May 20, 2026 CBJ Assembly Finance Committee Meeting

I call the May 20th, 2026 Assembly Finance Committee meeting to order. Ms. Wendell, will you note the roll? Thank you, Chair Wall. We have all Assembly members present in chambers besides Assemblymember Atkinson, who is present on Zoom.

Thank you. That brings us to agenda topics. We are going to start with an FY27 financial position review. Um, I asked our amazing finance staff to try to put something together for us to talk about, not, not just where we are in terms of our fund balance, but also reflecting on our operating deficit, where we, where we started this process back in December and, and where we are today. So, um, Miss Flick, go ahead.

I would say definitely feel free to, you know, jump in with questions. Uh, thank you, Chair Wall. Um, the presentation in its entirety— I'm sorry it came to you in 3 pieces, but you'll just see it all together tonight. Um, and I realized this afternoon in talking to the mayor And I should have gone back and done a couple of edits on my memo to go with it, and I apologize for that oversight, but we'll just talk through where we are. And yes, this is in response to exactly what Chair Wall said.

So, you know, the best practice for us is to always have a balanced budget where our ongoing everyday revenue, day in, day out recurring revenue, covers our day-in, day-out recurring expenses. So that, that is our normal operating mode. That is best practice. We know that, um, given our incomplete revenue data and, um, the significance of the revenue loss due to those ballot measures, that we wanted to take a measured approach. Prior assemblies had been conservative and gave us some runway where we could utilize some fund balance this year.

So our recurring revenue plus some fund balance would be used to cover our recurring expenses, and we did that knowingly, and we did that with good measure, and our attempt is to do that without killing our piggy bank in the process. So we've been working really hard. You engaged the communications team when we met back in December, so these are a couple of old slides I'm just pulling forward to jog your memory. We talked about our budget gap in December at the annual retreat, and we talked about the gap coming from the mill rate cap and from the sales tax reduction that had an operating and a one-time CIP impact. We talked about some wage things, some were resolved, some weren't, and, you know, what kind of a gap that that created.

And so as an assembly, you set some direction for us in this process. And that was, we're going to, we're going to solve FY27's budget using 4 things. First, we're going to direct the manager to really go through all the weeds, look at positions, look at all the supplies that we buy, look at all the services that we use, look at all the training we go to, look at how we're contributing to fleet, look at all of those things and reduce the budget through our assumptions from $3 to $4 million. And then, um, you gave yourself the assignment to reduce, um, services by $2 to $4 million. And then amongst us all, we were going to focus on finding another $2 million of increased revenue to close the gap.

And then acknowledging that we had ranges on most of these things, we would use somewhere between $1.2 million and $4.2 million of fund balance in FY27 to cover our operating, um, position. So that's what we did in December. Um, we, um, at our April 11th budget retreat, we were able to say yes. Um, you gave the manager an assignment to go through all the weeds, $3 to $4 million of reductions. She came up with $3.9 million.

Um, so that's a win for all of us. And then on the increased revenue side, we actually had $2.3 million instead of just $2 million. When we also talked in April, we were experiencing, you know, we had more information, right? So we knew the assessed values, so we knew that we weren't actually going to lose revenue from the mill rate cap. We also were experiencing soft sales tax, and so we expected our revenue to be even worse than just the exemptions.

And so we built this really busy chart that, you know, basically talked about the different colors of revenue coming in, how we were spending on the other side. And instead of being $1.2 million to $4.2 million of fund balance, The manager's proposed budget used $7.7 million of fund balance to close that gap. And so with, um, with that in mind, in the service reductions that U-Haul had assigned yourself, if you made $2 million in the services reduction, then we would see only $5.7 million used in fund balance. If you made the full $4 million of service reductions, we would only use $3.7 million. So we talked about that.

What I want to do— oh, and then also down in the corner, just this will be on the next few slides. We projected our ending fund balance to be $9.4 million to the good at the end of FY27. So that's where we stood on April 11th. Can we pause for questions? I've got one.

Can you talk about the CIP reduction as well? Because I feel like we kind of did that, and we haven't really talked about it since, but just like, make sure my assumption is correct. It's like the— we set direction that we were going to let that funding come down naturally. Yes, based on the exemptions, which we were estimating at the time to be $4.4 million less. Is that right?

And CIP spending. And so that is— those are one-time CIP projects that we identified, but it is kind of an ongoing— that the manager cut based on our direction. It is ongoing in that next year that's $4.4 million less in CIP unless we do something differently. Is that a correct way to talk about that, what we have done with our CIP and sales tax. Thank you, Chair Wall.

Yes, that's exactly correct. So our 3% sales tax— well, so our sales tax is 5%, right? 1% Is permanent, it just goes to operating. 3% Has a divvy between CIP and operating, and then the temporary 1% is exclusively one-time CIP-ish. And so with the new exemptions, they lower all sales tax dollars.

And so yes, at the retreat, the direction was given to acknowledge some reduction in the maintenance but keep that largely whole, the regular ongoing maintenance that we do for, for JSD, for regular CBJ buildings for parks and maintenance, um, to— and Eagle Crest is another one that gets regular funding into kind of a maintenance CIP. There were also some specific projects that the manager, um, had, you know, said we're just not going to move forward on these. And so, so those projects came out. So in the CIP resolution, it reflects that lesser amount by the $4.4 million. And we will have that if the numbers are all accurate.

We would have that same loss of revenues, a loss of use for CIP next year. So yeah, unless something's done differently with like the allocation of the 3% or how we want to approach the temporary 1% when that comes up next year, we'll have this, this ongoing issue.

Any other questions? All right, keep going. Okay, so because this was our manager's proposed budget perspective, and all of the decisions that are going on with this body impact this picture, I wanted to stick with this as our graphic. But this is really, really super busy. So I tried to take this and just be like, revenue, expenses, operating, and one-time.

And so that gets me to here. So our, um, and I also, um, instead of starting the bottom at zero, I started at $100 million just so we could see a little bit of the differences as changes are made. So we have operating revenue of $139.4 million, um, using the fund balance of $7.7 million, um, for operating, and our operating expenses of $147.1 million. Both one-time use of fund balance and one-time expenses are $2.6 million. So this is exactly the same graphic that we just looked at, just highly simplified.

So no magic there.

So let's talk about the progress that we made. And so these are the, the corrected slides, um, because you fast-forwarded or you, uh, fast-tracked 4 sales tax exemptions to be introduced at a special meeting and then to be up for public hearing and action on June 8th. And so part of the conversation was, want to be able to, you know, take into account what happens with those may affect your future decisions. And so while there's not real full credit for that $400,000, I did want to, like, acknowledge that there's $400,000 there. That, um, you potentially could be getting in revenue, um, with the passage of those.

And that, um, 2 of the 4, we don't have really good estimates on those amounts. Madam Mayor, first of all, you guys are in real bad trouble because I have a voice back. Um, second of all, I think you anticipated my question, Director Flick. I was going to ask you if there was an estimate of if we, uh, did the sales tax exemption up to $30,000. But I'm assuming, because you didn't put estimates in, because I know you don't like to guess, it's not there.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Um, where we have some data that we can do an estimate on, I'm happy to make an estimate with tons of caveats. Um, the problem with estimating a change in the sales tax cap is that we don't get data on how many transactions make up the sales. And so if, if we are going to collect, if a sale is actually $30,000 exactly, we would catch $750 more in revenue, the difference between $15,000 and $30,000. But we don't know of somebody's total sales that were exempt how many transactions were in there.

So we don't, I, we could just put a whole bunch of numbers in a hat and pull it out. It, um, there's not a really good way for us to estimate that at all. We know it's bigger than zero, um, but that's, that's about all, all we can do on that estimate. Um, um, Director Flick, I want to make sure I'm crystal as we move through these, especially with the correction. So Of the ordinances that we fast-tracked because we looked at, or, you know, we had some that were like, let's look at those right away, sales versus property.

So this captures explicitly the— could you just say so? I'm—. Those 4. Yep.

You bet. Sorry, Director Flick.

And you could say generally, you don't have to say the— I certainly— they didn't have ordinance numbers. So it is the exemption for the agent commission where it's like the multilevel marketing for the— you also did the property tax for historic repairs, but that doesn't have an impact right away. And then the elimination of the $30 compensation for the online filing, and that was $170,000. And then also, I think the, the travel— I thought the travel agent one went through, and that was like $300,000. Yes.

And the single item sales cap. Yes. Sorry, we were looking at the wrong part of the agenda.

Can I do that again? Yes, please. Retake. Here's the 4. Sales tax cap.

We don't have an estimate on that. The geographic parameters of the cruise ship sales. We also don't have an estimate on that. The exemption of commission charged by agents of travel, lodging, and tours. Um, that's the close to $300,000, and then the repeal of the sales tax compensatory collection amount, that's the $30 for online filing, that's the $170.

Okay, thank you. Yes.

So, yeah, in the first draft I gave you credit also for the nonprofits and governmental, um, change, and that's $2.4 million, and that made me really sad to pull that back, but, um, That one didn't get fast-tracked, so I needed to pull it back out of these, these presentations. So, um, the— I'm gonna, I'm gonna move over to the expense side. Some of the changes that have been made to the operating budget— you approved increased funding for the emergency sheltering to make that annual, and also for the public defender's contract. And so that added $700,000 of expense. And so our use of fund balance went from $7.7 $7.7 million up to $8 million.

So if we did the math, $7.7 million plus the $700,000 for the increase on operating expenses, but get the 0.4 credit for the sales tax items that you're going to take action on before you pass the budget.

With all of these changes, your current projected ending fund balance, and that includes, as we've been looking at with your, your fund balance report every week, items that I don't think any of them were left pending. I think they all got approved on Monday night. Um, right now our projected ending fund balance is a negative $1.7 million. So if all 4 of— or if, if the sales tax ordinances pass that you have fast-tracked, we know that's about $400,000 at least. That would take you to a negative $1.3 million.

Um, and it's likely gonna— you're likely gonna get more revenue. We just don't have an estimate on, on those.

So, questions here before I move on?

I'm going to restate it. I think I'm clear. This has been really helpful, but if, if we were to not take action on any of the pending list items, and move forward the sales tax ordinances, we'd be looking at an operating deficit of $8 million. That is correct. Okay, thanks.

All right, keep going. Okay.

I know I get asked the question. So what if we do this? And what if we do that? So I have 2 absolutely hypothetical, highly unlikely scenarios for you. One is if you approve all of the items on your pending list, and where there's ranges, if you approve them all at the low end of the range, you would take your use of the operating fund balance from $8 million down to $6.9 million.

You also have one-time things in there, so your, um, your Fund balance would increase if you simply chose not to do some of those one-time things, so you're not spending, um, fund balance on it. Um, you would end up with a projected fund balance of $4.5 million. With the sales tax, that'd be $4.9 million with those items if you approve them. On the equally unlikely end of the spectrum is if you were to approve everything on your pending list and every item got approved at the high level. You would go from $8 million of fund balance use down to $4.5 million of fund balance use, and you would have a projected ending fund balance of $6.9 million.

So, um, do I think that either scenario is likely to happen? My experience would say no, but that's kind of, you know, bookending that hypothetical realm, if you will.

Any questions on that before we go?

Mr. Brooks. Thank you, Madam Chair. And on the, uh, the, um, first of that, uh, updating the gap in progress slide, the negative $1.7 million, uh, fund balance, is that factoring in the payment to get out of the RSA for Gold Belt? Yes, um, in your, in your packet you've got your fund balance, um, page 50, 51 of 51, um, on the original packet, and it includes, um, it includes the emergency sheltering services that were, was done earlier for the rest of this fiscal year. It includes the View Drive buyout that you passed passed on Monday, the summer child care program that was passed Monday, and the $9.5 million for the Gold Belt RSA.

It also, um, just because it's been talked about, includes, um, an airport ARFF rebate of $162,000. That's not even been talked about yet in this body, but since it came up in one of the meetings, we've just included that as potential things. Thank you. It also includes the Subsidy to Eagle Crest that was approved, the $751,000.

Okay, are we good to move on? Mr. Smith, just since we're talking about fund balance, um, can we pass a budget that has a negative general or a negative unrestricted general government fund balance?

Um, I think the appropriate answer is the assembly can do whatever it wants. Um, no, um, would be what I would tell you as your finance director. Um, I will say these are projected, um, so there is, there is a lot at play. You do have, um, restricted budget reserve, which you really shouldn't be using. Um, but no, you should You should be projected to be at zero at worst-case scenario.

And then just to follow up, say we project, you know, say we on the 8th, we pass a budget with something with a positive fund balance, and then we get an update mid-year. Anyway, like, we may need to course correct so we don't, you know, aren't looking to have a zero— thank you, Deputy. Yeah, thank you for the question. I think course correction either way, right? So if you decide to pull something, I'm just going to make something up.

You decide, hey, I don't want to do this, take the CIP project off the list right now, let that fall to fund balance. And then we get on further in the year and things are going better than we thought, or, you know, something changes to the positive and now you have the ability to add it back in. You could do that. Likewise, if we, you know, find out we're in a worse place than we expected, we're going to have to come back and have that discussion sooner than later.

I'll ask a question. Do you have professional— we, you know, we have talked about having a fund balance policy. We have not, you know, been able to have, haven't had the capacity to, to do that. We have— this is the first time I've been here where we are, you know, in below where we would like to be. Usually we're thinking about how much we can spend.

And do you have professional guidance on what in an ideal world not ours, a budget of our size and the world being what it is in uncertainty, what you would want the fund balance to be? Um, that is a great question. So, um, I'm going to take it in two parts. So your restricted budget reserve is intended to be that, that safety net, if you will, for when all things go sideways and you need to run the government for a while until you can make hard course corrections. Um, and so, um, that is close to being fully funded.

It is not, um, right now. I can just get to the last page of my packet again. Um, you should have $24 million in your restricted budget reserve, and you're looking at a balance of $20 right now. So that, that gives some safety net if the world goes sideways. Now, we shouldn't be using that to just do stuff that we want to do, right?

So that really is intended to be emergency in nature when used, to have a way to pay back, all of those good things. For the other part of your question, I went back and I looked at the use of one-time funds that we've done over the last 2 to 3 years. And, um, you know, I, I think my predecessor and the prior city manager had had some conversation with the assembly at the time and suggested— I can't remember— $5 or $7 million maybe as a fund balance. And that was based on kind of the spending and the projects that the assembly liked to do. When I went back and looked over the last 3 years, um, I would— if I were making a recommendation based on your past to predict your future, I would say you would want $11 to $12 million in your fund balance.

Things have changed a little bit. There were some significant general fund dollars that went to support the school district when it was in need. There's been significant one-time dollars that have gone to flood fighting, and then there have been other community priorities that, that the body has decided to fund. And so, you know, based on that kind of a perspective of how the body has approached spending in the past, That would be the kind of fund balance that I would suggest that you have if you want to continue doing that kind of funding. I think the real pressing concern that's going to be hard to get around would be flood fighting as we move forward, and that's just going to be a tricky one to deal with.

All right, let's keep rolling. You've got updated sales tax numbers for us. Thank you for all the work that it probably took to get these to us today. Thank you. Yes, and thanks.

I have nothing to take credit for. I am simply sharing the work of our sales tax team and our budget team as we cull through numbers. So things have been keeping me up at night is how well we've been doing on estimating our sales tax revenue loss. This is a slide again you saw back in April. Um, we had our, our budget for FY26 at $70 million of sales tax, um, revenue.

We were seeing soft, soft revenue the first half of the year in sales tax, so we brought our forecast down to $67.3. Um, based on a half a year worth of exemptions, we thought we'd actually end up at $61. So from $70 to $61, you guys remember that $9 million drop.

This is broken out by quarter, so it's the same information, just a little bit different look. We, I'll just go to the bottom, big reveal. So we anticipated that we would have $2.7 million of lost sales tax revenue from the food and utility exemption that was enacted in October. We have realized $2.3 million. So a couple things about that.

First, cautionary tales. There are a couple merchants that didn't report any exemptions, and we would have expected them to based on what we know about their business. And so there's some follow-up to do. You know, as with any new thing, there's implementation parts all across the chain of events. So That may be a little low.

I am actually fairly relieved that we were in the ballpark with our estimate and that our estimate show was for a bigger loss than we're experiencing. So all of that to say, as far as the exemptions go, we're right in the ballpark. I don't think that we can change our path going forward. You need two dots to draw a line. We only have one dot, so more information to come, we know that, but for our one dot, it feels pretty decent where we are.

But also, we collected more sales tax this quarter than we thought we would because we're actually right at budget, which did not include the exemption. So we're about $2.3 million more in sales tax than we anticipated. This is January through March.

There's not a particular driver that we've been able to identify other than, you know, inflation and, you know, when people could dig out of their place in January, maybe they went and bought more goods and stuff just to stock up in case they had another snowmageddon, which we did. It's hard to say like what kind of drove it. Like I said, we didn't see one particular industry, but I think we're all feeling inflation. Everything's costing more, which means that the sales tax associated with that is also more. So again, something we're going to be watching.

I think this next quarter is going to also just be very telling. You know, inflation is high. We are also in our tourist season and our snowbird season. And so how, how does that increase volume, affect purchases, and what's actually exempt under the food that, you know, or not? There's, there's just a lot of things I think we'll learn again in this quarter.

But that's where we are, and I'm happy to take questions. All—. They don't have a ton of answers. Mr. Brooks, then Mr. Steiner. Thank you, Madam Chair.

And, you know, if you don't, you know, don't worry about giving a super exact answer, but just kind of a rough idea, um, over the last few years, you know, what are the trends of the spending habits of the community and the summer season? Are, are we trending up on an average? Are we dropping off? Like, are are people spending more, spending less, and, uh, is it a substantial difference to past years?

Uh, thank you for the question, Mr. Brooks. Um, in your budget book, there is a great graph in the back.

You have it. Oh.

Um, in general, um, you know, we had— we came out of COVID and had some pretty wild spending, um, and it's come down the last 2 years. Just looking at kind of where our actuals are, this is on DOC page 7 if you're in your budget book towards the back. There's a graph. Is that just from 2005 to current year projected? Those 2018 to the 2027 budget.

Thank Mr. Steininger, then Ms. Yaskandis and Mr. Smith. All right, and this might be a little bit of a rabbit trail, so maybe just something to come back for more information. But as I think about, you know, kind of the implication that we might have some food and utility vendors that are mistakenly applying sales tax purchases. You know, if that— you know, I know you haven't figured out if that's true or not.

I'm curious kind of what happens with that money that's been collected. Do we still retain that as sales tax income because it was, you know, collected from that individual as sales tax? Is there— how does that work, I guess, if somebody incorrectly applies sales tax? That's a great question. So there's There's a variety of situations that can occur.

The first thing we do is we reach out to the vendor and, and like start with, are your sales correct? And what did you collect? And, you know, you know, just kind of working through, did you, did you just misreport exemptions? Did you report exemptions in a weird place? Did you in your mind take out the exemptions from your sales?

And so you'd need to like report more sales and then report the exemption and the sales tax is actually correct. So it's hard to say what's going on in, in the, in these vendors' cases. We're just reaching out to figure out, like, are they appropriately exempting things and do they, do they need to actually do that? So did they, did the vendor collect more sales tax and remit more sales tax than they should have? Or, you know, kind of what's going on.

So lots of questions. I don't suspect that there's one answer for each vendor or for all vendors.

So specifically, if it were a situation where they collected and remitted more than they're supposed to because goods that shouldn't have had sales tax applied had sales tax applied, what happens then? That's a great question. I don't know for sure. It likely would depend on the vendor if they can identify it. If they're a small, a small shop and they know exactly who they charged and they have the ability to go back and redo that, then they probably do.

If it's, think of a Safeway or a Fred Meyer or Costco, like they're not going to go back and track down those customers or even have the ability to do that on those days. So it would just be, they would correct their actions going forward and the sales tax would just stand as remitted.

You have a, an answer? Yeah, just to add for context, if someone did pay sales tax that they weren't supposed to to the city and then found out, they can do an amendment within a year or two. And then get reimbursed for that and in turn return it into the customers, if that's how they say. But if we have collected money already, it can still be given back through amendments on sales tax.

Miss Hughes-Giandese. Thanks, Madam Chair. Miss Flick, I'm probably going to ask all night, is this what I— what you said? I think that's what you said. So, just warning you of that.

So we anticipated 2.7 of a reduction, but in reality it was a 2.3 reduction. So the did they make a mistake, is it inflation, is that 0.4, which feels kind of good because it's close. Is that right, or—. Okay, so, um, The, the estimate of revenue loss at $2.7 million and it actually being $2.3 million claimed in exemptions. That $0.4 million difference is just the reality from our estimate.

So we're close on our estimate of revenue loss because of the exemption.

We overestimated the loss by $400,000. But also outside of that, sales were higher. The sales were higher by $2.3 million because we came in at revenue equal to our budget. Follow up. Okay, so that's, that's that delta, but all of it is happening above where we thought.

That's correct. Okay, thank you, Mr. Smith. I'll ask just one last follow-up on that. So like, we can't— we can tell exactly how much is being exempt, and so we can separate the reduction from the exemptions versus reductions or increases from soft or aggressive sales?

That's correct, Chair Wall. So when merchants report exemptions, they have to report it by which exemption is it. And so we have an exemption code for the food We have an exemption code for the utilities, and so we can see what merchants are actually claiming for those compared to our estimate. And then we can look and say, oh, but we, we collected revenue up to our budget. That means overall we had bigger sales tax even though we did have a $2.3 million reduction for the exemptions.

Anything? Do you have more slides? No. Any other questions on any of this?

Mr. Smith. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, this probably be— anyway, it, it may not be a fair question to ask, but as we're working on our budget and then looking into FY28, um, maybe we should focus on this one. But I, anyway, I am, I am curious on increasing costs in other ways and how, you know, a deficit may continue to grow if the tax base, if the, if tax collections stay the same. But maybe, maybe we can save that for next year or December.

But if you have anything you want to say—.

Thank you, uh, Deputy Mayor Smith. I will just say that, um, inflation is a double-edged sword. It creates additional revenue for the city through sales tax. It also means that it costs more to do the things that the city does.

Mr. Steiner.

I did want to pause before we jump to our next agenda item, which will be the, the bulk of our evening going through this pending list, just for the opportunity before we do that to maybe do a bit of reflection on where people are at. They've, they've— we started with some goals in December. To, you know, we knew that we weren't going to make up the full deficit this year. We were going to try to get some of it. We obviously want to preserve fund balance.

We all put together our own individual ideas on how to do that to $2 million. We have gone through a prioritization exercise to come to the list that is here. Um, I think it would be helpful to hear just speaking personally from some of my colleagues about as they go into the pending list conversation, what are, what are your goals now? What do you hope we come out with, you know, for fund balance or for operating reductions? You know, this has been hard.

