members can ask questions but not respond directly to public testimony.
One person who was questioned was Michael Riederer, a North Douglas resident who expressed reservations about the $3 million proposed rewrite of CBJ’s Title 49 Land Use Code. He said that while that is a large-scale undertaking, “an overhaul risks unintended consequences, disrupting the community’s fabric and creating uncertainty for sustainable development.”
“Instead of focusing on the rewrite let’s address immediate needs,” he said, citing schools and longer hours for public pools as examples.
Assembly member Wade Bryson asked Riederer if he was familiar with the lengthy process that has already occurred trying to resolve numerous deficiencies local officials have cited in the current land-use code.
“Have you participated in or watched any of the Planning Commission’s Title 49 Subcommittee where they tried to take Title 49 apart, tried to fix Title 49 through amendments?” Byrson asked. “That’s kind of where we’re at right now.”
Riederer said he hasn’t, but he has inquired about why recent hearings were canceled and “it’s not clear to me why or what the plan is for its rewrite.”
An April 11 memo by Koester and CBJ Community Development Director Jill Lawhorne states “the current process for amending Title 49 code has been time-consuming and inefficient for a variety of reasons.” The proposed rewrite would occur in two phases and involve a multitude of agencies in various data gathering and public input processes, with the first phase taking up to 18 months.
Disagreement about the effectiveness of the city’s current land-use code was voiced by Heather Marlow, who served as CBJ’s Lands and Resources Manager from 2006 to 2013. She suggested the funding for the rewrite “be eliminated or substantially reduced to $300,000 or less.”
“I do want to point out that your departments approve hundreds of permits a year successfully,” she said. “So there is a lot of success to reference rather than challenges and failures, which seemed to get a lot of attention and not really show the proof that your system works well.”
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.
