Sitka is asked to bank $3 million for future repairs, down from $4 million two years ago

Sitka's City and Borough Assembly meets Tuesday, Sept. 22, to decide how much money the city sets aside this year for future capital repairs. A Sept. 10 memo in the packet recommends $3 million.

The meeting agenda lists the transfer item under new business as a discussion, direction and decision item, meaning the Assembly may act on it that night. It concerns the Municipal Administrator's annual recommended transfer to the Public Infrastructure Sinking Fund. The money would come from the general fund, take effect June 30, 2026, and be available in the fiscal 2028 budget, bringing the fund to just over $3.3 million.

The sinking fund is the account Sitka uses to underwrite future capital and infrastructure repair costs. Bond disclosure filings to Sitka's bondholders show the Assembly has recently used the fund as the mechanism for steering year-end surpluses toward future capital projects. The Assembly approved $4 million for fiscal 2024, $3.2 million for fiscal 2025.

A state drinking water priority list includes replacing roughly 2,700 linear feet of cast and ductile iron water main, 47 service connections, and associated valves and hydrants on Lake, Monastery, Hirst and Kinkead streets, according to the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation project priority list. The memo calls it the Lake, Hirst, Monastery and Kinkead project and says its first phase was the last capital project Sitka took to bid. It is not among the memo's listed priorities: the airport terminal, seawall, seaplane base, effluent disinfection and large street and utility projects. The Sitka Comprehensive Plan 2030 identifies aging infrastructure as a fiscal challenge and calls for a capital projects strategic plan and systematic utility rate adjustments.

The Assembly meets at 6 p.m. in Assembly Chambers at 330 Harbor Drive. Residents may testify on the transfer for up to three minutes during either public comment period, listed as persons to be heard.