The Haines Borough Administration building. (Emily Files)
The Haines Borough Assembly approved the final municipal budget for the coming fiscal year, but not before making a few last minute amendments.
At a meeting Tuesday, the assembly reversed course on proposed budget cuts to local community centers and reduced funding for the police department and the museum.
In recent years, the borough has provided about $30,000 to maintain the Mosquito Lake School Community Center and keep it open to the public. Early drafts of the budget for the coming fiscal year removed all borough funding for the community center. Many Upper Valley residents resisted the proposed change.
Dawn Drotos is chair of the Friends of Mosquito Lake School Community Center. At Tuesday’s meeting she told the assembly that volunteers had begun development of a garden at the community center to promote food security. She suggested that the borough could use federal COVID-19 relief funds to help finance the project.
“It is our understanding that CARES Act funding for food security efforts could be used by the borough to help offset facility expenses,” Drotos said. “This seems like a straightforward way to turn a small investment of funds into a tangible, edible benefit for the community while also signaling to the outer borough the assembly’s willingness to maintain a modicum of services there.”
Assembly member Brenda Josephson liked the idea. She made a motion to provide the community center $10,000 from federal COVID-19 relief funds that can be used for food security initiatives.
While the entire assembly supported the motion, some felt that $10,000 was not enough.
Assembly member Stephanie Scott made another motion to provide an additional $10,000 in funding for the community center from the Haines Borough. Sincerny supported the motion, saying that Upper Valley residents have worked to maintain the community center and the borough should support their efforts.
“There has been a lot of community involvement out there taking care of that facility, and what is going on with it currently is an increase in use and I think it’s also a response to this situation that we’re in on a global level,” Sincerny said.
Scott’s motion to provide $10,000 to the community center from borough funds passed in a 3 to 3 vote with Mayor Jan Hill breaking the tie in favor.
In addition to the Mosquito Lake Community Center, the assembly also voted to fund the Chilkat Center for the Arts. In May, assembly member Paul Rogers moved to defund the Chilkat Center for the Arts and revert ownership back to Alaska Indian Arts (AIA). At the meeting on Tuesday he withdrew his motion.
Assembly member Jerry Lapp said there are still some complications related to the borough’s ownership of the building that need to be worked out.
“What I would like to do is for us to reach a new agreement with AIA that says that the Chilkat Center is the borough’s building and there’s not a caveat in there that says it’s going to be given back to the AIA.”
The assembly also made some last minute cuts before passing the budget.
Assembly member Brenda Josephson moved to cut $35,000 from the police department’s budget. According to Josephson, that’s a little less than 5% of its total borough funding. Josephson said she was motivated in part by comments from the public about planning effectively for reductions.
“My goal is to address the fact that other departments had to take a hit, but I believe in a civil society we need police,” Josephson said. “Law enforcement’s very important and I want to do it in a way that they can still function.”
Josephson also moved to make a last minute $20,000 cut to the budget for the Haines Sheldon Museum.
Both of her amendments to the police and museum budgets were passed by the assembly.
Assembly member Zephyr Sincerny said the last minute amendments to the budget were significant and could have used more public process. He voted against passing the final budget.
During public comment, Haines Sheldon Museum Director Helen Alten criticized the assembly for making last minute cuts to the museum’s budget.
“The Museum Board and I did not get any prior notice of the proposed amendments to the budget put forward by Ms. Josephson tonight. She obviously put a lot of thought into it and we were blindsided. It would have been appreciated if we had been told this was something that was being considered.”
In previous budget discussions, museum and library staff said that this year’s budget cuts will result in staff reductions and decreased hours of operation. According to Alten, in the past two years, museum staff has been reduced from the equivalent of 4 full time employees to one full time employee and a 3/4 time employee.
