The Wrangell Borough Assembly began several days of budget workshops last Monday, June 1. The meeting opened with an overview of the borough's general fund for FY 2021, and then went into specific department budgets. Points of interest in the meeting included the budgets for the fire department, police department, and the Public Safety Building.
The general fund is facing a deficit this upcoming year. Total revenues and transfers for the general fund for FY 2021 are estimated at about $5.32 million, according to the agenda packet. However, Borough Manager Lisa Von Bargen said that they are anticipating a deficit of about $516,516. The agenda packet also reports that the budget the assembly was reviewing that night was not including any capital projects. A capital project budget will be brought before the assembly sometime in July, where they will be able to get a better look at expenses Wrangell will be facing this next year. The city administration is also working on some options for how to reduce the deficit, the agenda packet reads, which the assembly will consider in a future workshop.
The Wrangell Volunteer Fire Department is looking at expenses of $386,301 for FY 2021. This is less than the approved budget of FY 2020, $432,633, but more than the department's year-to-date expenses of $289,044. Von Bargen pointed out that the fire department was seeing an increase in expenses for equipment, repair, maintenance, and capital equipment.
"If you turn to page 23, the air compressor block equipment [$17,000] was actually in this year's budget and is not going to get expended," she said. "So that's essentially a carry forward ... The fire department has put off, for years, switching out the SCBA units [$35,000] because they're so expensive."
The Wrangell Police Department is looking at total expenses of $968,659 next year. This is a decrease from about $1.04 million approved this year. One point of discussion in this budget was an increase in salaries and wages, from roughly $500,000 approved in FY 2020 to about $550,000 this next year. The police department is down one officer, Von Bargen said, and a split position between the DMV and the finance department is not going to be refilled either, so at first glance it does not make sense that wages are going up instead of down. However, she explained that this is because wages for the unfilled police officer position were not included in the FY 2020 budget, so it did not show up in the totals.
"So we could not have hired that position anyway," Von Bargen said.
During the discussion about the police budget, the assembly noticed that the budget had $5,000 set aside for windshield wiper replacements under the "Boat/Other Transportation" item. That is incorrect, Von Bargen said quickly. Police Chief Tom Radke also added that he assumes that $5,000 is actually meant to cover a variety of costs for the police boat, not just windshield wipers. A total of $10,000 was set aside in this budget item, and the money was not properly divided into line items and instead was bulked together under a few different categories.
"You're not buying those from Bayco, those windshield wipers, are you?" Mayor Steve Prysunka asked, referring to Assembly Member David Powell's business.
"No, he was actually more expensive," Radke responded, laughing.
The assembly also looked at the budget for the Public Safety Building. The budget calls for expenses of $230,793 next year. However, the Public Safety Building has been an ongoing topic of discussion for some time amongst the assembly. The building is old and is in need of repairs. The assembly has been wanting to get an assessment done to either repair or entirely replace the building. Assembly Member Powell said he wants the city to stop sinking money into the building, as old as it is. Prysunka added he is frustrated with the pace the city has moved when it came to the Public Safety Building, but they needed to come up with a way to proceed.
Also covered in this meeting, the assembly and clerk budget is anticipating expenses of $224,392, the administration budget is anticipating expenses of $416,177, the finance department is anticipating expenses of $473,547, and corrections/dispatch are anticipating expenses of $459,642. The assembly is also considering $43,000 in donations to community service organizations next year, and has roughly $1.36 million available in an economic recovery fund.
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