Video Clips

Quoted moments from Alaska public meetings, hearings, and press conferences.

Clips from City and Borough of JuneauClear

“This ordinance also recognizes $525 million in forecasted revenue and $20 million in transfers from different, different fund balances.”

Juneau: June 8, 2026 Regular Assembly Meeting · Jun 8, 2026

0:32

“we are looking down the barrel of an incredible amount of budget cuts next year, and we really do have to find the balance. I don't think it's going less, and I don't think it's removing the cap altogether, but I frankly would be comfortable with a higher number than 30 even.”

Juneau: June 8, 2026 Regular Assembly Meeting · Jun 8, 2026

0:14

“I would move to amend the amount from $30,000 to $50,000.”

Juneau: June 8, 2026 Regular Assembly Meeting · Jun 8, 2026

0:21

“I'd like to change that single item amount from $30,000 to $20,000”

Juneau: June 8, 2026 Regular Assembly Meeting · Jun 8, 2026

0:39

“I added up what it would save us if we were to cut both pools, close both pools, the field house, Eagle Crest, fully close the museum, JDC, Travel Juno, eliminate the housing fund. Move the prosecution of misdemeanors to the state, get rid of taking care of our ball fields. That is $7 million. That is the scale that we are talking about.”

Juneau: June 8, 2026 Regular Assembly Meeting · Jun 8, 2026

0:43

“We set out to make reductions in services of at $2 million, and we did not meet that. And the way that we got our fund balance out of the negative numbers and back to a positive number was to eat into our CIP.”

Juneau: June 8, 2026 Regular Assembly Meeting · Jun 8, 2026

0:49

“our fund balance right now is one bad sales tax quarter away from having no funds to deal with our operating expenses, let alone a major natural disaster or other disaster.”

Juneau: June 8, 2026 Regular Assembly Meeting · Jun 8, 2026

0:13

“Motion carries with 6 yeas and 3 nays.”

Juneau: June 8, 2026 Regular Assembly Meeting · Jun 8, 2026

0:54

“when I look at this one and I look at the taxpayers who will be affected, and I hold that on one hand, and I hold the, the what the public good would be if we removed this exemption, it is an easy decision for me because it would allow us to fund all of these things that people don't want to see defunded.”

Juneau: June 8, 2026 Regular Assembly Meeting · Jun 8, 2026

1:00

Speaker B

“So typically by November 1st, with a kind of final draft around Thanksgiving time, and that allowed about 3 weeks before we tried to issue in mid-December to late December. And that was the timeframe that was followed for many years, essentially until COVID hit, and then we started running into delays”

Juneau: June 3, 2026 Assembly Finance Committee · Jun 3, 2026

0:40

Speaker A

“Bartlett's auditors issued one material weakness over financial reporting. It's on your screen. It is similar to what the city had last couple years in that basically there were design and implementation issues related to preparing for the audit. So essentially not having internal controls in place to make sure that the information was ready.”

Juneau: June 3, 2026 Assembly Finance Committee · Jun 3, 2026

0:23

Speaker A

“The overall preparation has really improved. And so I don't want you to dwell on this. I want you to think about that you have an unmodified opinion, and that is what you want, right? So, so nothing led us to conclude that amounts were wrong in the financial statements as they were issued. It's just what we see is that there's some improvement that can be done over the reconciliation and review process.”

Juneau: June 3, 2026 Assembly Finance Committee · Jun 3, 2026

1:13

Speaker A

“The second material weakness related to— I mentioned the lease receivable for the Harbors. We found that communication between Harbors and Finance was not sufficient and that there hadn't been adequate review of the variable leases.”

Juneau: June 3, 2026 Assembly Finance Committee · Jun 3, 2026

0:39

Speaker A

“Again, based on those adjustments that we just went through, the reconciliations for debt issuance, tax accruals, and unearned revenue hadn't gone through sufficient review and hadn't been tied out. We call it tied out, but hadn't been reviewed and made sure that they agreed to the account balances in your system prior to providing them to us to audit.”

Juneau: June 3, 2026 Assembly Finance Committee · Jun 3, 2026

0:38

Speaker A

“And then we found a calculation error in the sales and hotel tax accrual that was done at year-end, and it changed it by $2.7 million. So again, what we're looking for is large amounts that could change decision-making, right? And these are all larger amounts that are part of your financial statements.”

Juneau: June 3, 2026 Assembly Finance Committee · Jun 3, 2026

0:38

Speaker A

“We did have what we call some material misstatements that were corrected as a result of our audit. To highlight quickly these, there was $10 million that was a timing thing. The bond was not issued till FY26, but it got recorded in '25.”

Juneau: June 3, 2026 Assembly Finance Committee · Jun 3, 2026

0:29

Speaker A

“CBJ audits results. We also issued unmodified opinions over all opinion units. So again, I mentioned the different types of funds you have, so we're issuing multiple opinions on each of those reporting units or funds. We had two material weaknesses in internal controls and one significant deficiency.”

Juneau: June 3, 2026 Assembly Finance Committee · Jun 3, 2026

1:01

Speaker A

“So with 2 different audit firms and it being a first time through for Bartlett's auditors, um, they had additional time that was needed for them to complete their audit. And because of that, because we didn't get Bartlett's final issued financial statements, then CBJ wasn't able to finish out some of their final allocations, specifically the internal service allocations, until we have both Bartlett and school district financial statements.”

Juneau: June 3, 2026 Assembly Finance Committee · Jun 3, 2026

0:47

Speaker A

“For the lease receivables and deferred inflows in Harbor Enterprise Fund, which also is included in the business type activities, we found that leases had been valued incorrectly. And I know this is something that finance is working on currently to correct, but we found about $8.6 million of lease receivable and deferred inflows.”

Juneau: June 3, 2026 Assembly Finance Committee · Jun 3, 2026

0:21

Beth Weldon

“We may have inadvertently caused a double taxation that we just have to work with our our finance director and sales tax person to make sure that it's not what— I doubt that's what the intention of the assembly was, is to double tax something.”

May 27, 2026 Special Assembly Meeting · May 27, 2026

0:24

Speaker A

“I move that we introduce this ordinance set it for public hearing at the next regular assembly meeting and send it to the Finance Committee meeting, the June 3rd Finance Committee meeting for discussion. So this would still be on our June 8th regular meeting for public hearing, but we'd get an opportunity to chat about it next week.”

May 27, 2026 Special Assembly Meeting · May 27, 2026

0:27

Speaker B

“The process the assembly has used to address the revenue shortfall has been divisive between user groups. I feel all of the facilities make Juneau livable and are needed and should be supported.”

May 18, 2026 Regular Assembly Meeting · May 19, 2026

0:36

Speaker B

“Without year-round recreation, decent public schools, and the sense of community these things bring Why would you stay if you have the means? That is why I support recreation and affordable housing grants.”

May 18, 2026 Regular Assembly Meeting · May 19, 2026

0:29

Beth Weldon

“I was one of the votes that voted for the gondola, but the 5 of us, because it was a 5-4 split, saw the handwriting on the wall with Eagle Crest. And here we are with Eagle Crest that we saw more and more general fund going into more and more subsidy.”

May 18, 2026 Regular Assembly Meeting · May 19, 2026

1:04

Speaker B

“I'm looking at the, you know, item in our packet from our most recent Assembly Finance Committee that shows our unrestricted projected unrestricted balance of our general fund at almost negative $1 million at the end of fiscal year '27.”

May 18, 2026 Regular Assembly Meeting · May 19, 2026