Obviously we knew it was going to be hard. Um, maybe we won't. I can't imagine we're going to meet all of our, you know, exact goals, but I think it would be helpful for me if— I'm not going to put anyone on the spot, but if anyone wants to share what they're thinking about when, when we come out of this process, what they're hoping or we've done with the budget. And I'll look for a volunteer. Mayor Weldon?

I'll take the short straw so anybody else can do that. So I'm trying to do the job that we set ourselves up in the fall, so I'm looking for $2 million, so some of my cuts will seem harsh, but I'm also looking at them in service reductions. I'm not looking for them from the manager's budget. And so you're— I'll talk to those when those times come, but we're actually looking at service reduction. So like I said, some of them are going to seem really harsh, but I'm trying to come up with $2 million in reductions.

I would be much more comfortable with a larger fund balance, but I think coming out of tonight Um, with our deficit in place, with $5 million is kind of what I'm aiming for in our fund balance.

Mr. Smith. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, I, having heard now that we can't pass a budget with a negative fund balance, so, um, I wasn't planning on doing that anyway, but, um, Amy, um, Aiming to have some amount. I don't know if we're gonna get to, you know, anyway, 5-ish, 5-ish sounds good to me. I'm— we also, you know, there were ballot measures that have impacts, and you can, you know, question if everyone who voted and every day which way wanted cut the budget, cut the budget.

We have less revenue. You are, you know, our fund balance is currently negative, projected currently negative. Things can and will change. I mean, the budget does not end until 13 months away, and in that are, you know, risky events that, you know, we may need funds for. I'm also trying to make some operating reductions.

I, I don't know if I'm going to get to 2. We'll see how I do. I'm hoping to make some operating reductions, put some money in the fund balance, but I'm also hoping to not in most cases do— I don't say irreversible damage, but like, you know, totally wiping out a a thing. There may be some of those, but that's, that's not what my intent is. And, you know, we, we kind of, um, we didn't do that to a facility.

Um, I'm hoping we can get to a fund balance with some reductions, but without, you know, essentially closing down a thing or ending the services that some of these things provide. Or doing, you know, such harm that there's just no way they, they can continue. So those are kind of some of my principles. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Brooks.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, my, my intentions with this has always been to, you know, try and accomplish the most, uh, through the least amount of things. Um, I really wanted to see the majority of the work being done through the foregone revenues and grants before looking at the closure of recreating facilities and things that are available to the public as a whole.

And, you know, I've mentioned the landscaping and travel and training. It's not that I don't value those things, It's just that I— the— for the prioritization, I want the facilities that are available to everyone in the community before those specific things. I know that some of them do play into the benefits that are available to the whole community, but, um, it wasn't, you know, until more recently that we even had outreach of people looking to support the, the landscaping budget. In the same way that people have been reaching out about the recreating facilities. The grants, you know, a lot of great work is done through the grants, but over the years there's been a number of things that have happened that have left a lot to be desired through those.

The grants I see as a, as something that you do when you're in good financial standing and you have the expendable income and, um, now we're not currently in that position. So that's why those were some of my first considerations, and I see those as things that even if we completely did away with one, like I personally suggested completely doing away with the JEDC grant, and it's like those things are a lot easier to reestablish than it is to reestablish a recreating facility that's been closed. Uh, and the amount of resources associated with, uh, eliminating that aren't nearly as impactful as the resources that are required to close a recreational facility or a CBJ facility. So my intention has always been to try and do the most without impacting things that, um, that is available to the community as a whole that plays into the health and safety of the community. But also I have been vocal too about not being a huge fan of increasing or creating new taxes too.

And so there, there, there definitely is, you know, avenues where we'll be, we'll, where we will be discussing that. But, you know, I'm, I'm very supportive of the facilities that we have, and I, I, I think that we have more than enough here to do what we need to do without really getting into, into those specifically just yet. Thank you. Ms. Hughes-Scandius. Thanks, Madam Chair, and thanks for— this is helpful to me as well, uh, just thinking about how we're all approaching this.

I think it's super useful for me Seeing our financial position and seeing the sales tax, I appreciate the hustle to show the latest there because that informs my decisions in a large way. I think homework can change. I definitely set out, you know, when we made our rules at the beginning, our principles I, I didn't— I was, uh, at the time struggling to articulate, like, if we can't come up between the 9 of us, if we can't find 5 votes to do something, let's take a deep breath and try another permutation. And all day today I've been running different number sets trying to think, oh, maybe they won't go for that, and maybe this person will vote against that, uh, what would be kind of something that I feel like I could live with, that the community could live with, that kind of accomplishes the goals we need to. I think that the entire time that I've been on the assembly, we've seen some crazy events that called for fund balance, you know, a pandemic, the school needing a bailout, um, of the Gloff.

And so I don't want to leave us in a position where we are just, you know, just above zero in terms of fund balance. So that is something that I'll be thinking about, is, uh, where does this leave our fund balance, um, and is the operating, uh, are we on track to be correcting our operating expenses to match our operating revenues?

Just as an outgrowth of the ballot initiatives and the real, the real change that makes. That being said, I don't— as much as possible, I also am interested in not sticking a knife in something to where it can't be repaired after the fact. I think this will be super important in the next year. Uh, as Mr. Smith noted earlier, that after the budget is passed, it'll be really behoove us to keep looking at our latest up-to-date numbers and making course corrections. So if we can put things back in, putting things back in.

Um, but the real other piece of that for me is the foregone revenue, because when I look at this entire list and I look at the potential for revenue from the ordinances that we looked at, there is some potential there that we wouldn't need to do this exercise, um, if we took things all the way. And I know that's a conversation we'll have later, that's not the conversation we'll have tonight, um, but to me they're intertwined in my mind because if we make a bunch of kind of the hypothetical at the highest value, or let's say we had closed a bunch of facilities needlessly and inflation, you know, adjust that, I would say that would be the worst outcome. I would not want us to do something that we can't undo. Um, and then I think finally I'll say, um, I echo the mayor in that, you know, I think some of my cuts will seem harsh because I'm looking to in large part informed by the budget outreach that we did with the community, to take larger hits out of a smaller number of items rather than to take secondary bites on the budget that's already had its assumptions and cuts made to it. Uh, and that kind of goes towards that principle of, if we're going to do something, I want us be able to do it adequately and not do it poorly.

So I think that's where I'm at.

Miss Hall? Yeah, um, I'm a bit of, uh, but yeah, I, I am looking at one-time cuts to kind of get us through until we do have a better picture. There's a lot that's apt to change in the next several months, and I think without that knowledge, it seems premature to be cutting programs, reducing services. So I would really like to hold off on that. And I'm specifically looking at like the Lemon Creek Multimodal and the Gaston Avenue widening and turnaround, you know, things that are one-time in nature that can buy us a little more time till we have a better picture, knowing full well that if, if, um, We continue to, you know, if the ballot measures that are being proposed this fall don't pass and, and we, you know, this big hole is there, we will be coming back next year for the really difficult conversations that everyone has had the opportunity to hear about and weigh in on this year.

So I, yeah, that's where I am. One-time cuts and, and the foregone revenue conversation as well.

Mr. Steininger, thank you. And I don't have a lot to add that hasn't been said. You know, I do— you know, when we had our discussion last week and talked about the recreational facilities and, you know, didn't put those on the pending list for discussion tonight, you know, my thinking there was those are implications of, you know, what passed last October that I think a lot of people weren't necessarily understanding. And we've had the community kind of, you know, slower than we did because we're so, you know, steeped and versed in the city budget and in what we do here, you know, start to realize the implications of what we're discussing. And, you know, putting those types of decisions off that are very, you know, hard to come back from, you know, Deputy Mayor Smith made the mention of, you know, you know, taking a short-term cut that you might not be able to recover from later, you know, maybe sticking the knife in too deep or something along those lines.

And I think going to warm status for some of those facilities, you lay off a bunch of people and you can't bring them back. And so that's what I was thinking about there. They are decisions we will have to make if we can't make other changes related to revenue. So I've put, as previous speakers have said a lot, I have a lot of hope in our ability to work through some of the revenue discussions that we put on the slower track and get some of those things done. I know the charts that Director Flick showed us earlier have very small impacts from our foregone revenue conversation, but I know there are some larger ones that we put on that slower track that we still need to have those conversations about, and I'm optimistic that we will come to some kind of positive conclusion on those, that brings in, you know, more revenue to CBJ, and that's something in the back of my mind as I'm looking at these things.

But again, you know, some of these reductions that we'll make will be more than I want, or I would in any other scenario want to make to a given grantee or a city department. But that, that's reality that we're facing now. We need to make up some of that difference because we can't have a negative fund balance at the end of the year. We need a little bit of a cushion because, you know, we have flooding homes and all of those things that we're going to have to deal with. But I do have faith that, you know, as we have those discussions about revenue, as we've had discussions, as I've talked to some of these grantees, you know, every one of them has said, yeah, that's gonna— that would hurt, but it's something that we can figure out and work through and be part of the team to try and find a solution for our community.

You know, of course, all of them with the hope that at some point in the future the community, you know, comes back to prioritize some of those things that we do that make life in Juneau worth living.

Mr. Kelly.

Thank you. I think I find some agreement in what most, most people have, have already spoken. I guess that's one of the benefits of being one of the last people to speak. Um, especially, I think I find myself most closely aligned with, with Ms. Hall and her philosophy. I see a potential— I see opportunities for us.

I want to make sure that we're not closing any doors that we can't reopen again. I, I would like to see what our, what our future looks like after our discussions with the foregone revenue. It's also— it was also covered a couple weeks ago that something like the sale of the Mount Jumbo Gym, that would actually not be included in our budget, but that would add to our fund balance. There are the ballot propositions that are out for signatures right now. The seasonal sales tax, it's my understanding from speaking with Director Flick, would bring in $3 million this fiscal year and $6.8 million annually.

Of course, I can't count on any of that, and so I think I want to, to do, to make a minimal amount of impact on things when I don't know what our revenue picture is going to be. But I also want to be fiscally prudent, and so I, I will be looking for budget cuts that will minimize our impact, especially permanent impacts.

Ms. Atkinson, not trying to put you on the spot, but because you're the only one who we haven't heard from, just curious if you would like a moment before I jump in. I'm actually all good. I think Alicia spoke to my stance pretty well. Thank you. Um, yeah, I don't, I don't have a whole lot to add.

Um, I, I do think I'm more in, in the same camp as the mayor and Miss Youskandis in terms of needing to make some harsh decisions tonight that will ensure we have some fund balance to deal with the uncertainty ahead, as well as just the reality of looking at that operating deficit. I, I know that Um, you know, we have been— the assembly has been conservative for many years, so we have had savings that can help us weather the storm, but I'm not sure we have begun to actually truly understand what the size of that deficit is. I mean, um, we mean the community. When we put together the list that that, um, we heard so much about from the community, that was a list of how to make up a $2 million deficit. We are looking at an $8 million deficit, and I, um, shudder to think what the list would have looked like had we done that exercise that, um, whoever is in these seats next year will have, have to do to get to that.

I appreciate the optimism about valid initiatives that could change our financial position, and, and I'm happy to see those. But, but as the person sitting up here, the voters just voted for the opposite of those two things. And so I, I will not be making decisions about, um, you know, hoping that that changes. I will expect that not to change, and if it does, I'll be very happy for my community. And then one other thing, Missy Scandies mentioned it, but, you know, when we talked about the getting rid of the cap on single items for sales tax, you know, I said I was on the fence.

Um, and as I've been looking at these cuts and our financial position and the really hard decisions we're going to have to make tonight, I don't know why we wouldn't um, look at that source for revenue right now. It would, it would save a lot of things that are really important to our community. Normally I don't like jumping into policy decisions that significant without a lot of work and time and effort, but if it's going to, um, change the game for this conversation, then, then I'm, I'm interested in it. So I know we won't be talking about that tonight, but And I'll make hard decisions tonight, but I will be making a case on June 8th that we, um, do something different on the revenue side so that we can reverse all of the hard decisions that we're going to make tonight. Okay.

Um, do people want to break before we jump into the pending list? Should we start rolling? See the All right. Do you want to get a little of this? Take a break.

We can take a bite. Yep. Yep. Okay. Everyone's like looking at each other.

So again, there are, as normal, lots of ways that we can make these decisions, but how we have structured this list is we broke it into two different categories here. At the top box are your operating budget items, and at the bottom are your one-time. Those are ordered from big to little, both of them. The idea was to start with the operating reductions, knowing that, that, that those were our goals to reduce those, and knowing that the operating— sorry, the one-time Expenses are meant to kind of fill in the hole if we, um, can't get there making our operating cuts. So I'm going to have the mayor go through this list and start us with a motion, and she can object if she doesn't like it, and where you can amend as you like, um, and we'll see what we can get through.

And we can always go back up to the top because we know these are related to each other. A decision that we make earlier in the night may change what we make tonight. Um, one more— oh, let me say one more thing and then you can ask a question. The other thing, and I know you all know this, but for the public listening, these are not final decisions. What we are trying to do tonight is come to a holistic budget that we can pass to the full assembly so that the public can get one more opportunity to give us feedback on it.

And nothing is set in stone until we vote as a full assembly on, on June 8th. Okay, Madam Mayor, do you have a question? I was wondering if the finance staff somehow could have this give us a running total of where we are and things as we make changes. You bet, we are set up to do that, Madam Mayor. You guys are rock stars.

Mr. Kelly, thank you. I just want to get clarification on something I thought I heard you say. You were saying that if we make a decision, we get further down the list, we can go back up and change a decision we'd already made. Did I hear that correctly? Well, you can make a new amendment, so I, I don't think, um, if you want to change a motion, you'd have to suspend the rules.

But let's say we made a cut at a certain level And after getting through the list, people decide they want to make a cut at a different level, you could make that motion because this is going to be iterative. Does that make sense? It does. Thank you. And again, I'll make the Robert's Rule reminder that Robert's Rules are here for our use, and if we have 5 people who want to do something, we can find a way to make sure those 5 people can do it, even if we have to suspend the rules to, to do that.

Madam Mayor, you want to get us started? Uh, certainly. So item number 1, I move that we cut Travel Jinho at $700,000 for one time. And if I may speak to that, um, I know we have, uh, Ms. Perry and Ms. Hutchinson in the audience from Travel Jinho, and I know this pretty much mothballs Travel Jinho for— and that's why I'm doing it at one time. Um, I'm just going by what our surveys said and the fact that I'm hoping that we can find a way to, um, peel some of that back from marine passenger fees.

All right, we have a motion. Do we have objection? Mr. Brooks. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'd like to object for the purpose of amendment.

I would like to, um, reduce the amount by $400,000 recurring. Um, I expect we will get into this problem a few times tonight, so maybe, um, if you could speak to what you're reducing— if instead of reducing— let's— there's different— let me Clear. Can you clarify your motion? If you could speak to the reduction from Travel Juno's budget that you would like to see, as opposed to the reduction from what the mayor had. Does that make sense?

Uh, I would like to see a reduction in the grant awarded to Travel Juno by $400,000 on a recurring basis.

Oh, sorry, sorry, never mind. Yep, yep, yep.

Great. Any objections to that amendment? Mayor Weldon? I appreciate that. I just don't think it's high enough.

Miss Youskandis? Thanks, Madam Chair. Yep, I would second with the mayor. This is one where it was in the community budget survey, and I I think in terms of where we need to find larger numbers, this is a good place to find it.

Miss Hall. Objection for the purpose of the question to the maker. And so you're saying that this is something we might be able to have funded through marine passenger fees? Are they also receiving marine passenger fee funding? Already.

Um, I can answer part of that and I can't answer the other one. Yes, they are receiving marine passenger fees. Let me get my book out and Ms. Wendell will save me if I can't do it. Um, so hotel bed packs, they get $1,267,000-ish. Marine passenger fee, they get $614,000-ish.

I'm just rounding up. For crossing guards, $312,000. For visitor Center or visitor assistance and TBMP, but it's $47,000. So where this hit would happen is the hotel bed tax. So you would reduce it down to just shy of $600,000.

And the answer of the marine passenger fee, I don't know. They will have to be creative with that. So I could give you a number on that.

Mr. Kelly. Thank you. I think this would be a question for staff, probably the attorney, or it could be Ms. Flick. Are there any restrictions on what the funding source, the hotel bed tax, could be used for if we did make this cut? We spend it on anything else in the general fund.

Uh, thank you for that question, Mr. Kelly. Um, if, if you all decide to make a reduction, um, here through the hotel bed tax, You have a resolution right now that directs how we budget the hotel bed tax. Um, you could follow up, just hypothetically, you approve something here, you would want to follow up with a motion to direct that hotel bed tax to the general fund. Um, and then we would work with, um, Law to draft the appropriate resolution. To include on June 8th, just not codifying because it's not really code, but memorializing that direction for this budget.

Mr. Steininger, I guess question for the maker of the original motion. So I guess should we be confined to talking about the amendment, or are we Just kind of throwing some of those. We should be confined to the amendment for now. I mean, if I think there's often related— if it impacts your decision, then you can ask it. Yeah, actually it does on the amendment.

Yeah, yeah, it does impact— it impacts my decision, I guess, sort of. So I guess the question, Madam Mayor, You spoke to replace— potentially replacing some of this funding with marine passenger fees. Is it your intention to put forward another amendment later to our marine passenger fee budget, or is that a next year's marine passenger fee budget concept? I believe it would probably be next year's marine passenger fees because I'm not sure exactly the status of our marine passenger fees, if it's set in stone or Ms. or Director Pierce has the ability to flex it a little bit.

Mr. Smith. Thank you, Madam Chair. Object for the purpose of a question, I guess, to you. On our list here, you know, many are CBJ agencies and things. We also, of course, have grantees, and we do not, you know, our staff do not have experience in those grants and those budgets.

Would we be able to hear from Travel Juno on impacts to these level of, of maybe both the original amendment as well as the proposed— excuse me, the original motion as well as the proposed amendment? I mean, my position would be we're making hard decisions, and if people need answers from our, um, our partner agencies to make those decisions, I'm happy to welcome them up. Um, I know that is not always how we do things, given we didn't give the partners a heads up and, um, or other things. So I can be challenged, um, if people don't like that, but that's my opinion, is that I'd like people to be informed tonight, but only if people have actual questions that is going to change their vote. I I do not know Travel Juno budget well enough to know what a $700,000 cut does in one year.

I don't know what it— what the impact of a $400,000 cut is. I feel like I do see, at least for my grantees, at least 3 of the 4 here, and the 4th was given a heads up but was unable to make it. But so I would like to, with the will of the body, be able to hear from Travel Juno impacts of this cut. Of these proposed reductions. Excuse me.

Um, anyone object to that? Ms. Hughes-Scandies? I'll object just to say that I feel like we knew this was where we were ahead, potentially where we were headed when we did the partner agencies earlier in the year. That said, I always like You know, I, I know sometimes I want an extra minute or an extra at ease or time to talk to staff, so I certainly can be flexible to the will of the body. I'll remove this objection, but if it starts becoming a longer evening, I think these are just going to be kind of impossible cuts.

And I can sort of guess without talking to Ms. Perry that not good is what most of the partners will have to say. But with that, I'll remove my objection because if it'll influence your decision—. Miss Perry, would you like to join us for some questions?

Mr. Smith, I assume you have a question. Yes. Um, And Miss Perry, thanks for being here and realizing we obviously have a lot of decisions ahead of us, um, appreciate brevity but also giving us an understanding of, of the impacts. There are two proposed reductions to your budget. One's at $700,000, one is at $400,000.

Could you briefly speak to the impacts those would have on your operations in FY27? Yes, uh, thank you for the question, Mr. Smith, through the chair. Uh, when we originally started, uh, these discussions back in late December and early January, and when I made my presentation to the AFC in January, a 30% cut was what we were presented. So, um, I planned a Plan B budget based on that 30% alongside the original amount, uh, with the other reductions that have shown up in the reduction sheet that went up to 37%, uh, that amount is doable. It's—.

It will be very tough. We will have to roll back a lot of our, um, our, you know, our programming. I would say that anything above that 37% is going to be, um, it's going to set Travel Juneau and Juneau itself behind at least a market cycle because we will not be in the marketplace. It will take us completely out of the visitor industry marketplace. No trade shows, no association dues, which will lock us out of marketing.

I know that there is some will among this body for us to focus only on visitor information services and TBMP and those management programs, but I can tell you that City and Borough of Juneau will lose FIT and they will lose meetings if we cannot stay in the marketplace. And that level of reduction takes us out of the marketplace probably for 2 to 3 years. Restarting that level of marketing after that drastic a cut will take time, effort. It will take staff. I, you know, you can only imagine what this will do to my small staff as well.

With that, I'll remove my objection and support the level of, um, Mr. Brooks's cut, which is a little over 31%. Thank you, Madam. Thank you, Miss Perry. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll make sure before we get back to our, um, objections and motion making, maybe while Miss Perry's here, um, any other questions for Miss Perry before we continue our business?

Miss Hall? Sure, thank you, and thank you, Miss Perry, for being here. Um, with the marketing, is that— I, I know that's kind of the independent traveler, and does that include wintertime? You know, can you speak briefly to your marketing for the winter? Certainly.

Thank you for the question, Ms. Hall. Through the chair, we do as much year-round marketing as we possibly can. You will note also that Travel Juno is responsible for promoting Eagle Crest through the economic development plan for the city. So that is one of the things we are charged to do with the city. So we do try to get as much wintertime visitation in as possible.

We hear from Eagle Crest regularly that they are seeing, you know, basically increasing amounts of people coming in for a quick weekend from the Pacific Northwest, and it is a great, you know, getaway spot for a long weekend.

All right, seeing no other questions, Miss Perry, thank you so much for being here. And answering our questions tonight and all the, all the many other questions we've been peppering you with. Okay, so we have a motion, we have an amendment, we have objection. Is anyone who wanted to speak to the amendment? Um, is there anyone who would like to speak who hasn't?

I will go ahead and speak, um, in opposition to The amendment, um, I believe strongly in what Travel Juno does. Um, I think making a cut of this size will be detrimental to our community. We know that marketing is always the first thing that gets cut, and then you see the results later down the line. We will see less money from hotel bed tax. As we reduce, um, Travel Juno's budget here.

But I, I did put forward $700,000 because that is what Travel Juno spends on destination marketing. And I think in our current budget climate this year, and certainly next year, we have to decide what we're not going to do anymore as a community. Those are the choices before us, and I don't want to do things not well. I want to do them the way they're supposed to be doing them. And when I look at the survey results, this is the thing that the community, um, wants us to spend less money on if we have to choose.

So I would rather eliminate that service of doing destination marketing. I know we will still get independent travelers here because we have a cruise industry that brings them to us. I know it won't be as many. Because I, I think what Travel Juno does is very important. So I'll be supporting the mayor's motion.

With that, Miss Wendell, you— we have a motion, we have an amendment.

