Wrangell’s municipal government will operate in the black for another fiscal year, under the budget adopted by the borough assembly Tuesday evening. However, the assembly is prepared to make amendments during the fiscal year, which starts July 1, as new information arises.
The budget anticipates general fund revenues of about $6.4 million, which includes taxes, service fees, state and federal funding, and the annual conservative withdrawal of investment earnings from Wrangell’s own permanent fund.
Of that total, about 60% is anticipated from sales and property taxes.
Total general fund expenses are estimated at a little over $5.75 million, which includes almost $740,000 transferred from the fund to the parks and recreation budget to help maintain its programs, which are not self-sufficient.
Borough expenses are relatively flat compared to last year’s budget.
The borough’s revenues for the next fiscal year will include a one-time grant of $485,000 under the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), the latest federal relief bill to help communities economically hurt by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Right now, we have the ARPA funds sitting in the general fund, and the assembly will have to make a very calculated decision as to how they want to use that,” Borough Manager Lisa Von Bargen said of the money that is not spent in the budget.
One area where the budget changed from last year is in the city administration’s IT budget, which increased to $58,000 from $3,300 last year. Von Bargen said the borough is planning several IT-related projects, including a vehicle-tracking system to better monitor its fleet, a time-clock system for their finance software, and security cameras for city buildings.
Though the budget has been adopted, changes are likely, the manager said. It has been a struggle to put together the budget without a finance director; Joyce Mason left the job in February. A new director is now being hired, Von Bargen said at the budget workshop before the assembly meeting.
The budget will be revisited and updated at regular intervals, she said. Audits are still underway on previous budgets, so accurate numbers in some areas are still incoming. They are finding extra money in some cases, and unplanned expenses in others, she said.
“The plan moving forward is to work through all these close-out activities that need to be done and then systematically start to bring to the assembly, every meeting, a couple of these budgets for you to review in detail and look at,” she said. “Then we will make whatever amendments are necessary.”
The assembly adopted the budget unanimously.
“We’re going to have to remain flexible, light on our feet and able to come back and assist Lisa in getting the final product pushed through to the end,” Mayor Steve Prysunka said.
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