No cuts to city services, facilities under Juneau’s proposed budget

A pedestrian walks past the Juneau City Hall mural on Sept. 25, 2017. (Photo by Jeremy Hsieh/KTOO)
A pedestrian walks past the Juneau City Hall mural on Sept. 25, 2017. (Photo by Jeremy Hsieh/KTOO)

Juneau city officials are presenting a budget without any proposed cuts to staff or services. That’s a sharp contrast to a year ago when jobs and facilities and services faced the ax.

Last year Juneau faced the prospect of losing its city museum. The Assembly also considered cutting kid’s programs and shuttering the downtown swimming pool. A number of city staff positions would also be eliminated through attrition.

Those cuts never happened and this year, there’s less drama anticipated.

“We are not looking at deep budget cuts at this time,” Juneau City Manager Rorie Watt said. He said Tuesday that the Assembly’s marching orders have been to maintain the status quo.

“Their direction was to hold the line on services,” he said, “provide the same level of services that we currently are providing, knowing that we’re probably going to lose ground to inflation and that’s going to mean a slight up-tick in costs.”

The preliminary plan to go before elected officials is a $98 million budget for general government. That’s a $1.2 million increase over last year. It draws about $500,000 from reserves.

The city’s contribution toward schools would be the full $27.8 million requested by the school district – that’s nearly $1 million more than last year. Even so, Juneau’s schools are projecting an overall decrease because of flat state funding, depleted reserves and weak enrollment projections.

The city’s main revenue sources are sales and property taxes.

On the property side, assessments have risen, so property taxes are expected to increase, Watt said, raising about $500,000 more than last year.

“It does mean people are gonna pay a little more property taxes, but I would not expect a dramatic change,” Watt said.

The budget process relies on assumptions, especially about the local economy.

Finance Director Bob Bartholomew said revenues have risen despite some worrying indicators.

“Our revenues have stayed stable and gone up slightly,” Bartholomew said Tuesday, “but we’ve lost 800 residents, 500 jobs, and total gross wages are flat.”

There are a lot of questions about the future of state jobs. The good news is that other sectors are expanding.

“Tourism is bringing additional activity and revenue and the federal government is providing a little bit more funding.” Bartholomew said. “But again, when 90 percent of our general government funding comes from sales and property tax, which are based on the economy, things could turn around pretty quickly.”

The Assembly will begin meeting as the finance committee each Wednesday through the end of May to refine the budget.

Finance Chair Jesse Kiehl said each city department will be examined.

“There are a lot of questions that will need a lot of thought and examination,” Kiehl said. “What I am not expecting, is any radical changes in what the city does, at this point.”

A public hearing for the city budget is scheduled for April 25. The city’s operating budget is set to be adopted in June.

Jacob Resneck, CoastAlaska

Jacob Resneck is CoastAlaska's regional news director based in Juneau. CoastAlaska is our partner in Southeast Alaska. KTOO collaborates with partners across the state to cover important news and to share stories with our audiences.

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