Thank you, Chair Wall. On the amendment to the motion to reduce the Travel Juno Hotel Bed Tax grant in the amount of $400,000 on a recurring basis: Assemblymember Brooks. Yes. Mayor Weldon? No.

Assemblymember Smith? Yes. Assemblymember Kelly? Yes. Assemblymember Hall?

Yes. Assemblymember Atkisson? No.

Assemblymember Hughes-Scandies? No.

Assemblymember Steininger? Yes. Chair Wall. Yes.

Amendment passes 6 ayes, 3 nays. I voted wrong.

I got confused. What, what's the motion I make to undo my vote? You would like to move for immediate reconsideration? I move for immediate reconsideration. Just for the record, I know it doesn't change the outcome.

Uh, just so you know, you have to have 6 votes to do that. So, uh, yeah, don't know what object.

Um, Miss Wendell, will you do that again for us? Okay, yes, absolutely.

Assemblymember Brooks. Yes.

Mayor Weldon. No. Assemblymember Smith. Yes. Assemblymember Kelly.

Yes. Assemblymember Hall. Yes. Assemblymember Atkisson. No.

Assemblymember Hughes-Candies, no. Assemblymember Steininger, yes. Chair Wall, no. Amendment passes 5 ayes, 4 nays. Sorry about that, guys.

Hopefully that's the last time that I vote wrong. Um, that brings us back to the original motion as amended. Do we have objection?

Seeing none—. Miss Hughes-Andrees, I'll object just to— because I found the right page— say that I'm glad we'll still make some kind of reduction, but 62% of the community prioritized this as a cut. And with that, I'll remove my objection.

All right, any other objections? Seeing none, that is so moved. Madam Mayor, do you have a motion? Go ahead. Um, um, I just— I don't know what your next motion is, Madam Mayor, but, um, if there is a desire to redirect that $400,000—.

Okay, I'm just following up with the, uh, draft resolution that we need to draft. So, uh, Madam Attorney, do you need anything more than that? To draft the resolution concerning the bed tax, to move the— okay, so let's see here. We—. I, I draft, uh, I move the attorney draft a resolution to move, uh, $400,000 from hotel bed tax for Travel Gino and the rest of their Hotel bed tax to general fund.

I can't do the math in my head. We'll take it at ease.

Mayor, let me, let me redo my motion. Um, I move that we have the attorney draft a resolution to move $400,000 from hotel bed tax to the general fund. And she would also like to move that, um, $400,000 be transferred from hotel bed tax to the general fund as part of these discussions. Yes, recurring sounds like— or no, that didn't change, never mind.

Any objections?

It's, uh, I object just to say it might be good to restate it all at once, just for people following along at home, not to put anyone on the spot.

I don't know what you mean all at once, but I believe we just voted on the fact that, uh, we are eliminating $400,000 from Travel Gino's budget. Which is hotel bed tax. So we need a resolution to follow up to move that $400,000 hotel bed tax to the general fund per this discussion. Thank you, Madam Mayor. You're welcome.

Any objections? Seeing none, that it's so moved.

Madam Mayor, uh, and Ms. Wendell, can we see the tally up on the screen by any chance so we can kind of keep track, so I can keep Mr. Smith honest?

Anyway, my next, uh, motion, if you're ready, Madam Chair. I would move $75,000 from the landscape budget, and I will speak against it. I think these cuts were already made. These are not service reductions, there were cuts already made in the budget, and so these are real items, and they're not used just to beautify the city. Um, again, if people didn't know, our lovely flowers downtown are donated.

They're not from our budget. So this is mowing the cemetery, keeping our ball fields up to par. So I mean, I think the community came out in force about their recreational facilities, but we have to remember that many of our recreation facilities are outdoor. So, um, and I know a big chunk of this— I want to say $75,000 off the top of my head— is to help with trails. And since I use the trails, I know lots of people in general use the trails.

So, um, anyway, $75,000, but I'm objecting. Mr. Smith.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll also object for the purpose of a question. Mr. Barr, I've done a little digging into this budget item. My understanding is that there's a $75,000 contract to, like, brush trails through Trail Mix. And that's just the brushing.

That's not like boardwalks and other kind of maintenance and things. Is that correct? That's correct. I'll actually remove my objection and support the motion to eliminate— remove that by $75,000. We'll see where we are in December or November.

Maybe we could reinstitute so they could do them again, like, at the beginning of the— or at the end of the fiscal year if we reinstitute. But for now, I will, um, I will support a $75,000 reduction to, um— and that's, I guess, that's where I'd want it to go from the, from the number of options I've seen so far. That one, that one makes sense. Um, how do I How do I do— how can I do intent like that with this type of reduction?

Mr. Smith, I think the Assembly can do whatever it wants. I love it when you say that. Um, I'll amend the motion to specify that it is, um, to eliminate brushing of trails, um, again, in the contracts they're in or whatever. Um, thank you. We have an amendment.

Do we have objection to the amendment? Mayor Walden. Uh, thank you. I'll just speak briefly. Um, that's Trail Mix, and without that $75,000, I'm sure that would hurt them also.

So, um, like I said, I'm objecting to this whole thing, so I'll object to that too. Miss Yaskendiz. Thanks, Madam Chair. I'll speak briefly in support of the amendment. I spoke with Mr. Barr briefly before this meeting.

For some of these, that it's such a wide range, it's useful to know what would staff do or what information and discrete numbers the staff have. He informed me about the, uh, the very same, uh, contract that Mr. Smith just referenced, um, I do think it is important to remember the way our fiscal years go. That is something that could be revisited. I'm sure with all of these that they will hurt the partner in question, and I find all those partners to be valuable partners. Um, and even so, I find it my duty to look for cuts.

Uh, so I will support this, um, at this level.

Other comments? Um, I will speak in opposition to this, um, for the same reasons the mayor is, but also I feel like it's really not our job. I know we technically can direct where these cuts are coming from, but man, that is a slippery slope. I know from talking to Mr. Barr that this was what staff would propose for this level. So if it happens, that it happens, but I don't think it's good precedent for us to be making that level of decision-making tonight.

Thanks.

All right, we have a motion and we have an amendment, and we have objection to that amendment. Miss Wendell, will you call roll? Thank you. On the amendment to the motion to eliminate brushing of trails as part of the $75,000 reduction.

Assemblymember Smith. Yes. Mayor Weldon. No. Assemblymember Kelly.

Yes. Assemblymember Sinegar. No. Assemblymember Atkisson. Yes.

Assemblymember Hughes-Candies? Yes. Assemblymember Brooks? No.

Assemblymember Hall? No. Chair Wall? No. Amendment fails 4 ayes, 5 nays.

Mr. Smith? Thank you. Object for the purpose of a question. If we go forward with the $75,000 reduction, where would you anticipate eliminating the money from on landscape?

Thank you for the question, Mr. Smith. The first things we would, we would, at the staff level, look to eliminate out of this budget would be contracts with partners. Among those, this contract. Would be the first of those.

Thank you. I, I'll remove my objection. And, um, I also appreciate the reminder maybe of our role and the level of, you know, detail we should be getting into. So thank you for that, and kind of apologize for the previous amendment and forgetting my place. Thank you.

All right, we have a motion and we have objection. Uh, Mr. Brooks Do you have a comment? Oh, we— because we— but then, okay, okay, the mayor has an objection. So we no longer have an amendment on the table. We have a motion and we have objection.

Any other comments on the motion?

Miss Hall, can we repeat the motion?

Uh, to reduce the landscape budget by $75,000.

Mr. Smith. Yeah, so maybe it'll be helpful. These are all listed as recurring, but, but just to get in the habit of mentioning whether they're one-time or recurring, and then that can be amended if not.

Um, I voted against it, so, uh, sure, recurring. Uh, reduce landscape budget by $75,000 recurring, and I still object. All right, um, Mr. Steininger. Um, I'm objecting, then I'll speak to it hopefully briefly. Um, I feel like when we just call this landscaping budget, it's kind of a misnomer because so many other things fit in there.

As the mayor pointed out, really, this is the parks maintenance budget. It's not the flowers downtown. It is not, you know, kind of beautification landscape. It is safety considerations. It is cleanliness.

It is all of those things. I don't think when people hear landscape budget, they think about trail maintenance. So as You know, when I've heard people say, yeah, you can slim down the landscape budget, when asked, they say, oh yeah, you know, like the flowers downtown. You know, it's not— nobody's connecting the two because we just call it a reduction in landscaping. We're not calling it a reduction in, you know, truly recreational facilities or the safety of our parks.

And so I'm going to object to it. I think it's an important thing that we, we spend money on to keep Juneau safe.

Mr. Brooks. Objection for the purpose of a question is, depending on how this vote goes, when is the opportunity to object for the purpose of an amendment? Because the mayor objected, but with no amendment, you can, you can object Um, any time to make an amendment, even if someone has objected just to object.

I would like to object to offer an amendment, and that would be to reduce the operating, uh, budget of landscaping by $600,000. I can speak to that amendment. Go ahead. Thank you, Madam Chair. I agree with everything that's been said up here.

Uh, landscaping definitely isn't just the beautification and mowing of lawns. It is an important thing that lends a lot of value to the community, and removing $600,000 from that service would not eliminate it completely. It would go from $1.8 million to $1.2 million. There's over 22 employees doing the landscaping work. This might mean that some of those employees get reduced.

A good portion of those employees are part-time employees. I don't think I'm alone in the observation of going around and seeing when some of this work is being conducted that there might be, uh, 5 or 6 people working in an area that 1 or 2 people might be able to accomplish the work on. So my intention is never to completely, um, do away with landscaping or diminish the value that it brings to the community. But $600,000 isn't even close to half of that budget. All right, we have an amendment.

I had, um, Mr. Kelly, then Miss Atkinson, and Miss Hall. Go ahead, Mr. Kelly. I actually— I did see Miss Atkinson before me. All right, Miss Atkinson, go ahead. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Uh, this is objection for purpose of a question for staff. Um, What would a cut of $600,000 sort of do to our services? And as was suggested, are we 2 or 3 times overstaffed for landscaping?

Thank you for the question, Miss Atkinson. A $600,000— at $600,000, the types of services that we would be reducing and parks landscape would include all of our contracts with external partner agencies. So that would be the trail— well, not all, but the trail brushing contract with, with Trail Mix. We have smaller contracts with JORA, which is the four-wheel group that is out the road, with the Hank Harmon Rifle Range, with Gold Belt to assist us with winter hours at the skate park and Savaco shelters. We would, um, at this level, fully eliminate, um, ball field maintenance.

So all, all ball field maintenance would be completely reliant upon the user groups. Um, we would also likely at this level— I would need to do some, some, some math— but we would also likely be moving a park ranger underneath the downtown parking fund. If the parking fund can absorb that cost, I believe it can, but it would remove the duties and tasks that park ranger provides to parks. So those would be the— we would also likely need to reduce some discretionary services, or services that some may think of as discretionary, and may not, to be fair, in, um, uh, you know, parks and playgrounds, uh, specifically relating to money that we spend on poop bags for dogs and restrooms.

Mr. Kelly, thank you. I was going to ask the same question as Miss Atkinson, but from my discussions earlier, like, I— it was also— I was also in the gave the impression that we would no longer be able to afford to inspect the playground. Would that also be the case? Would we be able to keep our playgrounds open with this kind of cut?

Mr. Kelly, I believe we would, but I will, uh, if the chair is so inclined, look to Director Wheeler to confirm that.

Mr. Whaley, you're welcome to come up and take a crack at that.

Uh, thank you, Madam Chair. Um, it's very difficult to stop inspections of playgrounds. Um, we would have to To do that, we would have to dismantle them because they would be accessed by the public. There are a few, you know, we counted maybe 4 or 5 we could dismantle easily, some of the small neighborhood parks, but dismantling Twin Lakes Park or some of our larger playgrounds would be very difficult, and that would be a kind of a last resort. Ballfield maintenance is kind of one of our optional programs that we provide, and it has user groups that could help fund that more or take over the management thereof.

And those are places where we could just let it go wild. You know, we don't manage Lena Loop Park anymore, so we could just let all the fields grow with weeds if people can't take care of them. But that was our thinking, that that would be a program we would reduce. It's also very difficult to cut landscaping because we can't just not mow the grass. We can't just not take care of these flowers that we have.

Um, and we can't, you know, sell those properties. So it's very difficult to reduce that, our landscaping. So that's why we looked at the ball field maintenance as an area we could cut with this level of reduction.

Um, while Mr. Um, While you're up here, and there are other questions, um, go ahead, Miss— well, let me make sure. Miss Hall, were you on the list beforehand? Yeah. Or Mr. Wheeler, any questions? Thank you.

I'm going to object as well, um, but also a question for Mr. Wheeler. Um, part of the playground inspection, are hypodermic needles often found on the playgrounds, um, by folks doing cleanup and inspection?

Through the chair, I'm not sure how often that is. The place where we have that as an issue is illegal camping, where folks may congregate in a site, and when those areas are persistent, they become a problem. So that's where our park rangers come in by patrolling those areas and Now we're working closely with JPD to enforce the camping ordinance, and that is definitely keeping, hopefully, that under control. The main purpose of the playground safety maintenance is to check for, like, sharp edges or seats that have— or swings that are— that have come apart, and we follow the industry standards in that practice, but it is labor-intensive to do so.

Mr. Works, do you have a question for Mr. Wheeler? Go ahead. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for being here and answering these questions. I— so in the discussions that's happened now, we've talked about reducing partnerships, shutting down playgrounds, stopping services. How many part-time staff would need to be let go to make up $600,000?

We're talking about all the services and areas, but not the staff. How can that be made up in staff out of the 18 part-time employees?

I can't answer you right away. I could, I could do a little research and, and check with a colleague, but, um, you know, these, um, these positions are hard to fill. You know, we do the best we can. And this year we've done a good job hiring, but just over the years we've had more and more assets put onto our list, more and more facilities we're providing landscaping for. And it is a significant cost, but I could get back to you with an FT, but probably talking 10 FTs.

I'm not sure. Yeah, we can get back to you on that though.

Do you have a follow-up? Good, thank you. It's—. I just know that, uh, the, you know, I have been mentioning this for a long time, and now we're here, and the defense on it is that we won't be able to inspect playgrounds or do this certain service. But that's not the only thing that would possibly have to be cut, you know.

I, I just wish that we, we had that view on the staff side of things because that was a consideration that could lend some, some credible, uh, and much needed input for the decisions we're making. Thank you.

More— do we have more questions for Mr. Wheeler? This really— thank you for all of the questions that you have been answering for us for many months now, so we really appreciate it. Your service. Thank you. All right, if I remember where we were, we have a motion and we have an amendment by Mr. Brooks to increase the reduction to $600,000 for the landscape budget, and we have objection.

Is there anyone else who wanted to speak to the amendment?

Mr. Smith. I don't want to have to speak every time. Um, obviously, but no, I guess I just— we've gotten a lot of information on the landscape. They do more than it, than it sounds like. It's not like just caring for the flowers, you know.

Um, I, I appreciate Mr. Brooks, your questions. We heard you ask staff what we wanted to get, and they told you what the impacts would be. So, um, anyway, I just want to Sorry, just have to stick up for the team here, but I'll remove my objection now. Or never mind, I'll keep it. Thanks.

All right, we have a motion and we have an amendment and we have objection. Ms. Swindle, will you call roll? Thank you, Chair Wall. On the amendment to the motion to reduce the landscape operating or recurring budget by $600,000. Assemblymember Brooks.

Yes. Assemblymember Hall. No. Mayor Walden. No.

Assemblymember Smith. No. Assemblymember Hughes-Scandies. No. Assemblymember Atkisson.

No. Assemblymember Kelly. No. Assemblymember Steininger. No.

Chair Wall. No.

The amendment fails 1 aye, 8 nays. Great. That brings us back to the original motion, which was to reduce the landscape budget by $75,000. And we do have objection. Anyone else want to speak to this motion?

I'm gonna Object just for a question. I want to make sure we all have a shared understanding that if this passes, we, we didn't provide the direction not to brush trails. We just said we don't want to give direction, and if that's what happens, then that's what happens. I'm nodding heads, seeing nodded heads, but just wanted to make sure. Mr. Smith.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, again, these are tough choices that we have to make. I hear, um, I hear Mr. Steineger when he was talking about, you know, people don't have a connection to landscape and they think it's maybe, again, flowers or stuff in between. I think making a reduction actually helps people understand what the— where this money goes. It is ball fields, it is playgrounds, it is brushing the trails that you enjoy.

It's a contract to a local nonprofit that hires people.

It—. People will notice this, I would expect. And then, and then they will think, do I want these services? But we have reduced revenue. So, um, again, I think, I think people may notice.

And it's— it doesn't impact, you know, baseball and all the different things. I mean, people— the world will go on, and people can probably— will bring up machetes and some things for really terrible trails and stuff, but I, I think this is a, a reasonable cut to— for, for this budget item. Thanks.

All right, we have a motion and we have objection. Miss Swindle, you call roll on the motion to make a $75,000 recurring reduction to the landscape budget. Mayor Walden? No. Assemblymember Steininger?

Nope. Assemblymember Smith? Yes. Assemblymember Kelly? No.

Assemblymember Hall? Nope. Assemblymember Atkisson? Yes.

Assemblymember Hughes-Scandies? Yes. Assemblymember Brooks? Yes. Chair Wall.

Yes. Motion passes, 5 ayes, 4 nays. We're going to go ahead and take a 10-minute break.

All right, so I'm gonna bring us back to order here.

Um, Madam Mayor, thank you. This is so much fun. Um, I would move that we reduce the city museum budget by $336,500, and this isn't one of the options, but this is the option that staff proposed. That is just the curator keeping track of the collection and no support staff at all.

$336,500, And I would keep this as recurring until we figure out what we're going to do with the museum, whether relocate it or get rid of it all at once.

Do you— did you want to speak to, or did you adequately speak to your motion if you did. You want to? Thank you. No, that's not a— I'm not saying it was inadequate. So, um, and I have nothing against the City Museum.

I like the City Museum. I have probably— of the, uh, assembly, I would say that I might not be the top person from the assembly that goes there, but I do go there. Um, but after the, uh, public outpouring to do all the recreation facilities, these are just one of those tough decisions we're going to have to make. It's a big ticket item, and that's why I'm making this.

Mr. Smith. Thank you, Madam Chair. I, I guess I would maybe take from staff just a little more understanding on— I haven't heard this number. I've seen full closure and the whatever the word is we're getting rid of the stuff, and then cutting down to 2 staff, I believe, and some open hours. Can you, can you, can you help me understand, like, what this looks like?

Is the museum open? Can people go there? Anyway, thank you. Through the Chair, at this level, the museum is not open to the public. There would be one staff member remaining, a curator, to maintain the collections and maintain the building.

It would also maintain, you know, building utility costs and deferred maintenance and some level of janitorial costs, like those those building-related expenses. Um, but at this level, um, it's, it's highly unlikely the museum is open to the public at all.

Mr. Kelly, then Miss Hall. Thank you. At the bottom end of the range, if I chose to amend this motion to $261,500— not saying I'm going to do that yet— but what would that provide us as an alternative?

Thank you, Mr. Kelly, through the Chair. Um, at that, at that amount, there would, uh, there would, there would still be some, we believe, ability. There's still some analysis we need to do, but some ability to be open to the public. Um, the number of hours, um, would be, I would say, more variable than they are right now because the staffing would be significantly reduced. And, um, you know, staff are sick or on staff are on leave.

I would say that our ability to be open regular hours would be very challenging at this level, but we would have the ability to be open sometimes.

Miss Hall, I'm going to object to this motion. I think, um, just because we haven't heard from the same flood of user groups as Mr. Noon's opinion piece stated, it is very complicated and And also the museum, you know, we've got the tourism industry that, that drives them up further into our downtown, which I'm sure helps our sales tax revenue from businesses along the way. And, and yeah, it's our history and I, I don't think we should be cutting off access to it as we ponder how to, to move forward on what our museum will look like in the future. I think we've can get to where we need to go with other one-time cuts without doing something as drastic as cutting services to our museum.

Mr. Brooks.

I'll object for the purpose of an amendment, and I would, uh, like to, uh, reduce program and staff hours to— and the amount of $250,000.

And I can speak to my amendment if you'd like. Go ahead. I believe that there should be a degree of access available to the community for our community's history. So while having a curator to care for the artifacts and history is great, I think that the public people need to have the opportunity to experience it as well. If, uh, if any funds are going towards it, we have an amendment.

Um, Mr. Smith, do you have objection? Just for a purpose of a question, sorry, Mr. Brooks, you, you're amending it to say reduce the amount by $250,000. Okay, I guess just a question is why not the $261,500, which is kind of the one that we've seen memos and data and understand, you know, the loss of positions. And anyway, just curious on that. It's a more round number.

God.

Um, I saw Mayor Weldon's hand, then Ms. Hughes-Scandies. Uh, thank you. I object for purpose to amend the amendment, and that would be to change the number to 261,500.

All right, we have an amendment to the amendment. Any object— oh, or we just point— Miss Atkinson, do you have an objection to the amendment to the amendment you'd like to speak to? Yes, only to ask the city attorney, when it is a number I don't believe we can amend it, make an amendment to the amendment to just change a number. Am I wrong on that one?

Um, you, you are incorrect on that. You can change it to amend a number to a number, but no more amendments beyond this one. That's your limit. You have to start voting on things. Okay, we still have an objection.

No, I don't.

Um, Ms. Hughes-Candies, you have an objection to the amendment to the amendment? Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. I am objecting for the purposes of a comment, and I'm going to speak in support of the amendment to the amendment. And just as it was good to be reminded by the finance chair earlier, sort of the level that we need to stay at, I would just say that I think it's good when we're picking numbers, or I feel it is good when we are picking numbers that we know what the outcomes are. Um, the difference between 250 and 261.5, if that's what it is— yeah, 261.5.

To me, it's important that we, when possible, choose those numbers. If we're not zeroing something out entirely, that we choose the numbers that staff have provided sort of known outcomes for rather than picking in the middle. Although obviously, starting with the mayor's first motion, we can always do some alternative number. So that is why I'm gonna support the amendment to the amendment, and with that, I withdraw my objection. Do we have any objection to the amendment to the amendment?

Okay, I see some objections. Miss Wendell, Oh, oh, Miss Atkinson, did you want to speak?

Oh, sorry, I forgot to lower my hand. I apologize.

Miss Swindle, if you could remind us what we're doing and then we can vote on it. Thank you.

We have an original motion to reduce the City Museum recurring budget by $336,500, which would support one curator position to keep track of the collection with no support staff. That motion was amended by Assemblymember Brooks to reduce programming and staff hours in the amount of $250,000 in recurring funding. That amendment was amended by Mayor Weldon to change the amount from $250,000 to $261,500.

Roll call on the amendment to the amendment. Mayor Weldon? Yes. Assemblymember Hall? No.

