Kodiak Island Borough Assembly Regular Meeting of May 21, 2026

I'm going to call the Kodiak Island Borough Assembly regular meeting on Thursday, May 21st to order. We're going to begin with an invocation from Captain Diane Shadow of the Salvation Army.

Let's pray.

Dear Lord, we thank you for this beautiful day. We pray that this beautiful spring weather will follow us through the weekend as we all go through Crab Fest and enjoy the festival that so many people have put on. God, we thank you for all the people here who are making decisions and all the people who have come to listen and give feedback. We ask, God, that you guide the assembly as they wrestle through issues that will be affecting the entire community and that they will come to wise and sound decisions. God bless Kodiak.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. And now for the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

We are gathered on the traditional homeland of the Sup'iaqalutik people, and we acknowledge the 10 tribes of the Kodiakalutik region We recognize the Uluta culture that enriches our community to this day. Roll call, please.

Mr. Ames. Here. Mr. Gardner. Here. Mr. Johnson.

Here. Ms. Roberts. Here. Mr. Smiley. Here.

Mr. Whiteside. Here. Mr. Woods. Here. Mayor Griffin.

Here. You have a quorum. All right, next, approval of the agenda and consent agenda. Under the consent agenda this week are the special meeting minutes of April 30th and the regular meeting minutes of May 7th and confirmation of the mayoral appointment of Ms. Marion Owen to the Solid Waste Advisory Board. Move to approve the agenda and consent agenda.

Second. Thank you, Mr. Whiteside. And there is a second. Staff report, Manager Williams.

Thank you. Sorry, you want a staff report of the—. Yes, I'm sorry. Yes. The anticipated amendment or—.

The anticipated changing of the agenda. Sorry, I was totally trekking. Um, yes, so tonight we're asking that we amend the agenda by removing ordinances fiscal year '27-1 and '27-2, which is our budget ordinance and our levy ordinance, because you saw an email yesterday that we recertified after we found some anomalies in the certification. And when we certify, our assessing team gets one group of information and our finance team gets another group of information. It's kind of a subreport that's more detailed.

The subreport that was more detailed did not match the original report today. It included more categories and more homes in different tax areas that were there originally. So the one that we tuned in on, there were 58 properties, but the subreport that Finance got had 60 properties, and so that can't be right. Um, and so Tyler worked on it throughout the day. This afternoon we got really close to where we were about $19,000 off, but we still don't know why.

Yesterday's recertification came because the software did not count for senior exemptions for surviving spouses. That was the $201,000 that we were off. And so that has been fixed, but now we are still— we have a gap, and putting numbers into that ordinance would have— the numbers would have just been wrong. And so we're waiting. We're hopefully going to be able to update that tomorrow.

Because we have a special meeting on the 28th, we're moving the ordinances for introduction to the special meeting next week, which will happen right after the work session. Thank you. And for the public, so Tyler is the software, and Tyler's not a person. Tyler is the software, right? And, um, this is brand new software that we're transitioning into.

I actually feel very bad for Tyler Steele every time I say Tyler has screwed up. If you're listening, Tyler, sorry. So we are transitioning taxation software from a company called Harris to a company called Tyler. We were supposed to be done months ago. We're having a lot of problems with that.

And so this is how it's showing up. Hopefully once we get that fixed, our next obstacle is levy, which happens on June 15th and 16th. And if that doesn't work, tax bills don't go out. Well, I'm sure the audience is like, yay, that really screws up. Some things for the rest of the works.

And so we are working with them, and their team is responsive, just slow.

Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. It seems to me if, um, you know, I appreciate that the software change, we don't have the information needed to pass these ordinances in first reading for the budget. I would like to suggest we also then delay resolution— item 14B, Resolution 2701. Without having that accurate picture, it's hard to say exactly what revenue is available and how it's going to be determined.

So I'd like to do them all together. I appreciate that we can muddle through it tonight on one item and leave the other two undecided, but Seems to me doing all three at once is a more transparent process.

Yes. Thank you. We do know what the tax cap is. We know that MAPTR limits us at $17.7 million plus our other revenues. So it will— like our revenue base is what our revenue base is.

It is just what is the mill rate that is going to get us there. And then we need to make decisions like are we going to use interest from the facilities fund and then are we putting money in R&R? And it will be— I think the decisions are around if we fully fund MAPTR or not. But the— as far as the school district local contribution goes, I don't see that being affected. We're only off by $19,000.

We can only collect so much money, so it's not going to change that. Just my opinion.

Um, so I, I haven't heard a formal motion, uh, yet. Mr. Whiteside would move to amend the agenda by removing ordinance number FY 2027-01 and FY 2027-02. Is there a second?

Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion on this particular motion? Mr. Ames. I think if we're only talking about a $19,000-$20,000 difference that we should be able to move ahead and get a prettier accurate— so we keep moving because of our deadline.

I don't like putting things off to the last minute and then people make decisions without any time to think.

When you look at that number compared to the number of the amount coming in and the amount the school wants, the amount the borough needs, that's a very small piece of the pie. That's my personal opinion. And just to clarify, the motion on the table is to amend 14C1 and 2, not 14B1, not about the school funding.

Local funding. So those are the ones that we're voting on now. And if somebody wants to make a motion after this vote then about that, then we can work on that. Did you still have—. Mr. Woods?

Yeah, I agree with what Mr. Ames is saying in principle here. But like you said, I don't really see an issue with going forward with 14C1 and 2, amending it to exclude it, I should say. That seems like just general good practice so our numbers match and we are not doing budget amendments later.

Okay. Is everybody clear on what they are voting on? Mr. Whiteside, yes. Thanks. I view this more as a housekeeping amendment.

So pushing 14C, number 1 and 2, FY 2027-01 and 02 is just to make sure that when we are looking at certifying the roll, those numbers match our final budget that we are going to be voting on. Likely not going to sway our budget decision-making one way or another, whereas 14B1 is something that we know is— we are going to discuss now, and that amount, if we were to move that to next week, isn't going to sway our decision today. Okay. Roll call vote on the motion to amend. Mr. Ames.

No. Mr. Gardner? Yes. Mr. Johnson? Yes.

Ms. Roberts? Yes. Mr. Smiley? Yes. Mr. Whiteside?

Yes. Mr. Woods? Yes. Would anyone like to change their vote? Motion passes, 6 yes, 1 no.

Any other amendments on the agenda before we vote on the agenda and consent agenda? Okay. Seeing none, voice vote on the motion to approve the agenda and the consent agenda as amended. All in favor say aye. Aye.

Any opposed, same sign. All right. Motion carries.

Now we move into citizens' comments. There are two designated citizens' comments periods today, one at the beginning, one at the end of the meeting. These comment periods are intended for general comments as well as for agenda items that are not part of the public hearing. And there is no public hearing tonight. For those who wish to call in, the local number is 907-486-3231, toll-free 1-855-492-9202.

Please mute your radio or streaming device to prevent audio feedback. And for those in the room who wish to speak under Citizens' Comments, please sign in at the podium, turn on the microphone, make sure that green light is on before speaking, and speak directly into the mic. And please state your name for the record and direct all remarks to the Assembly as a whole.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of the assembly. My name is Alan Schmidt, and I am here tonight as a board member of the Senior Citizens of Kodiak, which owns and proudly operates the Kodiak Senior Center. I'm here to give you our third quarter numbers as we're reaching the end of the fiscal year. We have served 444 seniors that's separate seniors, with 5,947 congregate meals, 281 seniors with 8,957 home-delivered and curbside meals, for a total of 14,904 meals made for seniors in the last 9 months. Through the CATS Transportation Program, We have provided 845 assisted rides and 5,611 unassisted rides to over 250 residents.

You don't have to be a senior to ride on the CATS buses. We have provided chore, respite, lifeline, care coordination, equipment loaning, information and referrals, and many other services to the Kodiak senior community and look forward to continuing these services.

