Editorial: Flexibility is good for borough budget

The borough is required to set the property tax rate for the next budget year that starts today, which it did. The rate will not change.

And the borough is required to adopt a budget to guide its spending over the year, which it did, pretty much the same total for public services as this past year.

But within that total, some of the individual numbers will change over the next 12 months, which is OK.

There were too many unknowns, too many variables when the assembly approved the budget last month to expect that changes will not occur.

The borough is still waiting for audit results to confirm some numbers. Wrangell has been without a finance director since February, and the new staffer will not start until the fall. State funding is always uncertain until the governor signs, or vetoes, budget items. And while the borough knows its direct share of the latest round of federal pandemic relief aid, it could receive additional assistance as the state looks at helping the hardest-hit communities.

Add up all those unknowns, and it was wise of the administration and borough assembly to pass a budget while also acknowledging that some of the items will change. It’s better to be careful and recognize that amendments will be needed in the spending plan than to lock in numbers that lack certainty.

Any amendments will be publicized for people to see and will require a public vote by assembly members. This amend-as-we-go budget is not an attempt at secrecy. It’s simply realistic, flexible planning.

The budget will be revisited and updated at regular intervals, Borough Manager Lisa Von Bargen told the assembly at its June 22 meeting. “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.

In particular, the assembly will have to decide later what to do with Wrangell’s share of American Rescue Plan federal funding. “The assembly will have to make a very calculated decision as to how they want to use that,” Von Bargen said.

“We’re going to have to remain flexible, light on our feet,” Mayor Steve Prysunka said of the new budget year.

The borough chose wisely in stepping carefully this year.