Assemblymember Smith? Yes. Assemblymember Kelly? No.

Assemblymember Atkisson? Yes.

Assemblymember Hughes-Scandies? Yes. Assemblymember Brooks. No. Assemblymember Steininger.

Yes. Chair Wall. Yes. The amendment to the amendment passes 6 ayes, 3 nays. All right, so that brings us back to a motion, um, as amended.

So the number we are now at We need to vote on the amended amendment. Yes, sorry, I didn't say that correctly. The amended amendment puts us at a reduction of $261,500. So if you object to this, then we would come back to the original motion. All right, I see an objection from Mayor Weldon.

Does anyone else want to speak? Speak on this amendment. Miss Hughes-Candies. Thank you, Madam Chair. I will speak to where we are, lest I misstate it.

I am objecting to this because I appreciate the mayor's original motion, so this can also serve for Speaking in support, um, the $336,500, I think that amount cares for the funding situation that we saw at the beginning of this meeting and does so in a way that we ensure that all of the valid reasons we have heard about both the difficulty of, um, divesting our collection, and also the impact divesting our collection would have on all the proponents and friends in the museum have made the strong case, the importance of staying connected to our history. I think this— the larger number cares for where we are financially. And again, I will say this is one of the first big-ticket items and big-ticket impacts in terms of a facility that people use and love, myself included. I go up there every time I'm out on a First Friday. I know the staff there.

It's a wonderful place to go, and I appreciate all that it means to our community. But I think making this— the original motion, the larger cut— cares for where we are financially. And again, I will tie that back to if we make a different choice on revenue when we get to that secondary conversation, this is a decision that we could turn around and unmake. So for all of those reasons, I think the larger number is the better one, and I will speak in opposition. Mr. Steininger, I'm going to speak in favor of the amendment.

Um, you know, this is one of those areas that I was— I knew I was going to have to come in and stomach a a bigger reduction than I would have hoped to. But that $261,500 is what I kind of wrapped my head around and been prepared for.

Thinking about, you know, this is one of those areas we talked about, you know, do we stop doing things or do we, do we do things poorly? Feel like both this number and the, you know, underlying amendment or underlying motion, if not amended, both kind of fall into the category of doing things poorly. But I don't think there's really a route to not do things at all. Um, I think it's a kind of small cost to keep some access to the public if we're going to have to run this no matter what. Um, I would contend this is not an area where it would necessarily be easier to undo this situation because it does involve removing staff members and So once you've done that, it's a lot harder to bring somebody back to something that doesn't feel like a very secure job anymore.

And so that's why I'll be supporting the, you know, begrudgingly supporting the reduction of 261.5. Thank you.

Other comments? Mr. Smith. Oh, I think Mr. Saniger said it well, so I'll also be supporting this amount, the $261,500.

Thank you. I will speak on this. I'm— I'll speak in opposition to the amendment. I am in a similar place as Miss Yuskandi, given our financial picture. I, you know, took a data-driven approach to my decision-making about where I would, um, look for cuts.

And, you know, the, the amount of people who use this facility is just, um, it's just less than, than many of our other facilities that were also on our list. I do hope that we can find a path forward for our museum and our collections. So, um, I think the mayor's motion cares for that. Um, I'll also reiterate what Miss Hughes Candy said, that we could make a decision on June 8th to get rid of our cap on single item sales tax, and we could fully fund, um, the museum if we were to do that. Thank you.

All right, we have an amendment to the original motion, and we have objection. Miss Wendell, will you call roll?

Thank you. On the amended amendment to reduce programming and staff hours in the amount of $261,500 in recurring funding. Assemblymember Brooks? Yes. Mayor Weldon?

No. Assemblymember Steininger? Yes. Assemblymember Hall? No.

Assemblymember Hughes-Scandies? No. Assemblymember Smith? Yes. Assemblymember Kelly?

Yes. Assemblymember Atkisson? No. Chair Wall? No.

The amended amendment fails for ayes, 5 nays.

All right, so we are back to a motion as amended— not amended, we didn't amend it. So it is at 3— you got the number written down? 336,500 Would be the reduction to the City Museum if this ordinance is to pass, or if this motion is to pass. Do we have objection? Um, I saw Mr. Smith, then Mr. Brooks.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, this is just too much for me. Um, these are people's jobs, and, and, and also, like, the museum just is, is never open. It will be forgotten. I mean, I, I don't know, just having this building with stuff, and like, and for $75,000 at this point, I'm— I can't support this level of, um, reduction.

Thanks. So I'll object.

Anyone else want to speak to this motion?

All right, with that, Miss Wendell, will you call roll on the motion to reduce the City Museum recurring budget by $336,500, which would support one curator position to keep track of the collection, with no support staff. Mayor Weldon? Yes. Assemblymember Hall? No.

Assemblymember Atkisson? Yes.

Assemblymember Brooks? No.

Assemblymember Hughes-Scandies? Yes. Assemblymember Smith? No. Assemblymember Steininger?

No. Assemblymember Kelly. No. Chair Wall. Yes.

The motion fails for ayes, 5 nays. This is one of those moments that we can probably come back and get somewhere in between. Is that— or get to come back to it later, or do we need to brief at ease? Do you have a motion, Mr. Smith? I'll move a reduction to the City Museum of $261,000 even instead of $261,500.

So we're providing a different number.

Thank you, Mr. Smith. Any objection? Um, I see some objection. Do you want to speak to the objection?

Great. Mr. Smith. Madam Chair, um, well, we'll, we'll see how this goes. Um, I guess let's see how it goes, and then I may have a question after. Thanks.

Great. We have a motion and we have objection. Miss Wendell, will you call roll on the motion to make a reduction of $260,000 $61,000 in recurring funding to the city museum budget. Assemblymember Smith? Yes.

Assemblymember Hall? Nope. Assemblymember Kelly? No. Mayor Walden?

Yes. Assemblymember Hughes-Scandies? Yes. Assemblymember Atkisson? Yes.

Assemblymember Steiner? Yes. Assemblymember Brooks? Yes. Chair Wall?

Yes.

The motion passes 7 ayes, 2 nays.

Mr. Smith? Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, that what we did just right there, um, from my understanding, 2 people, our neighbors, will be laid off. Mr. Mr. Barr, could you confirm that? And then could you just briefly tell us what we do in cases of, you know, employees being laid off in this situation?

Briefly.

Through the Chair, you are correct. This will result in 2 layoffs. When we, we have a series of personnel rules and the personnel rules that guide our practices for laying employees off. When employees are laid off in a job classification that has multiple employees in that job classification, they receive bumping rights, which means that an individual with a long period of service can choose to bump someone who has a lower period of service.

When individuals are laid off in job classes that are unique, that, that do not have multiple people in them, then that is not the case. In all cases, individuals who are laid off receive preferential hiring processes— preferential hiring treatment during future recruitments should they choose to apply for a period of time. I don't know that period of time off the top of my head. Thank you. Mr. Kelly, thank you.

This is in follow-up to Mr., uh, Mr. Smith's question and also kind of relates to a point that Ms. Euskandiz has been making. Ms. Euskandiz has alluded to that if we make certain decisions, uh, as far as revenue on June 8th, that we can reverse some of these decisions. So when would these people be laid off? Would they still have a job, say, in July or, or August, in time to receive relief if we do end up raising revenue.

Thank you for the question, Mr. Kelly, and through the chair, um, these, these decisions would be effective at the beginning of the fiscal year, which means we would need to provide the notice that is prescribed in the personnel rules ahead of the fiscal year. Um, I believe that is 30 days. I will check and correct myself if I'm wrong.

All right, um, that brings us to Item 4. Mayor Weldon, uh, thank you. Um, I would move to reduce the JEDC, uh, grant, um, by $300,000. And if I could speak to that, uh, this is a little bit more than I initially planned to reduce, but so far we haven't done too well. Getting to our $2 million.

And, um, I'd make it one time. And, uh, I do know that they have resources, so I'm hoping that they could absorb a one-time hit of $300,000. Miss Hughes-Candice. Thank you, Madam Chair. I will object for purposes of amendment.

I would, um, move to amend the mayor's motion to $440,000. I saw lots of objecting hands. Maybe if you want to speak to it, hold it up. Mr. Brooks. Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'll speak in support of this.

Um, JDC has been a great partner with the community and, uh, offers lots of great things, but out of the partnerships that we have within the community, they are a stable and financially capable organization on their own. And back to my comments earlier, you know, a grant like this, you know, doing away with it, it's a lot easier to reform some sort of grant and maintain that partnership without grant money than it is for a lot of these other things. So that's why I'm in support of the amendment.

Oh, Miss Flick, um, if I may just have clarification on the amendment. Was that to keep it as one-time or change it to recurring? Uh, thank you, Miss Flick. One time. Thank you.

May I speak? Yes. Uh, thank you. Just to speak to this amendment a little bit, I, you know, saw tons of hands down the line in objection, and, you know, I think most people feel like they don't need to speak to the objection, so I'll just speak briefly to, uh, why so large a number. Again, I will keep my continuous plug that all things are tied to revenue, and, um, this is as well.

But I will balance this. So much of what we do is holding one thing in the balance, and, um, they're all about— so I truly believe, as a citizen who values services and a citizen who values what we do. I find this valuable and I find just about everything we do valuable. That being said, I feel like sitting in this seat, I have certain responsibilities. And, um, then increasing this number, though— I'll be quiet so we can just get to the vote.

But increasing this number is a reflection of the way these votes are going. And again, it is a reflection of the setting, what our, what our budget position is at this day. So this number is, is considering what the general, uh, Juneau resident, because we have to consider the general population, what if this went through, what the impact would be on the average citizen and considering my responsibility to keep the car out of the ditch, uh, and keep us on the road with the fund balance. So for that reason, um, and I'll stop talking.

Can I, um, ask staff to— I actually can't read that, which is fine, but maybe you could give us a kind of brief summary of what— where our decisions have gotten us. Um, or maybe this works for me. Can other people read that? I'm—. I have terrible eyesight.

I can. Um, it's, it's a lot closer for me now. Okay, let me try one more. So, um, as we're going along, this was our starting balance, our starting projected FY27 ending fund balance is negative $1.7 million. Um, as you're, um, making operating reductions, we are reducing, um, expenses, which is also lowering the amount of fund balance usage.

So it's increasing your fund balance. So with the items that you have passed so far, um, you have moved the needle about $700,000. Um, And so far these have all been recurring in nature. And so when you— if this one goes through as one-time, it will increase your fund balance. It just won't be recurring.

So does that make sense? Here's the fund balance number as it's being adjusted, and we're just color coding as we go along.

Miss Hall, I'll object for a question for staff. Um, Is JEDC working on a proposal to— for the Coast Guard housing? You know, I understand that they lease the housing, and so if someone's going to build it, they would have to— yeah, so I'm wondering if you could speak to that and what is being proposed.

Thank you, through the chair. I've had a couple of conversations with JEDC about that topic. They are working on a proposal to serve as a— I'll characterize it as a bridge financing mechanism for Coast Guard housing. The challenge that they are attempting to solve is to reconcile the fact that the Coast Guard is looking to engage in sort of annual annual payments without long-term guarantees because federal regulations prohibit them from committing to long-term guarantees. And yet, for a builder to go to a bank to get a loan, they need a little bit more than annual payments.

And so, JEDC has been having conversations to try to bridge that gap so that housing can get built. And builders can acquire the loans that they need to be able to build that housing.

And would that— some of those conversations with banks be dependent on having their own funding, you know, some funds to use as leverage in that? And so they're having a fund balance in this situation would really is really to their and our advantage to be able to move forward with this proposal. Thank you for the question. Through the chair, I know that JEDC plans to invest some of their capital as well as seek outside capital to invest in the project. CBJ would likely be one of the partners that they would be looking to for capital funding.

I don't, I don't know, and I can't speak to how their core grant from CBJ would or would not impact that project. I just don't know.

All right, Mr. Smith. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, I'll object to this amount. Um, I— Mr. Holst isn't online. I believe he's back east with like a child graduating from college.

Um, but my— when I spoke of my principles of not doing— I mean, we've already done— there's already pain that will be felt from what we've done tonight. Um, eliminating a one-year budget for a nonprofit that leverages that money for other funds. Um, anyway, like That is good. That will be devastating. Like, it will.

I don't know what the impact is. I don't even know if that was predicted as an option by Mr. Holst. I mean, he wrote to us earlier today about 30%, um, but they, they get other sources of funding. But my understanding is that they use this funding as like their core flexible funding that allows them to do all these other things, that allows them to bring in other funds. Including, I think, going and chasing other funds.

Um, I just— this, this number would— I don't know, but I can only imagine that it would be devastating to the organization and its ability to continue to exist and be able to potentially capture more revenue. Potentially, you know, death spiral or something. But, uh, so I will object. Thanks, Mr. Ricks. Thank you, Madam Chair.

And this is Just to lend a little more context to it, when Mr. Holst was last with us, I asked him what their current savings are, and he said it's sitting at $3 million. But if you go online and look at, uh, the open reporting that nonprofits have to do, it says they have $8 million in assets, and that number has been going up. They've been getting a lot more solid foundation, a lot more in the bank, and they are very capable and stable with what they've been able to do over the years. And that's why I think it isn't that damaging to do away with our grant, whether it's recurring or for the one, one year. But it's, it's money that we can't spare, but they have money to spare.

That's, that's why the considerations there.

Mr. Smith. Sorry, um, I meant to bring up talking about fund balance and reserves and things. I, I feel leery of saying, oh, I saw this number, and without— maybe you have a better understanding. It'd be like someone looking at our budget and being like, oh, they have $15 million in the you know, vehicle replacement fund. Let's like, why do they need anything this year kind of thing without really knowing and understanding?

I feel I'm— I don't feel comfortable with even just knowing those numbers and things. You know, they do a number of things, loan funds, abatement, you know, loan programs for childcare. Those things do require like money shifting in and out, and it's not necessarily So, like, they can, you know, write a check to their staff with those funds. So anyway, um, wish Mr. Holst was here. But, um, anyway, sorry, I just wanted to— wanted to bring that point up.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

We have a motion and we have an amendment to that motion, and we have objection to the amendment. Miss Wendell. Will you call roll?

Thank you, Chair Wall. The original amendment is— I'm sorry, the original motion is to make a one-time reduction to the JEDC grant by $300,000. That motion was amended by Assemblymember, uh, Hugh Scandies to make a one-time reduction to the JEDC grant by $440,000. Assemblymember Hugh Scandies. Yes.

Assemblymember Smith? No.

Assemblymember Kelly? No. Assemblymember Hall? No. Assemblymember Atkisson?

Yes.

Mayor Weldon?

No. Assemblymember Brooks? Yes. Assemblymember Steininger. No.

Chair Wall. No. The amendment fails, 3 ayes, 6 nays.

All right, we have the original motion not amended. Mr. Smith. Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would move an amendment to reduce the JEDC grant, general fund grant, by $132,000. Um, that is 30% of their, um, of what's proposed. That's a 30% reduction than what's proposed in the manager's budget.

Objections to the motion? Um, Mr. Kelly, I don't need to speak. Miss Youskandis, would you like to speak? Thanks, Madam Chair. I'll just speak briefly.

I, uh, appreciate, uh, the summary, uh, in the last vote of all the good that JEDC does. I think the $300,000 cares for that a bit and leaves greater funding. Certainly I understand the, the fragility of, uh, nonprofit accounting. I think that 30%, which was a number that was thrown out when we spoke to our partners earlier in the year by one member, is not going to get us there based the numbers that I have seen tonight. So I appreciate that that is what they adjusted to because that is what the mayor said at the time, but that didn't reflect, uh, the votes we have made since then.

And again, I will say there, I believe in everything on this page, and if we adjust our revenue, we can afford to pay for it. Um, so I will say that again, but with that, I will object. This is is too low.

Mr. Steininger, um, I, you know, I do understand that, that things have changed, and I'll say I'm going to speak in support of this amendment. I do understand that things have changed since we communicated with some of our partners and gave them that 30% target. But, you know, also when we gave them that 30% target, you know, they probably were seeing that as a worst-case scenario, and that's how they plan. That's you know, how they moved forward to go a little bit deeper like we did with the previous item here. We went a little bit past 30%, you know, that's one thing.

Going significantly past 30%, I think it makes it a little bit harder to kind of understand what we're asking for when we ask them to make preparations and plans during our budget process, knowing that our budget process is long and things change. But But still, we have to kind of be, you know, stay at least a little bit true to the things that we ask. Um, so I, I think I'll support the $132,000 reduction, the shift to $132,000, knowing it's kind of the worst-case scenario that we presented to our partners at the time we asked them to bring us information. Mayor Waldner. Thank you.

I'll just go to what I initially said, that, um, that's why I'm making it one time. I do agree with Mr. Brooks that they do have, uh, assets. Um, $8 million is including their building and everything, just so you know. I think Moore is about $3 million. Um, so one time, but as Miss Yuskandy says, we need to make some progress on the list and we're just not going deep enough.

I'll speak in opposition to this amendment. I, I appreciated Mayor Weldon's original number. I too, um, started at a much smaller reduction for JEDC, but as I've— other things that, you know, I thought we were going to prioritize for reductions have fallen off the list. You know, I've had to make some of these bigger. I think this will leave some money for JEDC to continue to be flexible with their CBJ operating funds, which I— so I appreciate the We're not going all the way on this one.

I'm going to come back to the budget survey. We, we spent a lot of time getting feedback from the public. Everyone hated having to pick the things that they didn't want to fund, but, you know, this would fit in there. I also appreciate people's comments about communicating with our partners and how to do that. And, and I agree that, uh, first I'll say we never communicated 30%.

The mayor asked everyone a question about 30%, but I don't— I don't— I, I think there are always ways we can be better partners in this challenging time, and we do. We're just in a tricky position in terms of having to, having to make some challenging decisions. Um, Mr. Kelly and then Miss Hall. Thank you. I know I initially objected to this.

I'm going to change my position, I think, largely for the reasons that as Deputy Mayor Smith stated when he was speaking in opposition to the higher amount. Um, I think a lot of the investment that we make in JEDC comes back many times fold. I think it would be a mistake to reduce our investment, especially when, as Ms. Hall pointed out, this could be leading to more housing, to supporting more housing in our community. So I will, I will speak in, in support of Mr. Smith's amendment.

Miss Hall. And I'm also going to speak in support of Mr. Smith's amendment. Again, you know, the Coast Guard housing is one, but also senior housing is another. And I don't know any other agency in town that's focused on our senior population.

They have Tonya Muldoon working there who is an elder care specialist. And I just, you know, some of the helping facilitate the Rural Health Transformation Fund applications for senior housing. So I, you know, they do a lot of good. And folks in the community, I'm not to dismiss the results of our survey, but you know, do they actually know what JEDC does? And so I, you know, I think they're doing really important work.

And as the liaison, I see that. And yeah, so I'm going to speak in support of Mr. Smith's amendment.

All right, we have a— oh, Miss Flick again. Just for clarification, Mr. Smith, your amendment was $132,000, also one time? Or was yours recurring?

Let's go recurring.

Mr. Kelly, I'll object to amend it to be one time.

Well, it— I amend just the dollar figure. The mayor's original motion was one time, so if I'm not amending that, it stays one time. Yeah, so I'll remove my amendment. Yeah, yeah. Okay.

All right. So right now we have— I think that's— I think that's fair to communicate with staff because they're looking confusing. We will use the underlaying. Underlying motion, which was to— for recurring unless the amender specifies otherwise. Sorry, you know, you know what I'm— it was originally recurring.

It was originally one time. What was it originally? One time. And so Mr. Smith has not changed that. He has just changed the amount.

That is the amendment that's on the table. We have objection. Do we have anyone else who would like to speak? Miss Wendell, will you call roll?

Thank you, Chair Wall. On the amendment to the motion to make a one-time reduction to the JEDC grant in the amount of $132,000. Assemblymember Smith. Yes. Mayor Weldon.

No. Assemblymember Steininger. Yes. Assemblymember Hall? Yes.

Assemblymember Atkinson? No. Assemblymember Hughes-Scandies? No. Assemblymember Brooks?

No. Assemblymember Kelly? Yes. Farewell? No.

The amendment fails, 4 ayes, 5 nays.

All right, that brings us to item number 5. Oh, yep, thank you guys. Brings us back to the original motion, which is now amended. No, no, we're, we're at, we're at $300,000. I'm, I'm losing my mind, I guess.

Okay, so we have a motion that has never been amended.

We have— oh, do we have objection? Mr. Smith?

It's just, as far as I know, too much at one time. We, we can see, but it's too much for me at this point. Thanks, Miss Hall.

Yeah, I move we amend the amount and make it $200,000 as opposed to $300,000 and make it one-time.

Mayor Weldon. I'll object. I don't need to speak to it.

All right, um, we have a motion and we have an amendment, Miss— and we have objection. Miss Wendell, will you call roll on the amendment to make a one-time reduction to the JEDC grant in the amount of $200,000? Assemblymember Hall? Yes. Mayor Weldon?

No. Assemblymember Smith? Yes. Assembly Member Kelly. Yes.

Assembly Member Atkinson. No. Assembly Member Hughes-Candies. No. Assembly Member Brooks.

No. Assembly Member Steininger. Yes. Chair Wall. No.

The amendment fails 4 ayes, 5 nays.

All right, that brings us back to the motion that has not been amended.

Mr. Smith, I know how it's going to go, but I'm not going to vote for it, so I'll object. Thanks. Okay. All right, Miss Swindle, will you call roll on the motion to make a one-time reduction to the JEDC grant by $300,000? Mayor Walden?

Yes. Assemblymember Smith? No. Assemblymember Kelly? No.

Assemblymember Hall? Nope. Assemblymember Atkinson? Yes. Assemblymember Hughes-Candies?

Yes. Assemblymember Brooks? Yes. Assemblymember Sinegar? No.

Chair Wall? Yes. The motion passes 5 ayes, 4 nays.

Yes. How long do you need? Okay.

I'm ready. All right, we're coming back.

Um, Mayor Weldon, are you— are we ready to move on? Yep. Um, I move to reduce the non-specific electric travel and training budget by $50,000, and I would like to speak against it. Um, travel and training seems like an easy place to target, but we've already cut it. The manager and staff, I'm sure, has already cut it by $125,000, and, um, this is not just, um, training that they're going to go have fun at.

This is a lot to do with becoming better employees. And just like, for our sake, the assembly and the mayor, we go to conferences to network, to learn new things, to— in some case, like AML, we actually go there to teach classes and share our knowledge. And those would be considered non-mandatory. So I don't think we should do this, and I think what we should accept what the staff already come up with. Thank you.

All right, we have a motion. We have objection. Others? Um, Mr. Brooks, Miss Hall, Mr. Steiner. Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'd like to object for the purpose of an amendment. I move that we reduce, um, the non-specific elective travel and training by $300,000.