We recently sent out our annual survey and received many great comments, 4 of them being: The Senior Center is a most important part of my life in Kodiak. The Kodiak Senior Center is one to be proud of. Amy, Kate, and the whole staff really go out of their way to make sure the seniors are happy and content. And we are lucky in Kodiak to have our Senior Center. It's really an asset to our community.

We thank you for your continued support to our nonprofit organization so we can continue providing these essential services to the elders in our community. If you have any questions right now, I'd be glad to field them, but otherwise you can contact staff directly at 486-6181. Thank you again for your continued support so we can continue providing these essential services. Thank you. Thank you.

Any calls? No? Okay.

Good evening, I'm Beata Daley. I'm here on behalf of the Kodiak Middle School PTSA, and this is a perfect segue from one to the next. I also have numbers to share, but first I wanted to say thank you for your support for our PTSA and the programs that you provided to help run through last year's cycle of the nonprofit funding grants. And with that funding, we were able to provide over 2,000 meals to middle school students that our nurse has identified experiencing food insecurity at home. So those meals went home with students over long weekends and holidays, um, and also working with the student government for holiday meals as well.

Um, in addition to over 2,000 meals sent home with those students, there was about 1,000 snacks served for kids that are coming in hungry. Some have plenty of food at home and they just needed a little piece of good old-fashioned nutritional advice from our nurse and then sent along their way. But it was a really wonderful collaborative project between our parent community and our school nurse. The other piece that was funded as well was our art mural project. And we did that in collaboration with our own art teacher, Mrs. Christine King, as well as local artists Bonnie Dillard and Marina Thomas.

And what turned— what started out as an after-school club ended up being an enrichment flex period with Mrs. King's art class. So she made it into an art mural class, and so the kids have completed a 32-foot art mural, got to work alongside our local artists that have lots of talent. And the extra little icing on the cake there were volunteer helpers like Miss Ellie, Miss Michelle Weekly, Jean Dixon, some KIBSD retirees that were working with students, and they were coming in 3 days a week for all of the third quarter to help the students along. And I'll keep all of you posted for when that mural is going to be installed. We have Chris Lynch helping volunteer to install that, and that's going to be on that concrete retaining wall that is facing Main Elementary along Powell Avenue.

So from the bottom of our hearts, thank you so much for your support for these extra projects. It's supporting our staff, it's supporting our volunteers, and most importantly, it's supporting our students. Thank you. Thank you.

Anyone else?

Mhm.

Good evening, Mayor and the assembly. My name is Michael Martin Jr. My family has been in Kodiak since before statehood and our businesses since 1952. I'm speaking tonight out of concern to the funding of our school district. You have likely heard from educators, administrators, and professionals both active and retired. You have likely heard arguments about providing for our children's needs, giving them opportunities, about the mill rate and how it might be temporary or simply returning to prior levels.

It is said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions of well-meaning individuals in their pursuit of a noble goal, who sacrifice everything and everyone around them in the process. After all, what wouldn't we do for the sake of our children? Yet Kodiak has long been an exporter We export our fish, our nature, our talent, our dollars, and even our children, many of whom go off to college and build successful lives elsewhere. Those who do return face limited and expensive housing, high taxes, restrictive governance, and severely reduced options compared to elsewhere. I'm one such person, and frankly, sometimes I wonder if I need to examine my head.

In 2005 and 2006, Kodiak received Blue Ribbon Schools recognition for excellence. We went on to win international competitions, beating colleges with the quality of our system. Today, Kodiak's graduating class is barely at 5.26 proficiency in math, 30.53% in English language arts, 39% in science. We have one of the nicest high schools, iPads and computers in every classroom, and somehow we've gone from one of the best systems to one of the worst in just 20 years. Obviously, it wasn't for our lack of trying to invest in our kids.

Fully funding the system will require an increase in the mill rate, as well as other tax considerations, as the system continues to hemorrhage. Many parents are already in dual-income households and will need to work harder and longer hours. This means less time to support their children's education at home. Parental involvement remains one of the strongest predictors for academic success, graduation, and success successful completion of college. By further burdening the community, we will undermine the very system we're seeking to improve.

Before we approve additional funding to the district, I would urge the assembly to require KIBSD to commission an independent efficiency and performance audit by a qualified third-party firm such as Gibson Consult. We spend over $25,000 per student and yet produce worse results than when we had less funding and technology at our disposal. I strongly recommend we do not fund the district as proposed until real accountability can be brought to our failing system. Thank you. Thank you.

My name is Brenda Schwantes. Brenda Schwantes. Brenda Schwantes. And Thank you for serving. Tonight, I call in almost every week and I listen to the city meetings.

They're hemorrhaging really bad. Our whole community, the state is, and I don't know if you know, but oil prices plummeted within the last 3 hours down to at least $50 a barrel. That's because there's some sort of, uh, res— situational right now, maybe, um, with Iran. But we already know that the, the oil prices are going to plunge drastically, uh, once this Iran situation is over, and that our state is going to be suffering for 2, 3, 4, 5 years. Now it's time to be fiscally responsible.

I sent in a public records request to the district on March 4th. Still haven't heard back from them. It's— I feel like we have a transparency issue. My, my records request asked for the amount of dollars spent on IT computers or laptop iPads for kids. The Surgeon General has come out with some new recommendations on the use of screen time.

Screen time is not just iPads, it's TV, it's phones, it's everything, right? Movies. And so, and since the district doesn't allow cell phones now for students, I just cannot see how iPads or any other screens for kids in school is productive. The Surgeon General says it's leading to ADD. ADHD, because they can't concentrate on learning.

So with the recommendation— I'm sorry, I forgot your name— Mr. Martin, I agree. I think our dollars with the district, the borough, and the city are being used very inefficiently. For example, in 2013, the food service budget for the district— it's been this way since 2013, and I didn't see any other audits on the district website, but the borough has been subsidizing the food, the food program for years and years. How long is the school district going to do that, and how long is the assembly going to allow that to happen? We are subsidizing $1.7 million, the budget, and we're losing $500,000 every year.

All these internal transfers are occurring Make a budget, stick to it. That's called fiscal responsibility. When you have a grant, you don't want to exceed it. It happens every single year since 2013. Deficits in the food service program.

That's just one, one example, one line item that I looked at today briefly from 2013 to 2025. Efficiency of dollars is not being scrutinized by the assembly. Really needs to happen. The other thing is the small grants the district receives. They don't utilize the 10% administrative cap.

When you have a $4,000 grant, $1,000, $5,000, $2,500 grant, the administrative burden on administering those funds will far exceed the amount of the grant. It's kind of a, a little bit of a waste. In my experience, um Organizations that function efficiently say no to small grants because the administrative burden outweighs the benefits of the small dollars of those programs. I'd encourage the assembly to take a look at the budget for the district and start scrutinizing those line items. I would also—.

I'm sorry, can you wrap up your comments, please? We've exceeded the—. Yes, I will. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just really feel like there needs to be more efficiency.

A study would be amazing to analyze the efficiency of those dollars that the district's using. We love our kids, we want to fund them, but we don't want to waste money, and we are. So thank you for your time. Thank you.

Anyone else?

Hello, my name is Dan Rohr. Thank you, Mayor and Assembly, for being here tonight on a beautiful sunshiny evening. You're missing out on eating broom burgers and other fun stuff down at Crab Fest. So anyways, appreciate your being here. I'm concerned about demographics.

I find demographics interesting. I don't love the demographics of the state's projecting for Kodiak or for the majority of the rest of our state, but 2050, the state's projecting that we will have a total island-wide population of 9,871 people. Those are scary numbers to me. That's 20— pushing 25% less people than live here today. As a business owner and a building owner in the community, that worries me.

