Juneau Assembly approves city, school district budgets

The Juneau Assembly approved both the city and school district’s 2016 operating budgets last night.

The City and Borough of Juneau budget totals more than $321 million next year. That includes city enterprises like Bartlett Regional Hospital, Docks and Harbors and Eaglecrest Ski Area.

The Juneau Assembly meeting (photo by Elizabeth Jenkins/KTOO)
The Juneau Assembly approved the 2016 city and school district budgets Monday night. (Photo by Elizabeth Jenkins/KTOO)

The Juneau School District budget totals more than $85 million. Mayor Merrill Sanford was the only Assembly member to vote no on both items. He said he would have preferred CBJ have more control over how the money set aside for the school district be spent.

“In my mind that money should have went into our budget, the city and borough, and be then be doled out to whoever needs it. And it very possibly could be the school district in the next year or two. But by forwarding it to the school district, we do not have that money available to us for the next two years or the next one year,” Sanford said.

The city unexpectedly received about $600,000 from the federal Secure Rural Schools program recently. Sanford says that money could have offered some security for the the city in uncertain economic times.

“So it takes it off the table for us and gives it to only one part, one segment of our total budget,” he said.

The Secure Rural Schools funds will be counted as revenue in this year’s school district budget, which was the first in recent memory that the Assembly did not fund to the maximum allowed under state law.

No one from the public stepped forward to testify on behalf of either budget item. Both the city and school district budgets take effect July 1.

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