And, uh, I can speak to that amendment. The overall, um, travel and training budget's high. The amount that's required for fire and police is taken care of. It was the manager who came and told us that $500,000 of that is elective or non-mandatory. I understand that there there is a value to doing the conferences and going out, but the individual benefit to networking in the political sphere is sometimes hard to translate to a benefit to a community member when they ask us about that type of travel.

It's not to say that we can't travel in the future, but when when things are tight, uh, things that are elective and don't lend any certification and don't have a way that we can easily elaborate to a constituent on the benefit that we brought back to them. That's why I suggest such an amount. And, um, And I, I believe that, you know, that elective travel and training for, uh, you know, a selective amount of city employees doesn't come to the same level of impact or importance of a lot of these other items on the list.

Point of information, Madam Chair. Good. Sorry. What was the number that you proposed, Mr. Brooks?

300.

We have an amendment. Do you have objection, Miss Hall? Yeah, and this object for a question to staff. Um, so when we hire someone, uh, that may not have the skills necessary for the position they're being hired into, would additional training we be providing to them be considered elective, elective, or non-mandatory? Thank you for the question, Assemblymember Hall.

When, when we were answering the question that was asked about elective or non-mandatory, we looked at either requirements that had to be held due to state law or a federal requirement. Or that was specifically called out in like a job description. So we have, um, and I'll just, I'll speak from, from my department in particular, but we have a lot of positions that you can be brought into a position and have some basic understanding of what the job is, but We have to provide a lot of training on the, the specifics of doing particular jobs within the city, and that may be, um, that may be so that we have a lot of positions that we call flex positions, so we can hire somebody in with some just basic foundational knowledge, but we really need to have them perform at a higher level, and to get them there, we need to do some on-the-job training, some formal training. And so this training budget, which travel and training, the training side is also included in that, and it would be called elective because it's not specifically required. It's not like go, go to this class, learn this thing.

So staff development basically is what, is what that also contributes to. That is correct, yes. Fire and novel stuff. Thank you. I have Mr. Steininger, Ms. Atkinson, and Mr. Kelly.

Um, I'll speak in objection to this amendment. Um, what— when I think about this non-mandatory travel and training, I actually kind of think of this as one of those areas where we're being a good capital city and being a productive member of the entire state. Um, so I'll eventually end this with a question to Director Flick that I primed her for, but a lot of our staff are very involved in these statewide organizations that serve to provide, you know, training and information sharing and networking, as Mayor spoke to. But the benefit of that isn't, you know, just for CBJ, but it's for the state as a whole. We are very— we are disproportionately active in a lot of these organizations.

And in a sense, in my mind, it's one of our responsibilities as capital city to be, you know, a little bit more involved on a statewide level to, you know, show we have a little more skin in the game. It's one of the things that helps us protect our position as a capital city because we are able to get out there statewide, work with other communities, and build bridges in ways that I don't think a lot of other communities do, and I think it's a priority and value of this organization to be involved in those ways. And so I think it's really important that we continue those things and we don't cut them off, because if we did so, if we made this $300,000 reduction, we would be leaving a lot of those statewide organizations leaderless and kind of in a lurch, and we would end up leaving small communities you know, communities that don't necessarily have the resources to have as robust of support staff as we enjoy, we will be leaving them without resources that they use to operate their cities. And especially in a time when we look at the state and we look at the state of community and regional affairs at a state level, you know, we are kind of stepping in and filling some of those roles. You know, it's not just us.

We're not alone. We have organizations like AML and in other places. It's not all on our shoulders, but we are taking on a lot of that burden. And this $300,000 proposed reduction, even the $50,000 proposed reduction, you know, I kind of see that as sort of sand in the eyes of some of our neighboring communities throughout the state. And, and so I can't support it.

And I'll, I'll end with a question that I, I asked Director Flick, just even just one little department. How many statewide organizations would this remove leadership positions from that your staff would have to leave those positions? Thank you for the question, Assembly Steiner. Um, the Department of Finance has, um, 5 individuals who serve on 6 different boards, 5 of them statewide. Um, 3 of the individuals are presidents of their respective organizations and boards.

And as you stated, it is— it's not mandatory. Often these do require attendance at the annual meeting, the annual event, which most often takes place in conjunction with the AML conference in the winter. So that would certainly put that participation on those boards and organizations in jeopardy. With a reduction.

I had Miss Atkinson and Mr. Kelly.

Um, thank you, Madam Chair. I do want to speak an objection to this. I, as I've stated before, I just really feel that the money you save by cutting travel is not really the money you cut out of travel, but the laps you have when people leave the city and you cannot hire more people. So, um, this is just an example of something, uh, we're not stopping a service, we're doing everything a little worse, and that's not the kind of budget cuts I really want to be looking at tonight.

Mr. Kelly, thank you. I feel like, um, Miss Atkinson made exactly the point I was going to make. I was actually going to ask it in the form of a question though. So, um, I guess I was going to ask, you know, I guess Mr. Mr. Mr. Barr, I guess any of the department heads, um, do you feel anecdotally, or, or it'd be even better if you had numbers, do you have— because Mr. Brooks was speaking to not being able to quantify the value of travel on our budget, um, so if you could quantify, that'd be great. But even if anecdotally, are you able to say that that people— that we were— this is basically an investment in retention.

This is keeping people employed in their jobs, saving us money on perhaps having to, having to train somebody else in a new job because people decide to stay. Thank you, Mr. Kelly. I cannot quantify it. However, anecdotally, I can tell you absolutely this is a retention issue. We will absolutely lose staff with if we are unable to provide for their professional development.

Mr. Smith, thank you, Madam Chair. Um, just very briefly, my understanding is that the manager cut $125,000 of general fund from this, from this, you know, these, the combined, um, total for travel and training across the, the city. Um, I just can't support a 27% further reduction. Thank you.

All right, we have a motion and we have an amendment, and we have objection to that amendment. Miss Wendell—. Oh, Mr. Brooks, just real quick. Thank you, Madam Chair. Everything that's said is correct.

I understand where everyone's coming from. This is about, you know, the travel and training directly lends into retention and what makes it desirable to stay here and employee development. The, the question on a more base level is, do we take this community's taxpayer dollars so that we can have a statewide presence with these committees, commissions, conferences, and things like that? That's what I mean about being able to translate to the public, to a constituent, the value that we brought back to them. We took their money and went and created networks that we believe benefit things on a state level, but we're municipal representatives on this dais and we're using their taxpayer money.

So that's why it, you know, the, the cut can be made in the spirit of doing what's right by the community, and it can be temporary. Uh, it can be adjusted, but that, you know, I'm just trying to convey what someone sitting from the other side might be seeing with the decisions that we make here on this.

Miss Wendell, um, will you call roll?

Thank you, Chair. Well, I would just like to clarify based off of something that Assemblywoman member Brooks just said, um, he said temporary. Can we clarify whether the original motion and the amendment is recurring or one time?

Mayor Weldon, you want to state what you intended, and Mr. Brooks can decide whether that he wants to amend that as well? It'll be one time as well. Okay. Thanks for that clarification.

Thank you, Chair Wall. We have an original motion to make a one-time reduction to the non-specific elective travel and training budget by $50,000. The motion was amended by Assemblymember Brooks to instead make a reduction in the amount of $300,000. Also is one time. Assemblymember Brooks?

Yes.

Assemblymember Steininger? No. Mayor Walden? No. Assemblymember Smith?

No. Assemblymember Hughes-Scandies? No. Assemblymember Atkisson? No.

Assemblymember Kelly? No. Assemblymember Hall? No. Chair Wall?

No. The amendment fails 1 aye, 8 nays. Great, that brings us back to, um, the original motion. Do we have objection? We already have objection.

Does anyone want to speak? Mr. Smith? Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, I've been talking and thinking a lot about this item. Again, the manager cut $127,000 of general fund travel and training from last year's budget.

But I had— adding more is— we've lapsed, we've lapsed in the past, and I need to make a correction. When I've said, oh, we've lapsed $400,000 in the past, that was across all fund sources, by the way. So that was grants as well as general fund. That was not just full general fund, so I apologize for that. Um, a way that I've been talking to some staff that would be not as impactful but still benefit the treasury is this, and that's an amendment to direct the manager to budget for at least $100,000 in general fund laps related to travel and training.

And if I can speak to that amendment, what that does is, well, maybe you all get it, but it means that if they start approaching a level of training where they're going to get to budget or whatever, they have to put on the brakes. And, you know, whether people are having to choose, but there will be $100,000 that is lapsed over that is, you know, preserved in the Treasury. With this amendment. Is, um, Miss Hall? I'll object for a question for staff.

Um, did the manager's cuts already, um, take into consideration lapse?

Thank you for the question. Through the chair, No, the manager's cuts were to the budget. We reduced specific training that we thought we could reduce to Mr.'s— well, I'll just answer the question. Happy to answer another question if you have it.

Miss Hughes-Candice. Thanks, Madam Chair. Mr. Barr, I think my question then is how this would change what you've done, or how, if this passes, what will that mean for how you manage it? Yeah, thank you for the question. So, um, the difference between, um, direction to the manager to budget for a lapse versus direction of the manager to reduce the budget can be significant.

I think it would be significant in this case. If you direct us to reduce the budget, we will do just that, sort of starting as soon as the budget is passed. We will go find the amount of money that you direct us to reduce budget by and, you know, eliminate that, that training, and it will not be a training opportunity for that fiscal year. If you direct us to— if you direct the manager to ensure that there is a lapse, we will manage the budget as the year goes on and ensure that whether it's through— in this case, whether it's through staff attrition or whether it's through, you know, number of training opportunities not occurring because staff were sick or life happened, or, you know, that enough of that happened that we can achieve that lapse. That's the difference in how we would manage the impact.

And thank you for that. And so if you had less of those life events that lead to lapse, uh, you were unusually staffed, uh, without gaps, and everybody was taking all their vitamin C, you would approach a time near the end of the fiscal year where maybe something that you generally would have— a director would have supported, they would say let's maybe skip that till next year? That's right. Okay, thank you.

I'm gonna ask a question because I'm not quite following. Would the motion further reduce— it's not, it's not changing how we manage the current reduction that in is in the city manager's budget. It would additional reduction?

I mean, I know it doesn't change the budget, but it— does it have an impact twice as large, if that makes sense? Um, thank you, Chair Wohl. I'm gonna, um, attempt to answer what I think you're asking. Um, so Assemblymember Smith's amendment would not change the actual budget So when I put data back on the screen, you won't see fund balance change in that, but you would anticipate, um, that there would be at least $100,000 that falls to fund balance throughout the year because of training opportunities that didn't materialize through whatever reasons, as, as Mr. Barr has just described.

And that is additional savings at the end of the year over the savings that we're already getting from the city manager's budget, which reduces this. That is correct. The city manager already made reductions, so your manager's proposed budget includes those reductions, and so this would just be, um, savings when we do the end of the year and we say, oh, there was lapse, and so now you have more money in your fund balance. You would be anticipating at least $100,000 related to training.

Thank you. Uh, Mr. Kelly, thanks. I think I want to follow up on this a little bit. So there is the $50,000 that was in the mayor's motion, then there's the $100,000 in lapse. So it would be both cutting $50,000 and— or is it inclusive of?

So basically you would be cutting $50,000 and lapsing another $50,000. Okay, I need more explanation. Thank you, Miss— if I may, Madam Chair, uh, my intent of the motion was to replace the budget reduction and instead move it to a lapse. So, um, I guess I, I do want to say I have spoken with staff. There's concern about whether they can achieve this, um, and it may impact the training that people, you know, do for— you know, it's not just police and fire, it's all different types of job classes.

Um, and yeah, there, there may be— there could be impacts to this without a doubt, but it does, in my mind, It prevents— it allows flexibility on the front end, but allows, you know, a reassurance that we're gonna— we will get back at the end of the year $100,000 into fund balance. Thank you, Mr. Kelly. Thank you.

I guess, how easy would this be to reverse? Would we require an— or would we require an appropriating ordinance? Or would we— what, a resolution be sufficient?

I, I, you know, that's, that's not going to be important to my decision. I'll withdraw the question.

Okay, we have a motion and we have an amendment, and I believe we have a— do we have objection? I'll object. We get 2 objections.

Miss Wendell, will you call roll?

Thank you. On the amendment to the motion to direct the manager to plan for a one-time lapse of $100,000 in general fund travel and training. Assemblymember Smith? Yes. Assemblymember Brooks?

No. Assemblymember Atkisson? No. Assemblymember Hall?

Yes. Mayor Walden? Yes. Assemblymember Hughes-Candies?

Yes. Assemblymember Steininger?

Yes. Assemblymember Kelly? Yes. Chair Wall? No.

The amendment passes 6 ayes, 3 nays. Great. That brings us back to the motion as amended, which is Mr. Smith's proposal. Do we have objection? Mr. Brooks, would you like to speak to it?

I will object and speak to it. I, you know, I think we Many people talked about the benefits of, um, funding staff training and travel. What I will say is, um, in addition to that, this, this just helps people do their job better so that we can have better services. And I think, although I appreciate Mr. Smith's creativity here, um, you know, it is a different type of budgeting that is going to be harder on our staff and our, and our morale and our budget culture. Um, I, I guess I'll just say one more thing, that I appreciate Mr. Brooks's, um, what he says about what the public, you know, says about travel and training.

People think that's, that's a, that's a perk, um, whereas we know it's essential for people being good at their jobs. So I appreciate the work that the staff already did to come back to us with a budget, um, that I think recognizes our fiscal situation and recognizes is that public feedback. So I'll, um, love to keep it as the staff have already proposed.

Mr. Brooks, then Ms. Youskandis. Thank you. Just really quickly, I, uh, depending on how this vote goes, I just would hope that moving forward we get, you know, maybe that's included in Friday reports or something, but just an update to us members on, you know, the training, the type of training and travel that takes place and, you know, what's being brought back so that we can communicate that to the voters and the taxpayers. I know just on the couple trips that I've been on, learned a bunch, met amazing people. I know I can go get a job in anyone else's community, but I don't feel like I brought back anything that I'm using right now to benefit the community here.

And our manager was in a convention for city managers in another country, and it's hard for people to understand what the reasoning behind that is. So I just would like a little more communication in that respect so that we can in turn tell the people something. Thank you. Miss Hughes-Candies and Mr. Kelly. Thanks, Madam Chair.

I originally was going to just briefly say that this is one of the ones that I'm flagging for hopefully positive results with revenue. And then I know this amendment has made it not to be a cut, but just direction. But even, uh, I like to give more flexibility because I know how good the budget culture at CBJ has been, that if we could have some revenue, I would be happy to remove that direction as well. I think it's good when you have a budget to know that you can—. That's—.

We changed our budget assumptions, not just making cuts in this area in travel and training, but in changing how we looked at vacancy factor and all these things across the board. But in general, I would say CBJ budget culture is something— as someone who's worked at the state, and I've never worked for the city, but I get I get to see a lot of municipal budgets in my day job, that CBJ budget culture is really something to be pretty proud of because people are not trying to spend down. People are, don't in general, being honest to what they need. And, um, you know, all these things I told you, I was running permutations today and I had originally planned to come in with a larger cut for this. And then I said, well, let's see where we get to.

If I— I— the permutations that I ended up with by the end of the day was to skip over this because I had changed my mind and see where I could get on some other numbers. Um, but I feel like I have to say, because I appreciate that that's Mr. Brooks' experience, I think CBJ's got a lot of communication to do with our citizens. And I think one of the things that I want to communicate, uh, to our citizens is that the taxes that you pay bring you tremendous value. And I don't want us to fall into the, the trap of thinking that government is bad, or that being defensive about, uh, training public service staff to do their jobs well. I think people who work in public service, who are working for the city, are working directly for the people that they go to— their kids go to school together and they see each other around town, and that's something to be proud of.

Uh, and I think it's very easy when we're talking about how do we communicate the value of their tax dollars, it starts to sound very defensive. Uh, all those Juneau CBJ employees are paying their tax dollars as well, and then they're working to get training to do their jobs well so they can serve the citizens better, and a positive feedback loop. So I say all that, I could, I could talk for hours about how cool municipalities are and the amazing breadth of services that CBJ provides, but I think I agree with you, let's communicate that value better. But I'm going to communicate it from a place of great positivity to say, isn't it so cool that however many employees that CBJ has are working hard for you and are out they're doing their best. Um, and I think that's something I experienced as a state worker, that, you know, it was bad to be on a public budget, and I don't think it is at all.

So I feel like I have to say that, and I'm done.

Mr. Kelly, thank you. I think I will speak in opposition to this for many of the same reasons as Ms. Wall, but I think Mr. Mr. Brooks raises a good point that we should be communicating the value of this to the public, and I think perhaps even the Human Resources Committee that him and I are both on might be a good venue for that. And a part of that agenda is Assemblymember comments. So if you have an idea about how we might be able to communicate that effectively, I would encourage you at the next Human Resources Committee meeting meeting to bring that up.

Mr. Smith. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, I guess I just want to speak a bit to my intent here. Um, I'm trying to, you know, make a balance here of responsive to the fiscal situation that we have at the same time. And, and, you know, this amendment or this, this motion, should it pass, will cause— it's not a million, it's not $100,000 being cut, it's there will be $100,000 that is not spent.

And the end of the day, there's going to be $100,000, you know, that will stay in the budget, that will lapse the budget, lapse the, um, the, the general fund.

But I think we— my balance here is also knowing that people can choose where they work. They will choose a place that values them, values their professional and probably personal growth. If we want good people that will stay, and if we want to recruit good people, these things matter. And I feel like, you know, my philosophy is if the city is doing something, we should do it well. If we're offering a service, we should do it well.

To do that, you need people. To do that, you need good people. So I, I hope my, I hope my amendment kind of strikes the balance of valuing our employees and also being responsive to our revenue and situation. Thank you.

Mayor Walden. Thank you, Ms. Wall. I think you spoke to the value of training. Best for our employees. I did want to correct one thing.

Our city manager did go to a foreign country for training, um, but her professional organization, I believe, paid for that and was not CBJ funds.

All right, we have a motion, an amended motion on the table. We have objection. Miss Wendell, will you call roll? Thank you, Chair Wall. On the motion as amended, to direct the manager to plan for a one-time lapse of $100,000 in general fund travel and training.

Mayor Walden?

No. Assemblymember Brooks? No. Assemblymember Kelly? No.

Assemblymember Steininger? No. Assemblymember Atkisson. No.

Assemblymember Hughes-Scandies. Yes.

Assemblymember Smith. Yes. Assemblymember Hall. Nope. Chair Wall.

No. The motion as amended fails 2 ayes, 7 nays.

Item 6. How are people doing? I'm gonna need a break at some— like a more substantive break at some point, but maybe we do one more. Does that work? Okay, 2 more.

Maybe 2 more. Let's get through the pain. See how these— oh my God, these are going to be long ones too. All right, go ahead. Item number 6.

I, uh, move to reduce the affordable housing fund contribution by $150,000. $150,000 One time. Um, not something I like to do. I know housing is very important, but, um, I do think since we have $1.2 million in there, I think we could take a little hit of $150,000 this year.

Mr. Brooks.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'd like to object for the purpose of amendment and to um, reduce that amount for consideration, um, instead of $150,000 to be $250,000. And I'd like to speak to the amendment. Uh, affordable housing and housing in general is a huge issue within the community, and it's, um, the work that's been done through this program has addressed it in many ways, but there are there are things that have left, you know, a sour taste in the mouth of the community. Projects that have become wildly expensive, haven't been fruitful for actual affordable housing.

And then just the way that the funds are distributed, that we got the breakdown on the all the grants and loans that have been given since the inception of the program. Um, the, the big examples people always talk about is the Ridgeview. Uh, Peterson Hill has also had a lot of issues with the cost and not being so affordable. And I think every grant that I saw that we gave to Tlingit and Haida for housing were for projects that were being built out for over $1 million per unit, which is beyond affordable in any standard. So those are the actions where, you know, people would like us to roll back a little bit, kind of rebuild some of that, that trust in the program that we're actually using it in full force to address affordable housing.

And then, then later on we can do a little more and make it more digestible, but I think that's kind of the, the main sentiment as to why people have requested the rollback. It's not that they don't care about affordable housing or housing being built, but they don't think that the fund is being as true to that as it can be.

I saw Mr. Kelly with an objection.

Thank you. I think When it comes to the affordable housing program, we should really be looking beyond Ridgeview if we want to restore people's trust in the program. That doesn't necessarily mean that the best approach is to cut it. The best approach is to install better safeguards to make the program work better and ensure that it is serving a public benefit. And I think in the, in the previous few years, we have made strides towards that.

I think if any assembly member has an objection to a specific, um, a specific program or a specific award, that sort of— that's the sort of thing that can be objected to in the democratic process, and those, um, those concerns can be, can be weighted. However, I, I see a lot of good that the affordable housing program is doing. Unfortunately, it's moving very slowly because housing doesn't move quickly. Um, I, I see the, the renovations that are going on in the Gold Town Theater. Some of it's going to be for, for the theater itself, but some of it's actually that the part that we're involved in is going to be bringing affordable housing downtown.

I have some units that are going in just down the street from my, from my own house, and It's right next, right next to a bus stop. Dozens of units, a bunch of them affordable. My kid's own teacher has taken residence in one of those units. I see great things going on with this program. I, I don't think fully cutting it, I don't think I could support that.

I don't even think I can support the underlying motion. But certainly not fully cutting it, especially considering the crisis that we are experiencing in all of Southeast Alaska when it comes to housing. And the crisis that could be exacerbated if we don't, if we don't take, take the initiative as far as housing people who are becoming, when we home-based the stores here. So So I don't think we can afford to lose any momentum in the affordable housing. I don't think we can afford to lose any, any funding that we were planning to offer in affordable housing.

And I think that if we do want to improve the program, to improve transparency and make sure it's being used for a good reason and for— and within the bounds of public trust, then we should change the rules, not reduce the funding.

Thank you, Mr. Kelly. I had Mr. Steininger next. I think Mr. Kelly said a lot of things that I was thinking. You know, when I look at the history of the Affordable Housing Fund, yes, there's some of those that, you know, the public looks at and are unhappy with the outcomes, but there are a lot of successes on that list as well, and a lot of kind of pending successes, if you will. You know, some of the projects that Mr. Kelly spoke to 2, and I'm going to take a little bit of, you know, I don't see the program as a failure.

I see it as a, you know, there are a series of lessons learned from those projects that maybe didn't go exactly the way that the, that we or the community want them to go. And I, you know, when I talk to the staff that manages the program, you know, they, they see those, you know, lessons learned as well. And I, I think there is maybe some tweaking to the program that could be done in our Lands Committee to make it better. And I think that's a conversation that we should probably have. Um, but I am going to actually support the shift to a $250,000 reduction.