The state argues that the primary reason for that is continuous net— I— interestingly enough, they use the word continuous. So continuous net outmigration of people. Um, also then of course our aging population and then declining birth rates just in general in our country. The continuous net outmigration, I mean, we've all seen it, like we are losing people with school-age kids just at a disturbing rate. And so, and of course school district is seeing that.

So the school district not that many years ago had 2,200 students. This year they have 1,900, but of those 1,900, a couple hundred of them are actually AK Teach students. So I mean, obviously they're technically KIBSD students, but we don't have the same level of— not the same level of access going to them as far as buildings and things of that nature. So anyways, the school district sees those trends. We know those trends are happening to us.

We've been watching them happen. And obviously, in my opinion, obviously what needed to happen was another building needed to be closed. And the public came out and spoke strongly in favor of closing another building. And The school district decided not to do that for a variety of different reasons, most of which was, is, well, we'll consider that next year. And I'm not okay with that.

And I am concerned that fully funding the school district says, you know what, we're okay with that decision that you didn't make the hard decision this year. I realize it's never an easy decision to close a school. It's a terrible situation to be in. Um, but we have time on our side between now and 2050, and I want to see us change What I want— I want us to be able to look back and go, you know what, the state of Alaska was wrong. In 2050, we're not at 9,870 people.

Those numbers are higher than that. But to do that, we have to get our cost structure under control in our community. And when you look at what the city is looking at with sales tax, you look at ever-increasing costs at KIBSD, obviously our own increased costs at the borough. Like, we have to get that under control. Otherwise, the people it's squeezing is my kids' age generation.

I'm not worried so much about my generation. We, we bought houses when the market was cheap, interest rates were low. We got this huge leg up just based on the time of when we were born in life, which is really cool. But for my kids, it's really unfortunate. So anyways, in closing, I'm just concerned about the squeeze on the young families and we're watching them migrate out of our community.

We have to correct that. And I'm convinced that we can't fully fund the school district's ask at $15 million, um, and work towards curtailing that net migration. So thank you, appreciate it. I know you have hard decisions in front of you, so thank you for your time. Thank you.

Good evening, Borough Assembly. Um, I called in last week's session, um, and I'm here because I have been actively trying to reach out to Kodiak Island Borough School District. I have sent multiple emails. I cannot get responses back. I had one person finally reach out to me, um, and I tried to go over a multitude of issues I have, and I did not have There were no answers.

It was—. There's so much lack of transparency. And I actually— we decided to do what's best for our family and put our daughter into a private school. And we applied and they did a really quick, simple evaluation and assessment.

And I am actually floored because I went to that assessment and I was told, no, your daughter cannot come to second grade here. Because she's at a kindergarten learning level with proof on black and white paper. I have been voicing my issues with iPads and iPads being a problem, and one of those problems which I have here tonight is a writing worksheet that she is actually at a kindergarten reading level. I said on the phone that I went to her first grade class a few months ago to try to figure out some of these issues And I was able to prove in 15 minutes with Damon Hargraves that she was on an iPad at 6 years old for 3 hours. 3 Hours I could prove.

They're not learning to write on iPads. You cannot learn to write on an iPad. So today I went to the school and I asked to see her scores and I asked where we stand and we're good. We're in good standing. We're great.

She can go into second grade. All is well. I have those here. That say that we are reading, we are hitting our benchmarks. So I have an actual certified teacher telling me she's in kindergarten proving me that level.

We got denied by that school because she cannot go into that second grade classroom. But then this public school system is telling me everything is fine. These tests are taken on an iPad, not a reading test, and they, they're not testing reading. And I have all this. It's very frustrating.

It's very disheartening to hear. So my family and I are at a point where we are— we don't feel like we have the option to even participate in the public school system because our options right now are put her back and watch her fall more and more behind and use iPads more and more, which I have a problem with, or we obviously can't go to this, um, private school, so we are going to homeschool and we are going to spend our summer trying to make up for first grade cramming into two months. I have all of this in writing. I cannot tell you how frustrated I am enough. I've called the school system because iPads— there's no funding spent on iPads.

I've tried to call the school system. I get no phone calls back. There is a lack of transparency. I sat with a board member who told me that, no, we're not going to buy new iPads, but we are going to vote after we get the funding whether we're going to spend $500,000, which we need to spend on the iPad update for the teachers. I have a problem with that.

I don't think our funding should be going towards iPads. It's a lot of money. Um, I think is— and I'm not— I know I'm not the only parent. I spent a lot of time last night calling a few families I know, and that 5% is looking a whole lot higher than 5%. People were pulling their kids from this district.

And until we start holding some sort of accountability, some sort of oversight to see where this money is going, because it's not going to the kids, um, I just don't— I don't want to see my business tax dollars going there. I don't want to see our property tax dollars going there. We can't afford it anymore. Thank you. Thank you.

Anyone else?

I had a feeling there was one more.

Yes, good evening. My name is Carrie Irons and I'm speaking tonight as a member of the KIBSD School Board. Thank you for the opportunity to share some final comments about this year's budget request. Um, when you vote on the borough's operating budget for next year, you are of course voting on the school district's annual request for support from the borough. The local contribution.

Please understand that the path the Board of Education took to determine our ask of the borough was challenging indeed. The cost of education— of educating students everywhere increases every year, and the investment in K-12 education from our state has not come close to keeping pace with inflation. In fact, the $700 increase in the base student allocation, or BSA, approved last year at about this time was less, less than half of what was needed to sustain staffing and programming. While we are grateful, a significant budget deficit remains. In December, our initial discussions about the FY27 budget included serious consideration of another school closure, which would have helped us move into not only next year but FY28 as well in a much stronger fiscal position.

We ultimately decided to take more time to better understand the impacts of any school closure and accompanying reconfiguration. So to balance our projected budget deficit for next year, we made deep cuts to programming and staffing, and we established the framework for a Community Budget Advisory Committee intended to explore the impacts of the expected deficits we'll need to address for FY28 and beyond. Determining our target deficit for FY27 was challenging, especially because there were— there are so many variables. We cannot know at this time. In both district revenues and expenditures, assuming, assuming the assembly would consider funding the district to the maximum allowable contribution from the borough, we still resulted in a target deficit of $2.7 million for essentially the third year in a row.

It was a grueling process to examine all the positions that support our students and teachers and determined that there were positions we had to live without. Every position, including administrative positions, impacts students and staff. We've already cut positions that are important to our students, families, and staff to meet our target deficit amount. Administrators, teachers, aides, counselor, mental health clinician, school psychologist, instructional coach, nurse, Gifted and Talented program, secretarial staff. These cuts are not good for kids, our district.

If the assembly is unable to fund the district to the maximum amount this year, there are additional positions we will have to eliminate. Our contingency list for more cuts was not easy to create, including more aid positions, mental health, auditorium director, nurse, maintenance, student activities, and more. I think we all understand that the borough has real fiscal pressures and you are doing your best to make decisions for the community, just as the school board is. I hope you will consider funding the district to the maximum as requested, and I thank you for your service to our community and to our school district. Thanks.

Thank you.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Some really nice news is on NPR Today, they've announced that the crosswalk at Safeway now has a button that you can push and it'll light up. So It makes it safe for the people in the neighborhood. So thank you very much for that. I appreciate that.

You're probably aware that the Consumer Price Index, also known as the CPI, does not include food and energy like gas and oil and electricity. So when they say that the inflation the Consumer Price Index has only gone up 6 points or whatever it is. It's just that they're not including the basic things like food and energy. And then around May 13th on NPR, Maersk announced that they would have to raise their prices in transporting things because, well, I see it, they can't go belly up, you know, they can't go broke, they can't go bankrupt, we need them. So they're going to have to make that change.

