Skagway's city hall and museum. (Greta Mart)

Skagway’s city hall and museum. (Greta Mart)

The Skagway Borough Assembly will hold the first reading of the borough’s FY 17 budget at its regular meeting Thursday evening.

The assembly will also consider adoption of two ordinances: one providing paid family leave benefits for municipal employees, and the other amending port commission code.

The borough already provides unpaid family leave, but Assemblyman Jay Burnham suggested employees should have access to paid leave. The proposed changes to Skagway’s personnel policy differ from what was first introduced in March. It originally included 30 days of paid leave, but has now been cut to 10 days. It also adds restrictions, such as the stipulation that an employee must work for the borough for a year before qualifying for the benefit. The changes were suggested by the assembly civic affairs committee.

The ordinance amending port commission code has been controversial at recent meetings, with commissioners and some assembly members opposed. Assemblyman Steve Burnham Jr. asked for it to be postponed at the most recent meeting so he could make changes to the ordinance. The rest of the assembly will consider his proposal at Thursday’s meeting.

Also on the agenda, the assembly will discuss a performance audit of Alaska’s Commercial Passenger Vessel Tax program. Skagway receives millions of dollars from the cruise ship passenger tax. But the report concludes Skagway misspent CPV funds on playground equipment. KHNS will have a more detailed story about that audit later this week.

Finally, the assembly will meet in executive session to conduct a performance evaluation for Borough Manager Scott Hahn. The meeting is scheduled for Thursday at 7 p.m. in assembly chambers.