And, and the reason— it's not because I don't think we should be putting money into affordable housing. I, I think we really should. But, you know, we are trying to find places where we can save money. We'll still be putting money into affordable housing. There will still be I just had it up and I put away over $2 million in the fund available for distribution.

I'm at the number up, but I'm not going to pull it back up again, but it's over $2 million even with this $250,000 reduction. Um, and so there still will be money going in, and this isn't the only source that we have of money that we use to spend on housing. You know, we are working on a lot of projects with a lot of of city money committed to housing projects. There's ones that are, you know, in progress that Mr. Kelly spoke to. There will be more that begin to be more in progress that were approved in the latest round.

We'll see another round, you know, regardless of the funding level that we have here, we'll see another round of projects come through. So this isn't necessarily the end. It may not be as much money as I would like to put in. If we had more money, I would love to see this number go up, but I think the reality of what we're facing, you know, we need to make reductions somewhere, and this is a program that doesn't require a set amount of money to be successful. It just requires some investment every year, and maybe some years we can't invest as much as others, and that is very unfortunate, but that is the year that we're in right now.

Miss Hall. I'll also speak in support. I see in the manager's proposed budget there's, uh, $1.2 million. So this $250,000, again, it would be a one-time cut to a program that will still be able to fully function. So I, I will support this.

Miss Hughes-Candice. Thank you, Madam Chair. I will speak in strong, strong opposition to this. It is very hard for me to look at our actions and look at our process and look at where we are trying to go and the things that people have said no to for cuts and speaking to the importance of their value to the community and then turn around and say that we can afford a cut like this to the affordable housing fund. It does not make sense to me, that rationale.

I think everything Mr. Kelly said, I agree with. I think he spoke to many of the points well, so I will try not to repeat everything he said. We are in a super housing crisis. This is not the time that you press the brake. It is the time you hit the gas.

It is not the time you reduce funds. I understand we are in the fiscal situation that we are in, but when you are looking for areas to make cuts, this is not where you look. People have talked about the importance of our history and having access to our history through the museum. I would say Perhaps more important than our history is our future, and if we don't have housing, we're not going to have a future as a community. We had a red alert report from JADC before saying you need young people.

We had a proclamation in here in chambers the other day for our many senior citizens over the age of 65. If we cannot create units for people to move here, and families to live here, we are slowly going to turn into a town that is not refilling as it's supposed to. Um, we also talked tonight about Coast Guard housing. Again, it is through having funds in a housing fund like this that we are able to support things like that. Uh, Senator Sullivan Commission has spoken to the importance of Juneau doing its part to be ready and to do all that it can to support Coast Guard housing in order to be successful, especially if we want to get more cutters.

But even if we just want to keep the cutter that we have, people have talked throughout the budget process about wanting to create more taxpayers. This is how you do it. More than anything, I want to say that the affordable housing fund has been a success and it is working. It really does actually require funds to be successful. Um, and when we're talking about the, the long-ranging implications for when something— when you get out of— we talked about getting out of the market tonight.

Travel Juno spoke about what the impacts are when you get out of the marketing market. The same— this is the same way. We are now— have been consistently putting funds in there and advertising it on a consistent basis to where contractors are using this more and more and building this into their capital stacks. Housing challenges here in the capital city are not because of the tweaks that need to be made to the affordable housing fund or something that the affordable housing the fund is doing wrong. It is because it is incredibly hard to build housing in Alaska, and if you talk to any of our contractors, they'll explain all the reasons why that is.

Um, I think we need to be good stewards of our finances, but I also think we need to work to meet the city's goals, and we are just at a crisis level with this. So I cannot, uh, in good conscience move, uh, to reduce this funding.

Mr. Smith. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll oppose the amendment here.

Anyway, we know our housing situation. I'm looking at something from our, from kind of our survey, and the top value that people mentioned when said, which goal should CBJ use to guide the success of the municipality? One was The top was 68% was making Juneau a place where working-age residents and young families can live, work, and stay long-term. The Affordable Housing Fund, with its flaws— I do not fully disagree— helps people do that. So I don't think I'll support any cuts to that program.

Thanks.

I'll jump in. I, I, um, Mr. Kelly and Ms. Yaskandias and Mr. Smith said all the things I'd like to say. I'd just like to add a little bit more context for having seen this program since it first started. I wasn't there when it was conceptualized, but I've been there every year that it has given out funding, and we have always offered multi-million dollars because we have been able to do that, and we have always been able to award that to projects that committee said were feasible. And so I feel, um, like we have demonstrated that there is the market for this program at a higher level.

And so a reduction, um, means less housing gets built. All right, we have a motion and we have an amendment and we have objection. Ms. Wendell, you call roll. Thank you, Chair Wall. We have an original motion to make a one-time reduction to the affordable housing fund contribution of $150,000.

Assemblymember Brooks amended the motion to make a one-time reduction of $250,000 to the affordable housing fund contribution. Assemblymember Brooks? Yes. Assemblymember Kelly? No.

Assemblymember Smith? No. Assemblymember Hall? Yes. Assemblymember Atkisson?

No. Mayor Walden? No. Assemblymember Hughes-Scandies? No.

Assemblymember Steininger? Yes. Chair Wall? No. The amendment fails, 3 ayes, 6 nays.

That brings us to, um, the motion not amended. Do we have objection?

Um, would anyone like to speak to their objection? No need to speak. Previous comments. All right. Um, Miss Wendell, we have a motion, we have objection.

Will you call roll on the motion to make a one-time reduction to the affordable housing fund contribution of $150,000? Mayor Weldon? Yes. Assemblymember Kelly? No.

Assemblymember Brooks. Yes. Assemblymember Steininger. Yes. Assemblymember Hall.

Yes. Assemblymember Hughes-Scandies. No. Assemblymember Smith. No.

Assemblymember Atkins. No.

Chair Wall. No. The amendment fails. 4 Ayes, 5 nays.

All right, Item 7. We'll get through this sheet and then we'll take a break. Sounds great. Okay, everybody pay attention because I'm gonna do something a little weird on this one. Okay.

All right, I move that we keep the general fund subsidy to Bartlett for home health and hosp— hospice, but take the Gaston Human Services Substance Use Disorder Treatment Program, which is item 18 on your thing, of $247,000, um, from BRH.

Could you restate that, Mayor? Certainly. Um, I move to keep the GF subsidy to Bartlett for for home health and hospital services of $200,000— make it simple— but to have BRH pay for the $247,000 one-time for Gas and Human Services Substance Use Disorder Treatment Program. And if I may speak to that, I think this assembly has shown their support for home health and hospice, so I don't think that's where the money should come from. However, Gas and Human Services asked us for a one-time help, and I think, um, when Bartlett got rid of their Rainforest Recovery and other programs, I think that they bear a little bit responsibility.

And since it's a one-time money amount, I'm okay giving it to Bartlett. Bartlett to pay for.

Objections.

Miss Hughes-Scandies. Um, thanks, Madam Chair. Just objecting to make sure I'm following the numbers correctly. So we would still give Bartlett $200,000 because this would be maintaining support for the hospice, and we would make Bartlett pay for the $247,000 request, and all of this is one time. Okay, I remove my objection.

I— the— just to clarify, I believe her first hope, Home Health and Hospice, would be recurring under the mayor's motion. Is that correct? Correct. Because I'm leaving that subsidy alone and doing the one-time— I'm sorry, Miss Husani, I nodded my head, but that— but Ms. Wall is right. But, uh, the one time would be the Gaston Human Services Substance Use Disorder Treatment Program.

Ms. Hall, uh, object for a question for the maker of the motion. Um, uh, have you spoken to Bartlett and about this? I have not, but since they were on the block for $200,000, I figured $247,000 wasn't much difference. Um, well, I'll object and speak to that. Um, you know, it is, um, hospice and home care has been really difficult for anyone to deliver that service in our community.

And, um, you know, Medicare patients, Medicaid patients, nursing shortages, um, you know, it's gone from its own nonprofit over to Catholic Community Services, they couldn't do it. Now Bartlett's taken it on, and I believe when they took it over, we agreed— I think, you know, maybe staff can correct this, but I think we agreed to support them for 5 years to this amount, according to— that's what Bartlett staff had told me. Um, and as far as, uh Yeah, I, I, uh, without having spoken to Bartlett about this, I, I don't— you know, they're under a lot of pressure with declining coverage at the federal level for Medicaid funding and the reimbursement rate for Medicare patients, um, you know, so they're, you know, without having actually ran this by their staff to kind of see what sort of an impact that would have. I, I'm going to oppose this, um, and think we should continue to support Bartlett for the 5 years that we agreed to. And I'm not sure if we're in year 3 of that, or, um, yeah.

So, Mr. Smith, thank you. I'll support the mayor's motion here. Um, I did reach out to Bartlett regarding the $200,000 subsidy. My response to staff, and it was, that's a board decision to, to see what they would do and continue. However, we should remember that they're kind of our board, so we can actually tell them where to spend the money.

Um, and I, I'm looking at their balances, you know, at one point It felt not long ago their fund balance was $30, $40-something million. Amended FY26 is potentially $64 million with a potential increase to the fund balance of $6,800,000. And again, this is proposed and projected and all kinds of a similar number, $6.5 million for FY27. Um, we're in a tough spot. Um, I I, you know, we had been told that taking, you know, taking Rainforest off their hands, I believe, was a, you know, it was a, it was a million-dollar loss or something for them.

Um, I'm fine to help ask them to chip in here, um, but I, I appreciate, I appreciate the concern for their and the issues they face, but from what I can see, it looks, this looks doable for them. Thank you.

Miss Hall. Yeah, and I'll probably go ahead and remove my objection as long as we protect hospice and home care and know that somehow we're covering recovery. You know, when Sitka, when their community hospital was taken over by SIRCH, they eliminated the delivery of hospice and home care because it is generally a service that loses funds, and it's been devastating for that community. So I, I'm a strong supporter of our community to continuing to deliver this service. There was a pause when, uh, Catholic Community Services could no longer do it before Bartlett could take it over, and for families that were in need of home care or had a family member that was dying at home, there was nothing in this community for several months.

So, um, yeah, strongly support that. And, um, but also recovery treatment is super important too. So if what Mr. Smith says is true about having to— thank you for checking in with him on that. And so I removed my objection. Excuse me, Candice, do you have an objection?

Uh, object, just to add to the conversation that in those, in those, uh, periods, in the period of time that we were providing both a subsidy to the community hospital, which I think is the benefit of a community hospital, um, Bartlett was in a different financial situation, and it may be as we we continue to look at. I just want to remind us this is a 2-year process. I appreciate this, that's fine for the first year, but I would even consider they may be at a point where they can reabsorb, reabsorb that because that's a relatively small, uh, financial support. But obviously we— if they can't, then that would be a policy choice, and I agree that there's strong support for that be existing in our, in our community, but Um, even if the Gasano Human Services became a recurring, which at this point is just a one-time request, it would still be a lot cheaper than what they were paying for Rainforest Recovery at the time. So all that to provide context for next year when we're looking at this, it'll be good to look at how Bartlett's doing because I think they may even be able to absorb both of these at this point.

But I think this is a fine and measured approach to doing it. Remove objection. We have any objection? Mr. Steiner. I guess I'd ask a question of Deputy Mayor Smith, and maybe I— my listening skills were poor.

When you said you spoke to the hospital, it was— you spoke to the hospital about the $200,000 reduction that was being proposed, not about whether or not they could absorb a $247,000 $200,000 new cost. Is that accurate? So what we're considering, the amendment or the proposal we're considering is not what you spoke to them about. It was about something different. Correct.

I spoke to them about eliminating the $200,000 a year subsidy for hospice. And, you know, they said we'd have to look at that, but you are correct. And to follow up, their response was they would still continue with hospice even without that $200,000, or would they eliminate that activity? The, the response I got from staff was that they would, you know, if they were asked to take that on, they would look at it and just— and they would look at it and decide if they want to continue the service. However, I think we can tell them to continue the service if we value that.

I think we can tell them to continue that service and use their funds for that way. So yes, I'll just, you know, object to make a comment and say there's a difference between deciding on cutting funding for something and leaving it to the board's discretion as to whether or not they'll continue it, whether or not we believe that they can, you know, that would be a conversation that would be hap— would happen in the future. Asking them to take on a new cost of $250,000 is a little bit different. Doing so without any input from the hospital board is a challenge. I'm not going to maintain my objection, um, but I'll want to reach out to the hospital to understand this and Maybe we have an amendment on the night where we're passing our budget.

If this is truly not doable, I just would like to hear from them before we make this final, but I'll remove my objection.

Great. I believe we do not have any objections, so that is so moved. Okay, it is 9:18. I definitely need a little break. Um, maybe we take a 7, 5-minute break and come thinking about how you, what you want to do for the rest of the evening.

We're not going to get through our agenda by 10. We can keep extending and stay here late, um, or we can meet next week. So I think those are, we have two options, both Not ideal, but, but that's the power is with us to make that choice. So think about it and we'll see you back in 5 minutes.

All right, I'm gonna bring us back. Um, are people feeling okay going past 10?

Sorry, I would like to get through this list. Yeah, okay, so we'll just keep rolling and we can extend as we need.

Mayor Weldon. Thank you. Um, I would move to reduce the GF funding of accessory dwelling unit grants by $20,000 and ask unanimous consent. I think they don't probably use about $20,000 is what I'm guessing.

Any objections? Miss Hughes-Handys. Uh, thank you, Madam Chair. I will try to remember our desire to be somewhat succinct. You guys have just turned me with the affordable housing fund.

Um, it is really just about that. It is about the continued effort and the continued forward momentum. You can copy over all those feelings, uh, and comments over to this line item as well. I do appreciate the mayor's motion to make it smaller than it could be. Um, looking at the amount for consideration But I will say that this is something that we just made an effort to rewrite our code to make it easier than ever to put ADUs on properties that they weren't able to be used at before.

Uh, and I think it would be really great to back that up with funding. ADUs can be one way you can really start to move the needle in a smaller way that does not require the same, uh, some of the same problems that larger-scale contractors move in, um, infilled development, uh, is a great thing. And I know we have a lot of people in the community who think so, and I do too. Uh, so I'll object.

Anyone else want to speak on this? I'll just add a quick comment, which is, um, in addition to all the things we talked about in the last, um, item, you know what, one of the things that I've appreciated when, when about the city's approach has been that it's comprehensive, um, when it comes to what we have control of over for housing. It is, um, relaxing our regulations, it's rewriting our code, it's providing city land to private developers to develop, it's upzoning, um, it is the Affordable Housing Fund, which helps nonprofit and for-profit developers develop in their own ways. And then there's this, which helps homeowners add more housing stock. So, so I like the program as a complement to all our other programs, and, um, and so I'd like to keep it whole.

Mr. Smith. Thank you, Madam Chair. Objecting for the purpose of a question. I see in FY26 the accessory dwelling unit grants were budgeted at $216,000, projected actuals are $27,000. If in that case, does the money just stay in the affordable housing fund, or is it— it doesn't get moved into the competitive, you know, um, the competitive grants and loans, does it?

Uh, thank you for the question, Assemblymember Smith. Um, the affordable housing Fund is comprised of many components. So if the accessory dwelling unit has a particular budget and they don't use it, the funds that aren't used fall to the fund balance and become available as fund balance for the affordable housing fund activity in the future year. I have another. We haven't set the amount of the FY27 affordable housing grant, whatever, how much we're going to disburse.

Have we done that yet? Uh, thank you for the question, Assemblymember Smith. I believe that they set that based on their available fund balance when they get ready to launch the program each year. So if we were to actually reduce it, it could actually free up money from the accessory dwelling unit grants to actually potentially go to the competitive grants? Like, if we reduce— if we—.

The, um, idea that's on the pending list is to reduce the amount of general funds that go to the affordable housing fund to support accessory dwelling units. So it would reduce the transfer from the general fund to the affordable housing fund by $20,000. So to answer your question, no, it would not free up more funding for affordable housing grant. It would increase the fund balance in the general fund. Yes, thank you.

That, that makes sense.

I'll remove my objection.

All right, Miss Wendell, we have a motion and we have objection. Will you call roll? Chair Wall, could, could I ask that the maker of the motion clarify whether this reduction would be one-time or recurring? One time. Thank you.

Any objections? Any additional objections or comments? Anyone change their vote based on that decision? Okay, seeing none, uh, Miss Wendell, you call roll on the motion to make a one-time reduction to the general fund— general fund funding of the accessory dwelling unit grants by $20,000. Mayor Walden?

Yes. Assemblymember Hughes-Scandies? No. Assemblymember Smith? Yes.

Assemblymember Kelly? No. Assemblymember Hall. Yes. Assemblymember Atkisson.

No.

Assemblymember Brooks. Yes. Assemblymember Steininger. Yes. Chair Wall.

No. The motion passes 5 ayes, 4 nays.

Uh, thank you, Madam Chair. Miss Flick, am I reading that correctly? I just wanted to, because we took a break, refresh where we are. So our updated projected fund balance right now is negative $687-something? That is correct, negative $680,783.

Thank you.

And can you, can you tell us how much— I realize some of these are recurring and some are one-time, but how much we have cut from the operating budget is, you know, taking them all as recurring even though some of them are one-time. The recurring amount is $736,000.

All right, um, Mayor Weldon, Item 9. Uh, thank you. Um, I move that we reduce, um, General Arts and Humanities Council grant by $20,000, and I would object if I can speak to my objection. Um, if you didn't know it, and Ms. McMullen's here, that would probably speak to this much better. Jenno Arts and Humanities Council is going through a restructuring process, and they've had to lay off staff, and they're trying to figure out their path forward.

So I believe if we go much higher, we will just kill the Jenno Arts and Humanities Council. So that's why I'm doing such a small amount this time. One— so that would be a one-time.

Any other objections or comments? Madam Mayor, could you restate the amount? I couldn't, uh, $20,000 one time. And again, Ms. McMillan's here if we have questions for her, if that would affect her or not.

Miss Hughes-Candice. Thanks, Madam Chair. I'll object for purposes of amendment. Um, I will increase that amount to be a one-time reduction of $100,000. That is painful and high, and I am not sure will garner enough support, but in keeping with the principles that I started this process with, um, this is how I am.

I'm, I'm just applying the same logic to them in terms of grants and, and trying to make hard cuts. Uh, so that would be my amendment, and it brings me negative joy.

Um, Miss Hall, I'll object to that amendment. There's hard cuts and there's devastating cuts, and, and as the mayor said, um, they're in the process of restructuring, and I, I would rather this not be a devastating cut.

Mr. Smith, then Mayor Walden. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'd object for the purpose of a question, and that would be to ask Ms. McMillan what a $20,000, $40,000, and $100,000 cut would look like for your operations. Ms. McMillan, you will have to come speak into the microphone.

$100,000 Rejection would be a 10% reduction to our operating budget. Um, so I'm not the math person on my team. Um, so $20,000 would be 2%, right? And 4%, right? That's right.

2, 4. And because my operating budget I will say is $1 million. It's about what it costs to run the JAC every year. Um, and, uh, to speak on what the mayor stated earlier, she is right. Uh, the JAC is going through a really tough time as an organization.

Um, since I have stepped in, we are now down to 3 full-time staff members at the JAC. Um, we are trying to figure out what days of the week we're going to be open. Um, but really the funding that you guys give us, the most money goes directly back to other art entities, right? So, um, I believe in the past you guys used to have lots of asks from the symphony and everything, and then you decided instead of hearing from everyone that you would give us money so we could regrant to the community. Last year we gave 15 major grants to things like Perseverance Theater, Go Slate Theatre, Juno Jazz and Classics Jam, and then 14 individual artist grants.

And that's the kind of work that we really love to do for the community. It helps keep Juno vibrant and it allows us to be a hub for the art community. So that's a 10% reduction. Could we handle it if we were in a great spot? You betcha we could, but we are not in a great spot as an organization right now.

So I would really like you to consider keeping our funding or funding as much as you could so we can continue to do the good work that we do for the art ecosystem here in Juneau.

Let me—. Do you have a question for Ms. McMillan? Okay, go ahead. A little more detail on the, on the potential reduction. Go ahead, Ms. McMillan.

If you know, for the 20, 40, and potentially up to 100, are we— would you, would you likely be reducing grants to— anyway, you'd be reduced, you'd likely be reducing the major grants? Yeah. Okay, that's the first place that we would have to make cuts right now. Um, we are doing things to stabilize our organization. We're building a food truck court, we are changing our hours, we are doing all these things so in the future we won't have to ask for so much, but Right now, if we lost that funding, we would just not be able to go out into the community and help the way we have in the past.

We'll have to keep whatever you give us for our operating for this year, and then hopefully in the next year to come, we'll be in a better position. But thank you, Miss Hughes-Kinney's. Thanks, Madam Chair. Thanks, Miss McMillan. Uh, so if That makes total sense that that would be the first thing to go.

Is that about the amount that you regrant, or did you just say that? What do— how much do the major grants add up? It was $130,000 last year is what we ended up regranting in major grants. And just so you know, we had $339,000 in asks, so we were able to give out $130,000, which was great. And then we did individual artist grants for about $15,000.

Okay, thanks. It's great.

Any other questions for Ms. McMillan? Thank you for answering our questions tonight and along the way.

Um, where were we?

Oh, we have an amendment on the floor and we have objection. Anyone else want to speak to the amendment?

I will, just, you know, in opposition to this amendment. You know, I, I, we have heard from so many people over the last few months about what it is that keeps them in Juneau and makes this a place where they want to live. Live and raise family and retire. And it's different for every person. And I think that, um, you know, when I was thinking about the, the cuts that I had to put forward, you know, I, I— it was really hard to be like, how do we balance all of these things and make sure every person has their thing?

And so, um, I had to choose the big ticket items that we could reduce services to, knowing that some people would have less access but still some access. I fear that by cutting our arts program, that is such a small portion of our budget, that, that we are, you know, targeting, um, one particular part of our community that, um, you know, is only being targeted because because it's a smaller, you know, because it's a tiny part of the budget that we don't hear as much about. So I don't think it's worth it. All right, um, with that, we have a motion and we have an amendment and we have an objection. Miss Wendell, will you call roll?

Thank you, Chair Wall. We have an original motion to make a one-time reduction to the Juneau Arts and Humanities Council grant by $20,000. Assemblymember Hughes-Candies amended the motion to instead make a one-time reduction of $100,000. Assemblymember Hughes-Candies? Yes.

Assemblymember Hall? No. Assemblymember Smith? No. Assemblymember Steininger?

Nope. Assemblymember Atkisson? No. Mayor Walden? No.

Assemblymember Brooks? No. Assemblymember Kelly? No. Chair Wall?

Nope. The amendment fails 1 aye, 8 nays. Great. That brings us back to the original motion of a reduction of $20,000. Um, do we have objections?

Mr. Smith? Yes, Madam Chair, objecting for the purposes of amendment, and it's to move it to a recurring reduction. May I speak to it?