And then with the worldwide oil, they charge today, like if diesel is $7.07 or the airplane fuel is $12 a gallon, That's what— they might have millions of gallons in storage, but they have to charge what it's going to cost to replace that. So some people say, "Oh, they have 6 million gallons," and that's not what it costs. But with the worldwide oil situation, they have to charge what it's going to cost to replace that. So I really feel for your decisions. It's really a hard decision, and thank you for sitting in those seats and weighing everything.

And, um, but something that meant a lot to me today on the news was that the school district is going to give meals, breakfast and lunch, for kids that show up and That means a lot to me because I think food should be a priority. We need it. Those kids gain weight. Look at how they're, they're 20 pounds and then they're 40 pounds and pretty soon they're 240 pounds and wearing a size 13 boot. And they need that.

So thank you very much for your contribution to that. Thank you.

Anyone else? Any calls?

Okay. Seeing no other comments, thank you everybody for coming out tonight. You don't have to leave, but I understand if you'd rather go to Crab Fest right now. But thank you. Thank you, everybody.

Let's see. We don't have any awards and presentations tonight, so we'll move on to committee reports. We'll just go down the line here. Mr. Gardner. Had solid waste advisory yesterday.

It was the first time, I think, since I've been in there that we actually had a quorum, so that was nice. Uh, Marion Owen and her expertise is absolutely lovely, and it's good to see some actual traction and thought process in that board. Um, currently exploring grants for recycling and composting programs and the possibilities those may have. There was lots of big ideas. I try to direct the board and give them the idea of let's start with some small wins and some big action items and get some stuff done.

So I think that board is going to start to show some real progress, and, um, it was the most constructive meeting they've had to date since my election in October. Cool. Uh, Mr. Johnson? Nothing to report. All right, Mr. Smiley?

Nothing to report. Mr. Ames? Nothing to report. Mr. Whiteside. Nothing to report, thank you.

Ms. Roberts. Uh, the Kodiak College Advisory Council met a couple weeks ago. The current chair reached his term limit, so I was named the interim chair until an official decision can be made regarding who will formally fill that position. There just weren't enough people attending that day to make that formal decision. And then HFAB is meeting next week.

Okay, Mr. Woods. The Budget Advisory Committee met— the School District Budget Advisory Committee met over the last 2 days. It was a great time with an overview of their budgetary process, how they got where they got. I got to tour some KIBSD facilities. I did not realize that since I left high school in 2014, the CTE program had swollen to the giant it later became.

Uh, very cool. Seen a lot of the cool programming they've got there. That's about it. Uh, thank you. All right, no public hearing, so we'll go straight to the Borough Manager's Report.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, I got the, um, lucky coincidence to run into Beata when she was at Walmart purchasing for that middle school, uh, pantry. The amount of food that she had with her, I— it actually made me go up to her and be like, what are you doing? Like, there was so much. So when she told me it was the middle school pantry project, that it's really cool to see the money go and how it's spent and hear the numbers.

So thanks to her for coming in. And then because Miss Carleen commented on the crosswalk by Safeway during the Citizens Academy, one of her concerns was the lack of a crosswalk by the Near Island Bridge since our community suffered such a huge tragedy there. I got the opportunity to meet with DOT about a resurfacing project that goes out to Fort Abercrombie, which is not the same as this project, but that they're in those plans. There is a crosswalk already scheduled for across from the Near Island Bridge. It will be part of the ADA project that goes from the Y up to Benny Benson, but they're gonna— almost everything with DOT gets just kept putting a little bit further back in the years, and so that project will be phased in.

They'll do half one year, they'll start at the Y and go up half, and they're going to start at Benny Benson and come back in half, but they don't know which is which yet, so I can't tell what year that's going to be done, but the state has recognized that we do need help there, and so that is in the works. So yay! I did not have an answer for you if this is a county, but I do now. Yay! Crab Festival kicked off today, so good luck to the chamber and all the people down there.

We have an executive session scheduled for the special meeting next week to discuss the Notice of Federal Interest for KCHA and the hospital complex. We reached out to our legal team to get some input on that language, and we got a copy of the grant from HRSA. To send to the legal team so they could review it, and we've heard back, so we'll be ready for that next week. We're currently recruiting a project manager, which we had an interview today. Uh, LTP supervisor, I offered the job last Friday.

They took a tour on Monday, but they're waiting on a better job offer, so we won't know until next Thursday. But it's great to have some people come in. And then there was environmental specialist interview yesterday and another one tomorrow. So all of our current recruitments have possibilities, which is the first time I've been able to say that in a very long time. Our law firm had a conflict with reviewing our lease for Northstar.

Last week, Leslie called me and said, hey, KIBSD, one of my clients is going to be in a contract with the school district. Does that bother you? Is there a conflict? And I was like, no, absolutely not. The school district is— completely separate, they can contract whoever they want with.

And then we sent them the lease and she wrote back, oh well, that's what I was talking about. And I was like, well, that's not the school district, that's us. So, um, we are still working with them to figure out who at their firm, if anyone, can review that or what kind of review, um, that we need. But that is, um, Shunak would like to move into that space on July 1st, so we're pushing hard to get that on the June 4th meeting so that it's approved approved and ready to go. Uh, we added an initial review of the nonprofit funding also on the work session on May 28th so that we can look at how much money is in our different funds— the Fishery Economic Development Fund, the opioid fund— so we can figure out if we're going to offer that to the nonprofits.

You'll also be able to see what the application looks like, and we'll go over the process just so everyone's familiar with it. The timeline for the proposed schedule is listed there. That hasn't changed over the few weeks. I updated the budget dates because of that special work session and the first reading of the budget and levy ordinance getting moved to the 28th. In community development, they had a Planning and Zoning Commission meeting last night at a regular meeting.

They talked about the Uzinki Tsunami Shelter rezone and subdivision. The commission approved the subdivision on conditions of approval, including the need for the rezone approval. The commission also recommended approving approval for the rezone to the assembly to rezone this NAMI shelter from R-1 to public lands. And that will be coming up on the July 2nd agenda. And Community Development is working on the liquor license renew for Tony's.

Nothing has changed in Finance, and I'm going to try not to talk about the software company, Tyler, too much because I don't have good things to say. In Assessing, assessing staff will be inspecting properties in the city of Kodiak. They're working on the wildflower transfer offer for the marijuana license because they bought Déjà Vu out in the Flats. Nothing has changed for exemption appeals, although that trial is scheduled for July 27th through 29th. And when we first put that, I was like, oh, that's so far away, but here we are, it's coming up.

That'll be— we don't need to travel for that, that'll be via Zoom, so that's good. In information technology, the IT department is working on the replacement of an environmental monitoring system in the KIB server room, as well as repairing network cables that are running out to the LTP landfill. The LTP is on TimeClock Plus, and so they are our last department, and we will be fully electronic for our timesheets, which might not mean much to you, but it means a lot to our payroll technician. Cybersecurity consultant from Koniak Cyber completed their on-site visit.

They mounted edge firewalls and core switches. They are slowly placing all of the hardware for that project. And GIS has been catching up from his absence. He was out for 3 weeks. They included a map showing a 5-mile road buffer for the city.

That is their proposal for expanding their search for manager. And public notice maps for the clerks for controlled substances. For license transfers, and then they also updated the map for assessing for their summer field work from the borough. In engineering facilities, the seawater pumps are awaiting their extensions. Staff have been working together, working through issues to keep those pumps running, including Will and yesterday Cody being there at minus tide, sometimes at 5 o'clock in the morning, to transfer water in.

So thank you to maintenance staff for keeping that up and running. Our work is completed for the hospital elevators. It has passed the State of Alaska inspection, and there is a little celebration for that because that's been a long project. One of those elevators is down today, but not because it didn't pass inspection. Um, fuel oil assistance, um, we are sampling the landfill soil on the 22nd of this month.

Um, and WFF, um, isn't starting work at the long-term Care Center until June, and we expect the same schedule for Karluk through Three Tier Alaska. Building automation systems for the Kodiak Fisheries Research Center— we had some air balancing done. We met with NOAA this week and they said that they could feel air moving, which they haven't in a while, so that's really good. It turns out when we upgraded that system years ago, there was a phase 2 to that project that never got done because NOAA paid for the first phase and then the money ran out and the second phase wasn't done. And the second phase was to put in a chiller so they would have cool air in that building, and that didn't get done.

But we're doing a full system investigation and establishing a baseline for the building through a company called RESPEC. So that'll be coming up here very soon. The—. This building that you're sitting in, you might notice that it has some temperature issues now and again, and so Long Technologies identified, um, that our air handling unit 2 hasn't been functioning properly and hasn't since our boiler replacement, and so they're going to be making some improvements on that as well. Tables have been placed for the picnic table replacement.

I saw the ones out in Sergeant Creek today. They look wonderful. East Elementary roof hazardous material testing— we were planning on doing that in-house, but the scope of that project was so large we decided that it wasn't great for our staff to go do that. So there's an RFQ for that.

Uh, Port Lion School painting project, I just signed an intent to award, and it was for $143,000.

Excuse me. If you remember, we estimated $250,000, so $143,000 was amazing. Um, and we didn't have any bids for the UST removal And so we're reissuing that. There's a list of upcoming contracts that I am not going to read because I can't do it without coughing. If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer.

Any questions for the manager pertaining to the report? Mr. Woods. Are we still at a 100% conflict rate with our attorney?

I wouldn't say 100% because they have been giving us information back, but it's come from different attorneys. And so our attorney who you guys met and hired, often it's someone named Jed or someone named Jackson who we get stuff back from because they don't have the same conflicts that she does. But she did do the assessing, the BOE training for assessing, and she has been a little more responsive as of late. So I wouldn't say 100%, but I'd say that there are some issues with conflict. Yes.

Anyone else? Mr. Gardner. I don't want you to respond very much because I know you're having a hard time. I would think it prudent that, um, I, I would like to see a kind of a detailed breakdown, if not the actual contract or agreement that was with Tyler. Um, at some point, uh, I think that whole system got put into place before, um, the new assembly was kind of— or at least it had begun.

And, um, I'd like to see if there is some sort of resolution that could be more easily resolved. It doesn't seem like they are holding up to their end of the bargain.

Anyone else?

Okay. All right. Moving on to messages from the borough mayor. Got a lot of things here.

So I was able to attend briefly the Tribal Housing Summit that was sponsored by KIHA. Met with several tribal leaders, village leaders, learned about federal and state programs to support housing development for Alaska Natives and housing refurbishment programs, low-interest loans and community block grants. It was very informative. I learned a lot about that. And I was there mainly just to make sure that whatever, you know, we've kind of run into some federal grant issues with KCHC, so I wanted to make sure that Any— that doesn't affect anything we do, like, on the Lands Committee here.

We're going to release land, and it looks like everything should be good. I spent most of my mayoral time this week working with the city and Amy and our federal lobbyist on a new polished proposal package to homeport icebreaker cutter that the Coast Guard announced. We think it looks good, and so I went ahead and sent that out so you can see what I was working on and what our federal lobbyist is going to be using as he meets with stakeholders in Washington, D.C. And I think we might maybe be trying to arrange a time to meet with the Coast Guard people and our federal lobbyist via Zoom at some point in the next week or two to talk about the pitch. Met with Alaska Airlines folks since they're in town. They're going to be revealing the new terminal, uh, design tomorrow.

And talking about that, I got a sneak peek. It looks pretty swanky. Um, it looks great. I think it's a $70 million project. They're taking apparently the, the building that we're in now, they're taking it down to the studs and building up from there.

It's like an 18-month project timeline. So, but it— I saw the floor plan. I think everybody's going to be Very happy. Very happy. I mean— and then I'm sure like you and many others been meeting with numerous state and federal candidates this week and have appointments over the weekend to talk to them about Kodiak's needs and just to make sure that whoever is representing us just knows about us from multiple perspectives.

Was down at Crab Fest today. Super windy. There are a couple of tents that decided to take a little trip down the parking lot, but I think, I think it looks good, good now. It's crowded down there, a lot more new booths. So I will be down there, the KMXT booth, the Special Olympics booth.

So anybody, please stop by and say hi. I attended the Special Olympics Powerlifting Games last weekend. My daughter had 3 PRs and is going to state. And there's a huge contingent of Kodiak athletes going to the state tournament. I think this is their, their biggest cohort that, that I've seen.

It's pretty amazing. And then I volunteered my time and lighting expertise to the Next Step Dance Kodiak performance. It was, it was amazing. And of course, a lot of discussions about the auditorium based on what, what we heard last week It's a, you know, it's a building with a— it's interesting. It's a very complex situation.

It's more than just one position. So I hope to work with the school district and the manager and other stakeholders on a path forward there. Some— and then I've also, of course, thought a lot about our discussion last week concerning the budget. And I guess I'll go ahead and talk about them now, even though we're not getting to it right away. So a couple of things that I want us to think about.

On the diaspora, a lot of people, a lot of different ideas. And so maybe some of this is going to— might help, might not help. The first thing has to do with using anecdotes.

Anecdotes might identify a concern, but I don't think that they can carry kind of a system-wide conclusion. I don't doubt anybody's experience with, with the school district or a school district graduate. I don't think that one story about one graduate carries the weight of a conclusion that the district is failing. Um, an example might be meaningful, but I don't think that we can use those as metrics. Um, uh, if the concern is student readiness or subject readiness or grievances, there's an elected body to deal with that, and that's, that's the school board.

So I just want to make sure that we're not making multi-million dollar budget decisions based on one anecdote. So let's stick to the facts and the data that we have. There have been some talks about possibly using some one-time use of money. I've been thinking about that. I think that that is wholly defensible, but only if it has guardrails, right?

It can't be a a permanent solution, right? We don't have a strategic plan. We're just left with a code that tells us what is legally allowable, you know, and not.

Like, for instance, there were some concerns about setting precedents with some of these funds. And I agree, precedent matters. But I think there's a difference between using a tool casually and using it once with limits in response to a very specific budget pressure. We see this in the nonprofit world all the time. All of a sudden their federal funding is gone, right?

You have to dip into that fund balance until you can— until you can figure some things out. So bad precedents are set when we do them casually. And so I would support using some of these one-time kind of use monies that it has like specific guardrails, right? If it's capped, there's a reserve floor, just a clear conversation about those.

They're not good for a permanent solution, right? If the state funding environment does not materially change, we need to have a, a more intentional structural conversation here and with the school district. I don't think we have time right now to, to make some of those structural decisions. The school district has the Community Budget Advisory Committee. We have two representatives on, and so I think that will help shape those decisions going forward.

So thanks for serving on that. But, um, I was reminded this week that the school district was already facing a lot of these budget decisions nearly a decade ago. COVID money helped bridge those gaps for a few years, and as have federal grants for numerous years. COVID money is gone. Um, we voted in an executive branch in, in D.C. that eliminated those education— federal education grants that provided for a lot of the services our kids rely on.

One of them is food services, right? Add in a state governor who we voted in twice that is not keeping up with the responsibility by vetoing funding, vetoing revenue packages, right? We want excellent returns in our investment in our schools, but Why we keep electing leaders that intentionally sabotage those investments and those returns, I, I don't know. So here we are, we're trying to patch our leaking roof because the, uh, the golden gods above us keep raining down rocks and telling us to wait because eventually the gold is going to trickle down to us someday. Um, spoiler alert, it won't.

It never has. And that's how they build ballrooms instead of schools. Okay, I'm off topic. Amendments. Before we get into amendments, there'll be some amendments tonight, I imagine.