I, I feel like we're maybe being nice to people by saying one time. It's not necessarily helping us achieve our, you know, the reductions that we need to make in a recurring basis. I think by making some of these recurring it sends a signal that if things do not change, it will be— this will be reduced, and potentially this will be reduced more. I feel like by saying one time— anyway, I, I feel like we need to do some recurring reductions, um, because if things don't change, that's the way it will be. So, um, that's my motion.

Thank you. Mr. Brooks. Thank you, Madam Chair, and, uh, Um, just an objection for the purpose of a comment, then I'll remove it. Um, I very much understand what Assemblymember, uh, Smith is saying, and I had felt the same way. Um, but I think just from, you know, what we've discussed and how everyone was feeling here, I, I believe that all of us would have liked to finalize more foregone revenue decisions before making some of these.

So the one-time in nature is— might be kind of reflective of that. You know, I think a lot of them we would like to make recurring, but until we really nail in those foregone revenues, we don't know what should be recurring. So just want to make that comment, and I'll remove my objection.

Do we have any objections? Mr. Steiner. It's also to make a comment, just because to say I've been sort of ignoring our decision on one-time versus recurring because I know that anything that we're calling one-time will get reconsidered next year if we don't have it. So while I'm— I philosophically object because I don't think it matters, but I won't actually object because I won't waste your time with a vote. Just with these words.

Thank you, Mr. Senninger. Um, okay, so no objection. Mr. Kelly, I, I think we should vote on this. I think— no, I, I think, I think, um, at least maybe I should actually ask, like, how, how would staff treat, treat this decision on whether or not it's, it's recurring or one time? Would would just not be included?

Would it take like affirmative action on the part of the Assembly if we decide that this is going to be a recurring cut? Um, so I guess it— I guess, yeah, how would you take that direction from, from the Assembly in next year's budget? And would we need to do affirmative action in order to bring it back? Thank you for the question, Assemblymember Kelly. Um, The Juneau Arts and Humanities Council is considered a partner agency, and so they are generally, um, they are considered recurring.

They're considered recurring at the same amount at which the assembly approves that recurring budget the previous year, and then we work with them and adjust through a manager review process just like we do all departments. So if you make a recurring cut to this grant, we will assume the starting place for next year is lower. If you make a one-time cut to this grant, we assume that next year it would return, um, to where it was.

Thank you. I will maintain my objection.

All right, anyone else want to speak? Mr. Steiner, maybe I'm gonna waste time. But if, if we're gonna— if we're gonna vote on this and we're gonna make this one recurring but leave the other partner agency grants as one-time, I'd make an amendment to the amendment to go back and list all partner agency grants as recurring and treat them all the same.

Mr. Smith, I'm just wondering if that's like— we can do that within— I, I don't know, like, can you— okay, it seems like maybe we address on this one and then have to go back through or something. So likely the proper move would be to address this one, um, say what your intent is, and then you would, you would need to do a motion to make all of the rest of them, uh, recurring because you are amending something that's already been passed, you would need a supermajority. I think I'm going to object to that. I—. It just feels very convoluted, and some of these we've kind of considered individually about whether we'll go recurring or one time.

And so I think to go back and make everything blank one way or the other is just, you know, just adds to our headache here tonight.

Mr. Steininger, given the, the, um, attorney's advice, do you have—. I think since it's out of order, it's out of order. So, but I'll be voting against then. Yeah. Okay.

Um, I'll speak also in opposition. I, I'm totally with Mr. Steininger. This is Um, it's not really— I understand it's relevant for staff and how they prepare, but it's not relevant for— we all, we're going to have to come and look at all of these, and so I'd rather be consistent. Thanks, Miss Hughes-Caniz. Yeah, thanks, Madam Chair.

And now I feel like I've totally gotten lost in the sauce. So Mr. Smith wanted to make it recurring, that's a motion on the floor, correct? And there— now there's objection against it. Okay, I'll speak in support of that, and that's— I don't have anything else to say.

Go ahead. All right, we have a motion and we have an amendment and we have objection. Thank you, Chair Wall. On the amendment to the motion to make a recurring reduction of $20,000 to the Juneau Arts and Humanities Council grant. Assemblymember Smith?

Yes. Assemblymember Kelly? No. Assemblymember Hall? Yes.

Assemblymember Atkinson? No.

Mayor Weldon?

No. Assemblymember Hughes-Candies? Yes. Assemblymember Brooks? Yes.

Assemblymember Sininger? No. Chair Wall? No. The amendment fails for ayes, 5 nays.

All right, so that brings us back to The motion that has not successfully been amended yet tonight. Any objections?

We, we had an objection, right? The mayor, you have not— people, you had an objection to the motion, right? Yeah, I thought then you also objected. I'll remove my objection to speed things along because it doesn't look like anybody else is going to object. So—.

Oh, I'm also objecting. So, okay, I'll object. All right, Miss Wendell, will you call roll on the motion to make a one-time reduction to the Juneau Arts and Humanities Council grant by $20,000? Mayor Weldon? No.

Assemblymember Kelly. No. Assemblymember Smith. Yes. Assemblymember Hall.

Yes. Assemblymember Atkisson. No. Assemblymember Hughes-Candies. Yes.

Assemblymember Brooks. Yes. Assemblymember Sinegar. No. Chair Wall?

No. The motion fails, 4 ayes, 5 nays.

Item number 10.

Um, this is a little bit different one, so I would move that facilities maintenance moves to Marie Drake and we close the Mount Jumbo facility. Facility and, uh, with the intent to sell it and ask for unanimous consent. Miss Hughes-Candies, object. Just very quick question, Seth. Um, Mr. Barr, in this, this past— we have lots of other things that Seth is tasked with already.

This would just go on to the pile. Is that correct? Is that how staff would interpret this?

And, oh, sorry, the part that I'm saying it would just go on to the pile or the long to-do list would be to sell the gym, or would it be at the top of the list? Because that will affect how I vote. Through the chair, I don't know that I can give you a great answer on when we would tackle this. I don't think it would be immediate. It would take us some time to move building maintenance out of Mount Jumbo and into Marie Drake.

Okay, thank you.

Then, Madam Chair, I'll object just for purposes of a comment. When I talked— this was one we had a lot of consensus on when we saw from our ranking, so I'm not changing from that, but in conversations with the city manager. I would hope that we have— there is just a lot of fires and we have asked staff to do a lot of things, and I think that's great, and I trust to their expertise to slot this in where it makes sense to slot this in. But I just don't want us to have any expectation, uh, and also I will say I wish, you know, some things are frustrating that take time But, uh, we have what we have, so I would just want this slotted in rather than us to add another thing at the top, because I think there's higher priority items, and then we can move this along. So with that, I will remove my objection.

Any— Mr. Kelly? I'm not objecting. I move to suspend the rules and extend our time to 10:15.

Yeah, all right, I'll make that 10:30. Any objection? Seeing none, that is so moved.

Um, okay, I guess I didn't officially, um, did we move that? If it— no, seeing no objections, that's so moved. I can do that, but Sure. Um, brings us to Item 11. Mayor Weldon.

Uh, thank you. I move that we eliminate 0.5 FTE administrative support to the administration department. And I'll just speak briefly to this. Nobody likes to move staff to lose staff, but the city manager spoke to this and we could absorb this. So I think this is a place where we could show the public that we were cutting something.

Any objections?

I'll— Miss Hughes-Candice. Thanks, Madam Chair. I'll object. I don't know if I will maintain my objection. I will object to say that I think it's really more important than anything when we're making these cuts and how we decide these, that we feel like they're good places to cut from, you know, whatever, whatever your own metrics were that you used to decide that.

We kind of gave the sort of overarching principles, and we— I know there's 9 different sets of them, but I wouldn't want us to minimize firing somebody just to show somebody you're doing something. And so if we don't feel great about this $50,000, because I'm looking at that list and I think, oh wow, we haven't even gotten to zero yet. So is $50,000 the number that's really going to get me there? Now, that being said, you've seen me vote for $20,000 and smaller numbers, so I get that it's all nuanced, but I'm not sure that we should be making that as how we make our decision. And then the other thing I'll say is let's make sure we also give authority when they say they can absorb it.

I believe this position does a lot of task— is tasked with doing a lot for the boards, and I would confirm that with staff. I—. And that may not be true, but whatever it is they do, we should consider not doing. So for instance, if this position was added because we had so many volunteer boards, then maybe let's look seriously if we take that away about can we have so many boards. So I'll say that, and I think I'll maintain my objection because again, I'm going to tie this back to revenue.

I'll object. I, I— as we get lower on this list and these numbers get smaller, I feel like people are going to just start voting yes because they want to seem like they're cutting things, and instead they're making, you know, what we do.

Um, it's, it's a small dollar amount for what we will lose, which is support for outreach to the public and support of our support of our staff and support of our boards. Um, there was a great memo on what this position would mean, and yeah, it can be absorbed, but you're going to do a bunch of things that are very important much, much worse. So, um, I, I think, you know, yeah, these small dollar amounts that are going to have big impacts are not worthy of our time right now. I— yep. Anyone else?

Miss Wendell, we have a motion and we have objection. Will you call roll on the motion to eliminate 0.5 FTE administrative support to the administration department? Mayor Walden? Yes. Assemblymember Hughes-Scandies?

No. Assemblymember Brooks? Yes. Assemblymember Sininger? Yes.

Assemblymember Hall? Yes. Assemblymember Smith? Yes. Assemblymember Kelly?

No. Assemblymember Atkinson? No. Chair Wall? No.

The motion passes 5 ayes, 4 nays.

All right, that brings us to item number 12. Uh, thank you. Um, I move to eliminate GF support for the Arboretum at $41,100.

Any objection? I will object first for a question from the maker of the motion. Do you know what this would do?

Only if I read page 53 of the May 13th packet.

I mean, I'm, I'm going to— I'll redirect my question to staff, and then I'll make a comment. Mr. Barr.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So with $41,100 in general fund support. The Arboretum would eliminate its half-time seasonal groundkeeper's assistant. The remaining staffing that the endowment would continue to support are the Arboretum manager and the 0.29 FTE seasonal part-time groundkeeper's assistant. The impact of that staffing change would eliminate public programming at the Arboretum.

Freedom and would require greater reliance on volunteers. Um, that's the most likely outcome. Thank you. Um, I'll maintain my objection and just say that, you know, we, we came up with this list early so that we could, you know, spend the time understanding what the impacts of these changes would be. We did not request this as something to get more information on, um, and the fact that the maker of the motion didn't know what the impact is makes me feel like others may be in a similar situation.

So again, making small dollar cuts to things we don't understand actually have big impact, and they don't get us where we need to get on the budget. And so, um, I object. Miss Yaskandis. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Everything is, uh, everything is everything. I agree with, uh, the comments of the previous speaker. I think that, you know, when you— we talked about this before— if we're voting on an ordinance where we're— it's, you know, tens of of millions of dollars. Sometimes by the time that gets to the assembly, that just goes through and then tens of millions of dollars or millions of dollars of the general fund go out. And then we always get down to the $50,000 or $40,000, $20,000, and, um, you know, really dig into it.

So I both agree with that, but I'm going to support this motion. And the difference to me is that, um, there—. I—. Because I said we all had 9 different sets of how we evaluated these things, and when I look at this, um, I think— I really hope that I'm gonna find 4 friends and we're gonna have 5 votes to get revenue, and I'm going to be able to make everything we did here tonight a waste of time and restore these things, because I see value in the Arboretum, and I remember the testimony of the person who wanted us to keep funding it. I did talk to staff before the meeting tonight, uh, and see the outcome of this, and I think it's just right now I'm, I'm, I'm also trying to get to a higher number, so I'll support this.

Mr. Steingar. Um, I just wanted to note that, you know, just because these are small dollar value items that we're talking about, it does add up. You know, to kind of paraphrase a saying, you know, $1,000 here, $1,000 there, pretty soon we're talking about real money. You know, it's just because it's small doesn't mean we should ignore it and keep spending it. And what I heard in the impacts when we asked was a reduction in programming, not a complete elimination of the Arboretum.

We're taking you know, reductions elsewhere that will have, you know, pain and difficulty. The Arboretum, while it is beloved, you know, this won't completely shutter the Arboretum. We will not be bulldozing over the plants. It will, you know, continue to have some life. And, you know, if Ms. Hughes-Candies gets her wish and we have wasted all our time tonight, then then maybe we can come back and reconsider something like this.

But I don't think we're wasting our time making small reductions.

Mr. Kelly, thank you. I think this being a public park, I think I'm going to object precisely because public programming was listed as something that could be cut. This is something that brings the public into the park. I, yeah, I think if we're going to have a public park, then we should really do what we can to bring people in.

And I think it'll still be accessible regardless. But I think, yeah, I think I've spoken enough.

Miss Hall. I'll just briefly support this, you know, if it is part-time and groundskeeping. And, you know, I know there's Some of that is already happening, but I look at the Shrine of Saint Therese down the road that is all maintained by volunteers, their gardening. So, you know, if it's a beloved program in our community, I, you know, I think this would be an awesome opportunity for folks to step up supported as volunteers for to cover this part-time position.

Anyone else? All right, we have a motion and we have objection. Miss Wendell, call roll. Thank you, Chair Wall. On the motion to eliminate the recurring general fund support to the Arboretum at $41,100, Mayor Weldon.

Yes.

Assemblymember Smith. No. Assemblymember Kelly. No. Assemblymember Hall.

Yes.

Assemblymember Atkisson. Yes.

Assemblymember Hughes-Scandies. Yes. Assemblymember Brooks. Yes. Assemblymember Steininger?

Yes. Chair Wohl? No. The motion passes, 6 ayes, 3 nays.

Number 13, Madam Mayor. Um, I would move that we lease the Douglas Fire Station, and I'd like to speak to this. So I came up with this idea because I had heard in the community that we should just get rid of the whole building and sell the whole building, but I wanted to keep the Douglas Library and the community room as kind of the community center in Douglas because I am from Douglas. So this is kind of a weird thing for someone from Douglas, but, um, and also I want to address, um, I hear that there's lots of concern about the ISO rating. ISO ratings do not affect residential insurance, it only affects commercial insurance, and most insurance companies don't even use ISO operating.

So I just think this has become a very expensive place to store two apparatus that—. If we—. My preference would be to get rid of the fire engine, but I won't make Chief Hatley listen to what I have to say. But we would just have to store those two apparatus somewhere else, and hopefully we can get some revenue.

Mr. Smith. Thank you, Madam Chair. Since the chief is here, I, I'm not that I don't trust you, Madam Mayor, but I just did want to confirm because I maybe had heard different information regarding ISO. So I just want to check. Chief Howley, would you join us?

And if you guys disagree, you have to do the Fourth of July firefighting thing and spray each other with hoses. Mr. Smith, you have a— you want to ask a specific question? Um, I, I guess, Chief, did closing— what impacts would leasing out the fire station have on commercial and residential insurance rates in Douglas, or whatever the service area is? Losing the— excuse me, losing the Douglas fire station will drop us from an ISO rating a 3 to a 4. It's infrastructure.

It's a volunteer fire station. It is equipped. It has the equipment. We do utilize it. Currently, we're rebuilding our volunteer program.

But back to the insurance rating, it will drop it to a 4, and it's hard to get that back. And again, that's a 5 to 15% increase to businesses. And we talk about cost of living in the, in Juneau. It definitely will impact our patrons. Granted, there is some insurance.

There is one insurance company that does not utilize the ISO, but the majority of them do. And like I said, as a fire chief, losing an ISO rating, fire chiefs lose their job when they lose an ISO rating. And I've only been here 4 months.

Just a follow-up, Chief, and maybe I had misunderstood you previously. Does the ISO affect residential insurance? Minimal, very minimal, but it, it does affect it. Thank you. Um, Chief Hatley, maybe stay up here, we got a few more questions for you.

Mr. Steininger, yeah, thank you for coming up and answering some questions. Um, what I've heard from folks living in in Douglas, their concern is response times. Not—. They haven't necessarily brought up the ISO rating or insurance rates, but response times. Um, what would this do to response times for people living in South Douglas?

Currently, like it's stated, it's a volunteer fire department. We do not have staff there. On occasion, we do have volunteers that do respond there. As I stated, we're rebuilding that currently right now. I'd like to get a live-in program and actually have residents at that station.

As far as response times, the station out of downtown, it would be responding to Douglas.

Mr. Kelly. Thank you. You might have partially answered my question. I wasn't specifically talking about response time, but I was thinking specifically, I guess, what would, what would be our ability to respond if there's a closure of the bridge? If we did not have this station?

There would be no infrastructure on the island, and that's what's also unique about it is it's a facility that is equipped that all we need to do is boat personnel over and we could staff it. And also, I'd like to address that it is kind of halfway housing too, and I'm speaking personally, I would not be here today if I didn't have the opportunity to stay at that station while I was trying to find housing here in the community. So we're kind of utilizing that as housing for new hires. So it is an opportunity for that. One more question.

The, the information staff brought us back on this had some of this, but can you speak to what you would expect the impact of the equipment to be if we were to move it? Um, currently we have a fire engine and ambulance over there, and we have over $174,000 worth of equipment on it. Um, we'd have to find a place for it. Uh, with that, that would push other, uh, equipment out of stations. And again, million-dollar apparatus sitting outside is not the most ideal, especially with the elements and so forth.

Any other questions for Chief Hadley? All right, thank you. Go ahead, Miss Hall. Yeah, speaking of equipment and trying to protect it, it's my understanding that there's a monopoly with fire and ambulance equipment, and, and it's, you know, down to one or two companies even manufacturing it, so the prices really skyrocketed. Um, yeah, you know, I just am bringing up this point because it seems like it would make make a lot of sense to really take care of what we have.

But is that something that's current? Yeah, currently it takes 4 years to build a fire truck, so we got to get ahead of it. And so really realistically, our reserve apparatus got to last us longer, and having them in good working order and in a climate-controlled environment is critical.

Thank you for being here, Chief Hadley. We'll let you know if we have other questions along the way. We have a motion on the floor. Mr. Smith. Thank you.

Objection for purpose of a question. Mr. Bart, is there any other place in the city that this apparatus could be stored inside or under decent coverage? Or—. Yeah, good. Anyway, sorry.

Thank you for the question through the chair. Um, yes, as Chief Hadley mentioned, this— the expensive apparatus that we're talking about would move to a different station. It would displace equipment that is in that other station, but it would displace less expensive equipment. We would house the— we would house the engine inside. We would house a vehicle that is likely— we haven't made the decision yet, and department would need to look at this, but likely a vehicle that is used by our CARES team or mobile integrated health, something of that nature.

Thank you. I remove my objection. Miss Hall. And I'm, I'm going to jump to this motion. It seems like we've got a brand new fire chief.

He's rebuilding a program, definite impacts to not having that response on the island. And I, I just think this is a bit foolhardy to proceed with this. With this motion.

I'm going to object for a question. That's okay. Um, remind me— I'm sure this information was presented— the amount for consideration here, because this is a lease hypothetical, does it actually change? Would we actually change our budget if this is to pass, or would this just be direction to staff? Thank you for the question, Chair Wall.

Um, we would, uh, we would change our revenue budget. Um, the amount we would need to confer a little bit on. Um, I don't know how quickly the station could be turned and actually leased out. Um, and I believe the amount for consideration was a full year worth, so likely the revenue would be a little less. We probably would adjust the budget for the full amount, but recognize we wouldn't likely gain all of that the first year.

All right, um, Mr. Kelly, did you want to speak to The moment—. Not really. I think Miss Hall spoke to most of my—. All right, we have a motion and we have objection. Miss Wendell, will you call roll?

Thank you. On the motion to lease the Douglas Fire Station: Mayor Walden, yes. Assemblymember Hall, nope. Assemblymember Kelly, no. Assemblymember Smith, yes.

Assemblymember Hughes-Candies? No. Assemblymember Atkinson? No. Assemblymember Steininger?

No. Assemblymember Brooks? No. Chair Wall? No.

The motion fails 2 ayes, 7 nays. Madam Mayor, item number 14. Thank you, Madam Chair. I would move to reduce the Small Business Development Center grant by $3,500, and I would object because I think we barely give them anything, but they're a helpful organization to small businesses. Great, we have a motion and we have objection.

Anyone else want to speak to the motion? Miss Hall— the Mr. Brooks. Could I first— I kind of zoned out for a second there. Could you please repeat the motion? And I'm pretty sure I'm going to object regardless.

Reduce the Small Business Development Center grant by $3,500 recurring. Yeah, and I will speak to that. I actually met with the director, Ms. Hussein, and this week, and this is a match for federal funds that come to this. It is federally funded in part by the U.S. Small Business Administration, as well as matching funds from the State of Alaska and contributions from partner boroughs, cities, and other sponsors. So this is the required match for us to be able to have this office in our community.

And, um, you know, I propose if anyone else has questions on this that we should bring Ms. Hussein up to, to answer them, or to maybe speak a little more in depth to what I recall from our visit. Um, Ms. Hussein, we'll invite you up if people have questions. I'm gonna go to Mr. Brooks first since he had his hand raised. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll just speak in support of the objection to the motion.

Uh, this organization, in my personal opinion, leverages money in the best way out of all of our partner agencies and, uh, can do just extremely impressive things with this small amount, and I don't think we should take any from them. Any questions for Ms. Hussein while she's here with us.

Does not look like we have any questions for you, so thank you. I would just like you to just expand ever so succinctly this evening about that, uh, what it would do if, if this cut were to happen. Okay, um, so I'm not allowed to lobby, so I have to say that. Um, so I want to talk about it from just being a private citizen. And as a private citizen of Juneau, I'm obviously the closest to this program.

And as we've gone through this process specifically, it's made me have to consider what does this mean if we lost it? So it would mean that on the state side and the federal side, they would take a hard look at the center in Juneau and decide whether or not we could get this work done from someone, say, in Wasilla or Anchorage or somewhere else. So number one, we know that that's a big risk to Juneau. We know that personal interaction with the businesses, when I run into them at the grocery store, when I see them outside, that is so meaningful meaningful. It also means that when you're local, you're doing deeper work, so it's not just sliding them through, say, the process and checking it off the box.

You're really trying to make them successful over time. So that's number one. The second thing this process made me really think about, and this is something that I've not thought about until this process started, is that we actually could do even a lot more with the SBDC at— in Juneau. And the reason is, um, so I get funded $28,500. There's a little piece of CBJ work I do in my work.

So every time there's a formation, I always make sure, have you signed up for CBJ taxes? Have you done this? Have you done that? You know, I check off out of the box, but there's probably a lot of many more elements within CBJ that businesses interact with that could be offloaded into SBDC, and instead of paying, say, a dollar, you would be paying 17 cents per dollar. So it's a lot more efficient and there's a I think more efficiency that we can squeeze out because of this process, because we've gotten to know each other.