I'd like to discuss, talk about just a reasoning standard for us tonight, because reasonable people, we can land in different places on this item. But I think every amendment should kind of answer these three questions. First, What problem does it solve? So I know a lot of our amendments sometimes come from the principles we hold, but I think I'd like to approach this also as a problem-solving activity because we have a problem in front of us. So what problem does it solve?

What trade-offs, right, does it affect or does it accept?

And then be open today about what would have to be true for you to reconsider it, or reconsider the vote, you know, the item at all. And so I think that might help us to avoid debating slogans, debating anecdotes, and instead kind of focus on the problem that's in front of us, the actual problem that's in front of us.

So I have a lot more things to say. I'm going to save it for maybe the discussion later on, depending on how it goes. But thank you for listening to me and my thoughts. And I just want to help us make good decisions, good policy decisions that are justifiable to the public, that the public can understand, and then come back to us with, with questions. So, all right.

I rambled for a bit, just for a little bit. Thank you, everybody. So let's move on, if that's okay. We'll— we have one contract before us tonight. Contract number FY 2021-01, authorizing extension number 6 of the recycling services contract with with Threshold Services.

Mr. Whiteside. Move to authorize the Borough Manager to execute contract number FY 2021-01, extension number 6, with Threshold Services for recycling services contract. Second. It has been moved and seconded. Staff report, Manager Williams.

Thank you. In April of 2025, the Assembly approved a 1-year extension through June 30th of this year. Um, in that, there was also a second 1-year extension that would take us through June 30th, 2027, to be approved at the time of the extension is enacted. We are at that time. Approval of this extension would continue to align the timeline of the recycling and solid waste contracts, which would go into effect on July 1st, 2027.

This would improve coordination between service providers and allow for long-term strategic planning for the borough— for borough waste management. Also in the RFP that we are asking for from potential providers. We are asking as an alternative bid would be for them to take on recycling. And so we have options on our recycling right now. Threshold Services is the one and only option, so we're asking for other options in the event that Threshold isn't there.

Thanks. Thank you. Any discussion or questions from the assembly?

Seeing none, roll call vote on the motion. Mr. Gardner? Yes. Mr. Johnson? Yes.

Ms. Roberts? Yes. Mr. Smiley? Yes. Mr. Whiteside?

Yes. Mr. Woods? Yes. Mr. Ames? Yes.

Would anyone like to change their vote? Motion passes unanimously. Okay, next up is resolution number FY2027-01. Establishing the amount, the amount of funds to be made available from local sources from the Kodiak Island Borough School District for the fiscal year beginning July 1st, 2026 and ending June 30th, 2027. Is there a motion?

Mr. Whiteside. Move to adopt resolution number FY 2027-01. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Staff report, Manager Williams.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Before you tonight is a resolution with the full ask from the school district. This aligns with the ask that we built the budget around this year.

All right. Assembly discussion. Mr. Gardner.

Move to amend resolution number FY2020-701 by changing line 34, removing $14,615,403 and replacing it with $12,205,244.

$1,044,000 In line with the FY 2024 budget for both in-kind services and direct appropriation, with the understanding that the school district may approach the assembly in the event of supplemental needs that will be placed under thorough financial review by the borough.

I'll second. Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Mr. Gardner, would you like to speak more into your amendment? I believe that the school district needs some more financial oversight. The level of technology spending, the fact that we ship in off-island sports teams— there's so much financial review.

And as the public has stated over and over to me, a lack of transparency. Uh, I more than most people want the very best of everything for our kids. I believe we have an admin-heavy administration at the school district, and along with the borough, which is currently doing exactly this, tightening their belt, the city and the school district needs to do the exact same thing. As the mayor stated, we have an administration not only not only in the state but in the country that is denying us of funding all around. And that's not just the school, that's the reality of a municipality in this day and age.

We need to start putting some money away to deal with capital improvement projects that are coming up. We have the pool looming, we have multiple building repairs looming. We have had an attitude of just deferred maintenance from prior local administrations for years past, and we need to put some money in the piggy bank. And I think that if the district needs something really badly, if they come to us and say, you know, we, we just need this, then great, come in. Let's get a financial review with our team.

Let's look at exactly where your money went, and let's look at every single penny of what you're asking for and where you want it to go. And let's put it under our review. Um, I could go on and on, but, um, I'll open it up for discussion. Oh, it's already open. Mr. Woods.

I seconded this motion specifically to bring this discussion to the floor at this number. And prior to last week's work session, had you asked me if I was going to vote yes on this, At that number, it would have been yes. However, some learning has happened. Do I think $12 million is frankly too low? Yes, I really do.

Do I think the full ask is also substantially too high? Yes. Yes, I do. And I'll tell you exactly why. Prior to last week, I could not point at a win.

I cannot point at a win in our school district, not a substantial one, nothing that said something in particular was going well.

And again, that's more of a principal thing. I want to see that we're working to actively improve something if we're going to be spending more money. I think that is fiscally responsible, and I think that if you're asking for more money, we should be getting something in return. That said, I also understand the financial reality that school district's in. Understanding what their fund balance would be at this number, they basically— my understanding is they would essentially have no fund balance even with heart-wrenching cuts.

So for my acceptance for tonight's discussion, I certainly will not support the full ask. I think 14.6 is far too high. Anywhere between 13 and 14 would probably get my support.

Thank you. Ms. Roberts. I think over the past couple weeks we've had plenty of opportunities for discussion, and at this point I don't believe further discussion will be productive, so I'd like to call the question. Um, unfortunately, I don't think we can take that right now because, um, debate's not concluded. Not everybody has had a chance to discuss the amendment, um, and so I think it's within Robert's Rules that, uh, to at least allow everybody to discuss the amendment before we can call the question.

That is correct. And then calling the question would require a second and a vote also. Yeah. Thank you. Did you have anything else?

Oh, okay. Mr. Rapes. Oh, sorry, Mr. Johnson next. Thank you. Yeah, I do agree with Ms. Roberts that we're not going to necessarily change anybody's minds tonight.

So whatever we end up going forward with, I want to make sure we do it right so we don't screw ourselves or the next assembly.

So were this amendment to go through and be passed, that creates— I didn't catch the number you, you suggested, but like 12.6-ish.

That, my understanding, then creates a $2 million surplus. In our budget without having something identified to move that money to, then you set your next assembly up to not be able to set the mill rate for the following year without being— having a $2 million less starting point. So if that's the direction this group wants to go, so be it. But I think if you're talking about cutting our revenue by a couple million dollars this late in the game, it would really be smart to reconsider MAPTR so that the next assembly isn't— doesn't have their hands tied going through a public relations nightmare at the same time they're looking at potentially raising the mill rate. If we're going to do it and we're going to lower it, might as well get rid of MAPTR while we're doing it.

So at least people are getting rid of MAPTR on a tax cut.

I have Mr. Ames and Mr. Smiley. Um, everybody needs to tighten the belt more, I think. So both the borough and the school district need to look at that. I am I am in favor of not granting the full request. I do think the 12.7 or whatever exactly was might be a bit drastic.

I also want to express my disappointment that they kicked the can down the road, in my opinion, of closing another school because everything looks like they're going to have to next year. Doing a study on the impact— if we don't have the students, we just have to do it. Spending money on a study, I think it's just a waste of money.

Mr. Smiley and then Mr. Whiteside. Um, where do I start?

There seems to be a conception that we have some kind of authority over the budget of the school district. We don't. They have the authority over the school district's budget. That's their business to do. They have cut more than $2.7 million this year and $2.5 to $2.7 million for the year before that and the year before that.

So they have demonstrated huge cuts in their budget in response to a failure from the state of Alaska to fully keep up with the cost of living increases that were necessary. They've asked for the full amount this year, and that was a political decision on the part of the school board.

To cut it by the amount that we've just suggested, I think, is too drastic, and I don't understand where that number came from. Is there a reason to cut it? What do we need the money money for. That hasn't been identified. And I'm unwilling to cut that amount without a reason for doing it.

And I agree that we have to worry about the MAPTR thing in this as well and what we can do next year in terms of trying to keep the mill rate at a, at a reasonable level. So no, I'm opposed to this amendment and I will support as much as I can the ask of the school board. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Whiteside.

Thank you. I appreciate the principle behind this amendment. I too have, you know, I struggle with, you know, understanding, having a full understanding of how the school district got here. My opinion does not matter, truly does not matter as far as how they got here. It is not my place.

I agree. This is the school board's decision to make when developing their funding. However, I do represent the— our community here and the Kodiak Island Borough, so I have— I won't support this amendment. I think it's, it's a little too far on the conservative side and will reduce the— I'll just, I'll just categorize it as reduce the amount of service available to our community. But I do have an alternative amendment in mind, but I can't support this one at that level.

And I'm going to take a shot at the pie because I'm thinking of pie because it's Crab Fest. So I— a couple of things about the amendment. I also think that the number is arbitrary. Why FY24? There's— I don't see the justification for why to use the number from FY24.

The— I think the conditions placed on it is not— I don't think that we can't place conditions on the school district funding. We can't require them to come back, I think, with a supplemental ask. And if you understand the way the school budgets are run, 80 to 85% of their budget is personnel costs, and those contracts have to be signed now. So, right, so that money should be, whatever it is, should be allotted now.

The idea also, I think, of a financial review group, that's a level of micro-bureaucracy that I don't want to get into, and I don't think the staff necessarily wants to get into. And also the school district, um, they have an elected board that looks at their financials. They have auditing. The school board's a function of the state, so the state looks through all of their financials too. So I think there's appropriate level of financial accountability with, uh, with, uh, with, with the school district.

So there's a lot of things that are, I think, a little more abstract in the Amendment.

And so what I'd like to do is, with Ms. Roberts, I know you're intending to call the question. Is it okay to allow a little more discussion on this? I do have Mr. Woods up next, but be thinking about that. Mr. Woods. Just to clarify something specific with my concern where funds are going, my understanding is our budget this year includes a substantial use of interest funds from one of our facilities accounts.

With all that we have going, I want to leave as much of that intact as humanly possible due to the tremendous tremendous amount of capital projects we've got going. That is my concern first and foremost. Do I understand we need to fund the schools to the level we absolutely can? Absolutely. However, I don't want to see us cripple ourselves in 2 years down the road because we, we use more of this interest funding than we probably should have during this cycle.

That's my concern. So I would happily be disillusioned of that concern.

But that's kind of where I'm falling, at least my reasoning there. If I'm going to tell you a number, I'm going to at least give you a reason behind it other than just a principle-based issue. Thank you. Also, I think this is what Mr. Johnson brought up too, is yes, I think accepting this amendment would certainly cripple future assemblies and their ability to even fund capital projects in the future. It's a good short-term fix, Perhaps, but I agree, not a good long-term policy for even just 2 or 3 years down the line.

Mr. Johnson? Yeah, I just wanted to ask if we get clarification from the manager on that question, how much interest has gone into this budget for funding the school district? Uh, you're specifically asking about interest from the facilities fund? Yeah, into our budget. I didn't put any in there.

Okay, that's what I thought. Thank you. So we do have tools still available to fund capital projects? Yes, we do. Okay, without cutting, without decreasing the, the school funding ask?

There's a lot of variables to that answer, so I'm just gonna Mr. Gardner, it's hard to say what's going to happen at the state level right now. $155 Million was just passed by Senate conference, has to go to Senate Appropriations. Governor has a chance of veto. Could be more money coming down for the school district.

I lean on and appreciate the wisdom and experience of the men and women around me, and I do not take this duty lightly at all. I wouldn't donate so much time. Um, some of these people up here know more about MAPTR than I do, and some more about the way everything works. I'll be the first person to admit that. The community's got a concern.

One of the reasons I joined the assembly was to help drive property taxes down. I would like to see more accountability, more transparency with the school district in line with Mr. Woods. I could be swayed up to the 13 mark flat, and I, I just can't support much beyond that.

Are we ready for the question?

Okay, roll call vote on the amendment. Mr. Johnson? No. Mr. Miss Roberts?

No. Mr. Smiley? No. Mr. Whiteside? No.

Mr. Woods? No. Mr. Ames? No. Mr. Gardner?

No. Would anyone like to change their vote? Motion failed unanimously. All right, thank you, Mr. Gardner, for getting us started off. I really appreciate that.

Uh, Mr. Whiteside, move to amend Resolution Number FY 2027-01 for the amount to be made available to the Kodiak Island Borough School District from local sources for the fiscal year ending June 30th, 2027, is set at $13,779,556 for both in-kind services and direct appropriation.

Second. It's been moved and seconded. Thank you, Mr. Woods. Mr. Whiteside. Thank you.

This funding level represents an increase of $800,000 from FY26. This amount balances the need for additional school funding, which I agree the state contributions have, have not kept up with just standard inflationary pressures. Staffing is, is one that I think every municipality, every state agency, every private employer is realizing those additional costs with. With their Line 100 there. This also allows the borough to— this amount also allows the borough to deliver services, preserve revenue for large capital projects, fund our nonprofits, and set a reasonable mill rate for FY 2027.

I too have been following the session, state legislative session that just closed. I won't touch on it again, but there is potential for a one-time relief. But I will say, as far as the concerns, the veto concerns this time, I did a little research on the votes and who voted yes, who voted no. So if this were to get a line item veto for the governor, those who voted no on this, on the budget as passed, typically are strong advocates for education, and they voted no because, as I understand it, they wanted more long-term built-in on a permanent increase to the BSA. So if this were to get vetoed as a line item, I think there is a very good chance that you will find support to override that veto for the school funding one-time increase.

In addition to that, House Bill 28, School Energy and Heating Relief, this was also passed. This is a multiyear plan where the state steps in to cover up to 100% of school heating fuel utility bills by 2028. This is incredible. This is the kind of support we want to see coming from the state level. Immediate funding— initial funding includes $29 million for high fuel costs distributed across the state.

Obviously, I won't— I generated an estimate for the school district share. I'm not going to share that because there's no evidence to support it, but it's going to be substantial. This past passed the Senate 17 to 3 and concurred in the House 34 to 6, with a total vote of 59 yes, 9 no votes. So if this were to get vetoed, I think we have strong support behind overriding that veto to keep this legislation in place. So all these things said, my goal is still— those recent legislative actions aside, I feel just achieving a fiscal balance where acknowledging the need that the school district is facing right now— again, not my place to deter— for them to determine who they cut, what they cut, and when, or close what and when.

However, I do acknowledge, and we've heard abundant testimony from the community, that they're feeling the squeeze from so many different areas, and that if we're— I trust that the public, when they come up and speak to to us when they say they're being squeezed, I take that seriously. I don't, I don't marginalize their concerns. I don't marginalize their opinion on why we're experiencing outmigration. I take all of that very seriously. So again, I represent this community as a whole.

And so factoring all of the testimony we've had, all the time I've spent listening to school board meetings and attending school board meetings, that's why I landed on this level. I'll just reiterate this represents an $800,000 increase from FY 2026 and preserves some funding for all of the other areas—services, nonprofits, and capital projects—and relieves the pressure valve for a mill rate, a reasonable mill rate going into FY 27. Thanks for allowing me that time. Thank you. Mr. Johnson—oh, I'm sorry, I think Mr. Smiley first and then Mr. Johnson.

I don't think I'm going to get the full ask, so I'll support this one. Thanks, Mr. Johnson. Thanks. I'll be brief. I know where this is going.