You guys have gotten to know the SBDC a little bit more too. So I think, you know, in some ways, as painful as this is, it could actually be a blessing in disguise because I think there's a lot we can squeeze out of it. And when we think of— last thing I'll say is it's a— it's an asset in the sense that you You put in 17 cents, you get a dollar back. But the other thing is that asset becomes a safety net. So when COVID happened, our loan numbers skyrocketed.

The reason they skyrocketed is because we started making all of these COVID loans through SBA. We were helping businesses write their applications. They had— This is Hussein. Sorry. I'm going to have to ask you to—.

Wrap up. Long story short, safety net when it comes to disasters, safety net when it comes to— and it's, it's 17 cents on the dollar. So think about it that way. Thank you. Thanks for being here.

We have a motion on the floor. We have objection. Um, I, I think— do we have an objection? Yes. Um, Miss Hughes-Caniz.

Thanks, Madam Chair. I don't think this will go anywhere. I will object for the purposes of an amendment. I will amend the motion to increase the amount for consideration to $28,500. Speak briefly to that.

I'm, um, I think from people's previous comments, uh, I already know this is a lost cause when looking at these things and looking at the revenue picture that was created by the ballot measures. We—. When we said that we wanted to do things well and maybe we would do less things, then I have to look at whether, even though it's an incredible value of leveraging local funds and it does bring in state and federal funds, which is— I understand the value of that— it is still taking a reduced funding and, and funding multiple partner organizations to support our small business community. And I don't think that every community has the revenue set up to do that. And I think right now I would— I gladly see the value of them if we make decisions that create more revenue.

But if we don't, then this would be on my list of things that it's a tiny cut, but I'm trying to get the number bigger. So objections to the amendment? Miss Hall? Yeah, objection for the reasons I stated previously. This brings in about $75,000 worth of federal funds.

Um, to the amendment? Miss Hall is objecting to the amendment. Um, Miss Wendell, we have a motion with an amendment and objection. Will you call roll? Thank you.

On the amendment to the motion to increase the amount of the Small Business Development Center grant reduction to $28,500, Assemblymember Hughes-Scandies? Yes. Assemblymember Hall? Nope. Assemblymember Smith?

No. Assemblymember Kelly? No. Assemblymember Atkinson? No.

Mayor Weldon? No. Assemblymember Brooks? No. Assemblymember Steininger?

Nope. Chair Wall? No. Amendment fails 1 aye, 8 nays.

That brings us back to the original motion. There are objections. Anyone else want to speak? Mr. Smith? Nope.

Um, Miss Wendell, will you call roll? On the motion to reduce the Small Business Development Center grant by $3,500 in recurring funding. Mayor Walden? No.

Assemblymember Brooks? No. Assemblymember Smith? No. Assemblymember Steininger?

No. Assemblymember Hall? No. Assemblymember Atkisson? No.

Assemblymember Hughes-Scandies? Yes. Assemblymember Kelly? No. Chair Wall?

No. The motion fails 1 aye, 8 nays.

Yes, someone want to—. Mr. Smith? I move that we extend the meeting till 10:45 and ask unanimous consent. Any objections? Seeing none, that's so moved.

All right, we have moved on to the second section here, which we get big numbers again. This is our one-time funding, um, line items. Miss Mayor Weldon, Madam Chair, I would move that the $2,720,000 that was moved to the restricted budget reserve from the manager's budget instead moves to the general fund and ask for unanimous consent. Miss Hughes-Gandhis. Thanks, Madam Chair.

This is an interesting one, and it took me a long time to understand what was actually going on with this number because first I thought the manager was just putting money in the restricted budget reserve because of our resolution, but that wasn't the right number. Then I thought it was related to Eagle Crest and caring for bad debt, but it was very similar to that number, but not that number either. And I'm going to ask Miss Flick to confirm, but after a conversation with Miss Flick, this is a situation where this amount of money actually should have been in our CIP during the CIP create— creation process. But I'll let— maybe Miss Flick, could you just give a short summary there? Absolutely.

Thank Assemblymember Hughes-Candies, um, the, the process for funding the CIP and going through that process includes a memo from myself to the Director of Engineering Public Works that outlines the funding available for them to, to allocate. Given the direction this year with the reduced sales tax, and the very specific kind of direction that was given and that the manager gave on projects. We communicated to them that there was a total reduction amount, and then also specifically here were some projects not to fund that had been planned, and there was just some miscommunication. They, uh, when they built the CIP resolution and process, um, they, they took out the, the specifically named projects, but there was funding remaining that could have gone to other projects. So that CIP resolution had already moved far enough along that we wanted to make sure that, um, the sales tax dollars that were available per the, the CIP kind of, uh, intent language of the ballot um, was honored.

And so the 1% does have contributions to the restricted budget reserve as an item that's included in the 1%. So we took the difference that was available and put it in the restricted budget reserve as a way to manage the process and fully fund the CIP to what was actually available.

Thank you for that. A much cleaner explanation, Miss Flick. So just to follow on to then with my objection, when we talked about how would we balance this in this first year, we said we'll use some general fund because we don't know and we don't want to— we want to engage with the public and we don't know really what the cuts are going to look like, and we'll make service, you know, all the things we went over at the beginning of the meeting. But we talked about at that time, and I think has been a consistent principle throughout this, that we don't want to start cutting into the just general CIP unallocated, just take money out of everything, because in the end we know that only makes things more expensive. So I think it's very tempting seeing it sitting there, but I think we need to give this back to staff and say, go put this into to CIP projects, as would have happened if it wasn't a timing issue.

Mayor Weldon. Okay, Mrs. Hughes-Canney's just confused me. I thought I understood from Ms. Flick. Um, um, I'm gonna change my— I move that we table this item till we get some little more information.

Carrying this information on the side, it's, um, I'm not sure what you're telling me. If we're honoring, if we're honoring the voter's intent, then it should go to the restricted budget reserve. But Ms. Hughes-Canney just said something about CIP, so now I'm totally confused and it's 10:30 at night. Yes, and it is 10:30 at night. Um, so Let me just put a couple options out in front of you.

So one of the things in the— there are several things on your list, 15, 16, 17 coming up, that are part of the CIP resolution, that are part of the voter-intended projects that we use sales tax dollars to fund. So So if, if you desire to not fund particular CIP projects to ensure that those funds fall to your fund balance unrestricted so you can use them in the future, which could be responding to things, could be reallocating to CIP projects in the future, then You could, um, do your motion, which is to, um, take the $2,720,000 out of the CIP resolution and let it fall to the general fund fund balance, which is restating the motion that you said. And that would allow it to be in your unrestricted fund balance. And when you either need to respond to something want to get above zero on your fund balance number. Um, you could move it to the restricted budget reserve later.

Um, you could allocate it to a new CIP project. You could do that by, by, by the motion you created, uh, Madam Mayor, that would allow it to fall to the unrestricted general fund. I think, Miss Hugh Scandies, if your intent is to not put it in the restricted budget reserve but rather allocate it to another project, The most expeditious way to do that right now would be to let it go to the unrestricted fund balance, and then staff can come back with a CIP project that could then utilize these funds. It would be an appropriating ordinance that would come to you through the regular process.

Uh, thank you for that explanation. So I will go back to my original motion.

Any objections? Are you maintaining your objection?

I'll just— I guess I'd object and say I'd feel more comfortable then if it had the addition of the sentence, and direct staff to bring back projects, because the way I hear it is 2 different, um, kind of paths forward. And one is you throw it in the unrestricted, and we could do any number of things with it. But I don't personally have faith that it would get locked back up because we're not even above zero. Um, yeah, exactly. And, uh, and then I'm saying that if then, if we're gonna be honest, I would rather we start taking a wrench to actual projects than this, which fell out accidentally.

So both of them are going to the unrestricted budget or GF either way, but one is GF with direction to staff and one is just leave it there because we're trying to get more money there.

Are you making a motion? I guess. Sure. Yeah, that would be easier. Okay, so I'll make an amendment to the mayor's motion, which is to restate the mayor's motion and add direct staff to bring back the projects, where to reallocate this $2.72 million to.

You want to specify when they would be? To a future Finance Committee meeting or Public Works, or—. Yeah, to a future finance meeting. Thanks. Um, I saw Mr. Steininger first.

Um, I guess I'll object to that. I don't We're in the position of trimming our CIP plan. So I don't understand necessarily giving direction to have staff bring back more CIP projects when we have the full recommendation. And, you know, I believe we're probably gonna take some action here to trim the full recommendation. So is this an objection?

I mean, it's hard to say because we haven't taken action yet on the next 2 items, right? But like, I almost take your motion as just an objection to the next— to eliminate the next 2 items. Maybe it is like— it kind of seems maybe it's backwards. Maybe we should be talking about this after we talk about the next 2. But I, I feel like just the underlying motion from the mayor of let's not put this money in the restricted budget reserve reserve is what I agree with.

You know, we're not in times when we have enough money to put away for longer-term savings. I understand that our, you know, policy is to repay the restricted budget reserve till it gets to a certain amount, but we're having enough trouble trimming our operating needs. We don't have the excess revenue to make ends meet right now. So we should just let this go into the general fund. We'll address a restricted budget reserve if we have the revenue to address it, and we should talk about our CIP plan.

That's kind of a separate conversation, I guess.

Thanks for that request for clarification, or, or the— that's helpful. Um, and all of that is helpful. I guess I'll ask a question and then I'll probably remove my objection or maintain it based on what the answer is. Ms. Flick, um, because it's 10:30, at the beginning, as part of all the manager did this and you directed the manager to do that, we said that a real ongoing reduction to the CIP was what? The total, um, real ongoing reduction is $4.4 million.

Great, thank you for that. And so the reason that I would object is because the real the real true cost then, let's say, and I do expect that people are just going to cut the CIP because I think it's the most painless place, but I also think it's somewhat short-sighted unless we come up with revenue, then the real ongoing cost is 4, 5, 6, 6.5, 7, 8, you know, like basically saying that in January or December, whatever it was, we could have said just cut $10 million out of the CIP, that's easy for us. Staff can just figure out how to manage it, which is fine, but that gets expensive because that's $10 million every year, and I've seen how that goes with the state. So I'll— I will maintain my objection.

You're, um, what'd I say? Um, I said I'm—. Oh, no, I guess I'll— yeah. I'm lost, you guys. Yes, I will keep that amendment, and then we'll vote on that.

Great, we have an amendment to the motion. Do we have objection? Yes. Um, Miss Wendell, will you call roll on the amendment to the motion to add direction to staff to bring back projects to reallocate the $2,720,000 $100,000 to at a future Finance Committee. Assemblymember Hughes-Scandies?

Yes. Assemblymember Steininger? Nope. Assemblymember Atkisson? Yes.

Assemblymember Brooks? No. Assemblymember Hall? Nope. Mayor Weldon?

No. Assemblymember Smith? No. Assemblymember Kelly. Yes.

Farewell. Yes. The amendment fails. 4 Ayes, 5 nays. Great.

That brings us back to the original motion, not amended. Miss Wendell, will you call roll on the motion to reduce the CIP resolution allocation of $2,720,000 $100,000 to the restricted budget reserve and instead have it fall to general fund fund balance. Mayor Walden?

Yes. Assemblymember Smith? Yes. Assemblymember Hughes-Candies? No.

Assemblymember Atkinson? Yes. Assemblymember Kelly? Yes. Assemblymember Brooks?

Yes. Assemblymember Hall. Yes. Assemblymember Steininger. Yes.

Farewall. Yes. The motion passes 8 ayes, 1 nay.

Madam Mayor, do we—. We're watching the time. I move that we remove the Lemon Creek multimodal path for $1.5 million from the CIP and put the Funds in general fund.

Any objections? Anyone want to speak to their—. Would you like to speak really briefly to this and say that it's very hard for me to, uh, find comments that adequately capture how I feel about this without— and keep to what I believe is appropriate decorum. Um, it's just truly, like, as a community member, is so disappointing, so disappointing in the decisions being made. So I object.

Mr. Smith. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll object to this. Um, we are now in the black. Um, I will be supporting the gas no turnaround, uh, you know, letting that fall to fund balance.

This is a, you know, there's been an agreed-upon project. I mean, it's had varying levels of success. Obviously, federal blah blah blah is challenging now. Putting this money in this project, it can be taken out at another time, but it shows support for it and maybe makes us check our checkbook as we're making other decisions. So I'll object.

Mr. Steineger. I'm gonna begrudgingly support this motion, not because I don't like this project. I think it's a pretty important project for our community. I think it's important from a safety standpoint for bike commuters that go from, you know, downtown to the Valley, Valley to downtown, you know, being able to bypass the heavy traffic on that road in Lemon Creek is very important. But, you know, thinking about, you know, the realistic timeline of this project, if I thought we would be breaking ground on a section of bike path this coming construction season, next construction season, then I would not support pulling this funding.

But I don't see that happening in the immediate future. You know, as soon as we start to get to a point where we might be able to do that, where we might have like true actionable expenditures that will happen immediately on this project, then I want to see it come back in a future CIP. Absolutely. But, you know, this year I, I think that money can be spent on things that will immediately impact our lives this year, but it's very disappointing to have to vote to remove funding for this project, because I, I think we should do everything that we can to encourage people to bicycle and not drive between the Valley and downtown when they're going to work. I think that's important for our community, but I don't see this money being deployed this year, and I think those dollars can be used elsewhere for immediate impact.

Can we get a motion to extend? Maria Walden, I move to extend our meeting till 11 o'clock, and that will be my final extension. Do we have an objection to that motion? No. Um, okay, uh, we have— I think Miss Hall was—.

Yeah, I'll just speak in support of this as well. Again, I fully support a bike path. I, I think that would be wonderful. I think North Douglas Highway also needs one for far more safety reasons. Um, anyway, we're— our city museum going down the road of building a new bike path.

You know, I, I really think we've got beloved institutions that we're cutting. And, um, you know, this was federal funding that was available under President Biden that I, um, you know what, anyway, I, I agree that I don't think there's going to be that federal funding for a few years to come, but by golly, when it is available I think we definitely should move forward on this project, but not now. I'll speak in opposition. I think we've talked about this project a lot already, and why some of us would like to keep this funding. I just wanted to make one comment about being realistic.

I appreciate people saying that this won't happen right away. I think that's true. Um, but I think we've made some decisions over the last few weeks that are also very unrealistic. You know, when I think about Eagle Crest as an example, I am down to try all the things that we can for Eagle Crest, but to— if I had to put money on which, which project's going to come to fruition, um, I would think that the challenge for building a project is much smaller than keeping— making sure we find a sustainability plan for Eagle Crest. Great, Miss Wendell, we have a motion, we have objection.

Thank you. On the motion to remove the Lemon Creek multimodal path in the amount of $1.5 million from the CIP and have the amount fall to general fund fund balance. Mayor Weldon? Yes. Assemblymember Hughes-Candies?

No. Assemblymember Brooks? Yes. Assemblymember Steininger? Yes.

Assemblymember Hall? Yes. Assemblymember Smith? No. Assemblymember Kelly?

No. Assemblymember Atkinson. No. Chair Wall. No.

The motion fails, 4 ayes, 5 nays.

Mayor Weldon, item number 17. Um, I move that we, um, remove Gaston Avenue widening and turnaround for the sum of $1 million from the CIP list and move it to general funds. Any objection? Seeing none, that is so moved.

We already took care of item 18. That brings us to item 19. I move that we reduce the Alaska Committee grant, um, one time for $50,000.

Any objection? Seeing none, that is so moved. I move that we reduce the HEAT Smart grant by $20,000. Any objection?

Oh, okay. Uh, Mr. Kelly, would you like to speak to it? Um, I, I would move to amend it by basically doing 21. So I, I would move that we direct the $20,000 that we're cutting from HEAT Smart and, uh, divert it to the grant for United Way.

No, what do you mean? Sorry. So, so items 20 and 21 are there basically the same amount of money we're cutting from one and the other. The last item is actually an expense increase. So basically, I'm just saying we would cut Heat Smart and direct those funds to United Way.

And I'd probably move to divide the question. So, yeah, all right, seeing that, I'm not going to take us more time. I'll withdraw my motion.

Okay, so that brings us— so right now we have a motion and we have objection. Mr. Sininger, I'll just speak quickly. I'm going to speak in support of this reduction. Last time we talked about this, moved it to the pending list, I was concerned about whether or not this was something that actually was supportable and workable. I've talked to people at Heat Smart, you know, while it's not ideal, they said that this is absolutely something that they are willing to do to be part of them pitching in to help us with our issues that we're facing.

And that is why I'll be voting yes. I think this is a great program that we should be putting money into, but they came forward and said that they could take this. All right, we have a motion, we have objection. Mayor Weldon, will you call roll? Or— all right, Miss Wendell, will you call roll instead of Mayor Weldon?

Thank you, Chair Wall. On the motion to reduce the Alaska HEAT Smart grant by $20,000, Mayor Weldon? Yes. Assemblymember Hughes-Candies? No.

Assemblymember Smith? Yes. Assemblymember Kelly? Yes. Assemblymember Hall?

Yes. Assemblymember Atkinson? Yes. Assemblymember Brooks? Yes.

Assemblymember Steininger? Yes. Chair Wohl? Yes. The motion passes 8 ayes, 1 nay.

All right, um, Mayor Walden, I move, uh, a grant for United Way Southeast Alaska Voluntary Organization assisting disaster sustainability of $20 million.

$20,000. Yeah, it just perked right up. $20,000.

Any objection? Ms. Huseken, would you like to speak to it?

Uh, Ms. Wendell, will you call roll on the motion to approve the $20,000 grant to United Human Way for the Southeast Alaska Voluntary Organization Organization Assisting in Disaster Sustainability. Assembly, uh, excuse me, Mayor Weldon? No. Assemblymember Hughes-Candies?

No. Assemblymember Smith? Yes. Assemblymember Kelly? Yes.

Assemblymember Hall?

Yes. Assemblymember Atkisson? No.

Assemblymember Brooks. No. Assemblymember Steininger.

Yes. Chair Wall.

Yes. Wait, what? Yes, my vote is yes. The motion passes 5 ayes, 4 nays.

All right, um, Mayor Walden, will you— well, let me just see any last motions related to the budget before we pass it out of committee.

Miss Hall, can we reconsider the museum?

Um, a question for staff, um, do you mean it right Immediately. So you mean, yeah, maybe not. I, I just see that we have, uh, we've done quite a bit of work and we haven't even got to the revenue, but there will be another opportunity to come back and look at the museum again. Okay, thank you. Yes, so when on June 8th, everything can be without— even without a motion of reconsideration can be brought to the table because will be outside of committee.

I will ask that people bring new motion, you know, new— don't make the same motions again and again if they haven't passed. But if things have failed or situations have changed, you can do that on June 8th. Mr. Steidinger, can I just make comments I didn't make when we were talking about it? The— on the Gaston Avenue widening and turnaround, that is one item that we moved off the CIP list. I just want to comment that I would like to see that come for consideration at the next CIP list.

I didn't object. I didn't want to force a vote, but that is a safety issue for that neighborhood, and I would like— I would hope to see that in the FY28 CIP list for our consideration again. Thank you. Thanks. Anything else?

Mayor Weldon, will you do us the honors of passing these things out of committee?

We're trying to—. I will, uh, move the reductions that we worked on all night long to the full assembly.

Can you just— can you just read these 3 things for the record? I'm looking for the 3 things. Mr. Smith, do you have the 3 things? Just as a minute, I guess. Oh.

You're talking about those. So, um, I move, uh, the CIP Resolution 4039 as amended, the mill levy ordinance 2026-03— is that amended? It's not amended. And the CBG— CBJ budget ordinance 2026-01 as amended. Any objections?

Seeing none, that is so moved. That brings us to bonds. And just so you know, we, we have time on our next AFC meeting to talk about bonds, but if we want to introduce the current, uh, wastewater proposal and education proposal to the full assembly without holding an extra meeting, we'd have to do that tonight. So, um, Mayor Wellens, ready to try to do that? We'll try and do that, because remember, if you don't like it, you can stop it at the assembly.

I move the, uh, uh, wastewater and water bond— I think it's for $10 million— to the full assembly.

So the, the ordinance that, um, you all considered last year is for $8 million. Thank you. $8 Million. Sorry. So that's Ordinance 2025-33.

Quick question. If we— I, I believe the manager's recommendation was potentially for, for more. Is there something we have to do tonight to consider up to that amount? My understanding is if you want to consider the manager's $9.4 million, we need to draft a new ordinance and introduce it for you. Okay, I move that we have staff draft a new ordinance for $9.4 million for our wastewater—.

Whatever, water and wastewater—. Water and wastewater bond. Thank you. Apologize for that. Have it introduced and referred back to the AFC.

Yes, that exactly that motion. Any objections? Mr. Smith, uh, I'll remove this objection in a second, but I, I will likely be opposing, uh, an additional water and wastewater bond. But I guess we'll talk about it later, but I'll remove my objection. Thanks, Chair Wall.

I know we're under the gun. Um, if the intent is for this to be introduced on June 8th, but we're going to talk about it on June 3rd and not have a July AFC, I don't think you really want it referred back to the— to AFC. Why not? Um, because you'll need to vote on it by July 27th, and if we skip the July AFC, we're gonna talk about it on June 3rd, introduce it on June 8th. We won't meet again until August, and you have to vote on it as a full assembly at the end of July.

So by the time it's introduced, it will have already been to AFC.

If our intent is just to talk about it at AFC, that's okay. We can make amendments at the full assembly, right?

Okay. And make sure we said up to $9.4 million. Mr. Smith. Madam Chair. I would prefer that we discuss it in AFC because, you know, we can get— we can see— I don't know when and how it happens, but I'd like to discuss it in a committee that's not the—.

I think— agreed. I just— I don't know why we couldn't discuss it before it actually gets introduced. You can, and that's your plan as we understand it. Um, our concern was if you give us a motion tonight that says introduce it and refer it back to AFC, there won't be an AFC to refer it back to. But you're, you're already planning on talking about it at AFC before introduction.

So, okay, so both refer it to AFC and introduce it. Thank you. Thank you for my motion, Ms. Wall. Okay, moving on to my second one. Let me see if there's any objection.

Seeing none, that's it. Moved. Um, my next motion would be I move up to $15 million for a— $16 million, um, up— so up to $16 million for state funding. No. Okay, sorry.

I move to introduce— there we go. Sorry, a $50— up to $50 million bond for school projects. 16.

And ask for unanimous consent. You should move it both to the AFC and for introduction. Yes, thank you. Do you have that, Miss Wendell? Perfect.

Any objection to that motion? Seeing none, that is so moved. Next meeting date June 3rd, 2026, we will be back to get it talking about those bonds and, um, reviewing our audit.

And with that, we are adjourned.

It's late, everyone's stupid. We all dumb at this point. We all very dumb. I was like, I know you're probably like, get us that Um, you got—. You probably get rid of this.

I miss something though.