Um, you know, we've talked a lot about the anecdotes, and I do agree with the mayor on there, but I'll share a different anecdote. I had a conversation with my kids and I told them, you know, the sad reality is the education you're getting this year is probably the best you'll get while you're while you're in school. It's only going to get worse. For me, the kind of final straw, or whatever you want to call it, was going down to Juneau last, last winter and here being told that until the state's congressional budget reserve is fully depleted, there's no appetite to really do anything to fix things. So yeah, when we talk about outmigration, that sadly one of the, you know, families considering it because The state is in a mess and we're not giving our kids the futures they deserve in Alaska.

So it's sad, but that's where we're at. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else?

Okay. I was just about to call it. Okay. Mr. Woods. Sorry.

I'll be supporting this amendment. I think this strikes a reasonable balance between funding the schools to the most that we can responsibly, and not in setting a reasonable mill rate, allowing ourselves some funding, allowing ourselves some capital project wiggle room. This makes sense to me, uh, for— I can't do better than what Mr. Whiteside said. I think it strikes a reasonable balance between where we are and just kind of the realities of our situation at this moment. Does anybody like this?

This. I don't think there's a single person up here happy about this. Uh, frankly, it's one of the harder decisions I've ever made in my life. That said, you don't always get to do what makes you feel good. So thank you.

And Mr. Johnson— sorry, I gotta bite the apple one more time. We— because we've heard twice now this term reasonable mill rate. My understanding is our budget was already submitted to us based off the mill rate that would be authorized by MAPTR. So I just want to make us all own the decision.

We're cutting $800,000 from the ask to be put into a as-yet-to-be-defined fund, or cutting the mill rate below the MAPTR level, like So we're on the same page, that's what's being proposed. Thank you.

Yeah, and I think just like the previous amendment, this automatically, right, puts next year's assembly already at almost $1 million down with mill rate. Can you help us reason through that, Manager Williams? Sure. The budget was created with the full ask without putting any money into facilities maintenance. And so if we— if the decision was made to give left to the school district, you could put that money in facilities maintenance and still preserve MAPDR.

So that's a decision for next week. So this decision on its own doesn't destroy MAPDR, but it would require money to go into facilities maintenance. If we don't put money in facilities maintenance, then we will not be fully funding MAPTR. The budget was also built in with the assumption of not using interest from the facilities fund, and to fully fund MAPTR with the way that things are set up right now, we're looking at a— and you know that we're having problems with a certified value, but from the information that I currently have The mill rate would be about 9.56% without putting any money into facilities. If we are able to use— if the decision is made to use some of the interest from the facilities fund, that will affect the mill rate as well.

It will also affect the mill rate if you put money into facilities maintenance. And so there's just a lot— that's a hard question to answer, but as it sits right now, we would move from 8.91 to 9.56 if we fully fund the school district. I have— and I am not the expert, but believe it or not, Dora is even more sick than I am— so we can absolutely play around in this spreadsheet and look at numbers. But once the school district funding is set, and then once we have that certified value, then we'll be able to bring actual numbers next week.

Okay, are we ready for the question? All right, roll call vote on the motion, please. Nova. Miss Roberts. Yes.

Mr. Smiley. Yes. Mr. Whiteside. Yes. Mr. Woods.

Yes. Mr. Ames. Yes. Mr. Gardner. No.

Mr. Johnson. No. Would anyone like to change their vote? Yes. Okay, to a yes.

Yes. Okay, okay, motion carried with 6 yes, 1 no. Okay, so, um, the amendment has been approved. Um, before we vote on the resolution itself, um, any further discussion or amendments?

Okay, roll call vote on the motion. This is for the main motion, the main amendment as amended.

Mr. Smiley? Yes.

Mr. Whiteside? Yes. Mr. Woods? Yes. Mr. Ames?

Yes. Mr. Gardner? No. Mr. Johnson? No.

Ms. Roberts? Yes. Would anyone like to change their vote? Yes.

Motion carried, 6 yes, 1 no.

Okay, thank you everyone. Moving on. See, we have— moving on to other items. Abbreviated and informal hearing of the State of Alaska Alcohol and Marijuana Control Office new restaurant or eating place license application for Nunyak LLC, license number 60432. Staff report first, or do we want the motion?

Yes. Okay, if we could have the staff report first. You have adopted a motion at the last meeting to put protest subject to rescission on this liquor license, REPL. I have gotten information today they have resolved the issue that they had, and the building official also retracted his protest. The city of Kodiak also has emailed AMCO for the ABC Board retracting their protest.

So the way that we can do this is that we can withdraw the, the protest that you have made from the last meeting and instruct the clerk to notify AMCO and the licensee of a non-objection. If that is what you desire. Thank you. I would be happy to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you.

We will take questions first if anybody needs clarification on that before a motion is made. Mr. Woods. Correct me if I am wrong, but I think I saw them actually working out to correct that. It is all done. Oh, sweet.

All done. And approved. Sweet. And I have checked with the building official that what they have done is acceptable to him. So I did email the Assembly that email from the building official saying that, yes, he is retracting his objection.

Mr. Gardiner. Just moving forward with businesses similar to this or, you know, some kind of like kind. It seems like we're not always playing on a level playing field. I'm a big supporter of Nunyak. I love their food.

I'm not trying to say anything bad about them at all. But it's my understanding there was a lack of a certificate of occupancy or it got retracted because of this ADA ramp. And just moving forward, I think we need to really dot the i's, cross the t's whenever this comes by because it seems like, you know, there's not always a level playing field, and they were allowed to just stay in business. And maybe we should have enforced that a little bit harder, but that's probably more of a city issue since they're in city limits. But, um, like I said, level playing field, but I'm in support of retracting it.

Mr. Whiteside, move to withdraw the motion to protest subject to rescission adopted on May 7th, 2026, and direct the to notify AMCO and the licensee of a non-objection. Second. It has been moved and seconded. Any discussion, any further discussion on the withdrawal?

Okay. Roll call vote on the motion, please. Mr. Whiteside? Yes. Mr. Woods?

Yes. Mr. Ames? Yes. Mr. Gardner? Yes.

Mr. Johnson? Yes. Ms. Roberts? Yes. Mr. Smiley?

Yes. Would anyone like to change their vote. Motion passes unanimously. All right. Thank you, everyone.

Now comes the time for a second opportunity for citizens' comments. For those who wish to call in, the local number is 907-486-3231. Toll-free is 1-855-492-9202. Please turn off your radio or any listening device to prevent feedback. For those in the room who wish to speak under citizens' comments, please come to the podium and sign in, turn on the microphone, make sure the green light is on before speaking and speak directly into the mic.

And please state your name for the record. Address all remarks to the assembly as a body and not to any member thereof.

And we have somebody at the podium.

You may begin.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor and assembly. Um, I'm going to go back to my—.

Oh, can you please state your name for the record? Oh, everybody, Judy Karstens. I'm gonna go back to my general premise of growing up with Captain Kangaroo, and I think the whole town has known that, that that was our favorite show when we were little, when we had 3 channels. And yeah, it was a long time ago, but it's the one thing that he taught us in my generation, and it still carries through, is a please goes a long way, but a thank you goes farther. And each and every one of you put in a lot of time, energy, probably a few internal tears to come to this number with us.

And it's not going to stop us trying to provide the best education that we can, but we realize, or I realize as an ex-board member and where the board member now is, is we have to be more transparent. We have to let everyone know when we cut administration, and when we cut administration, we have to let them know what their job was. And this, this year there was several administrative positions cut. The actual position, maybe not the actual employee, they were found a place elsewhere. But these people that we're going to cut now are the lower level, and these grocery charges, every, every thing that's talked about, the mill rate, is really going to affect them.

So all I can do now is keep bugging the state, and they closed yesterday, and they're probably tired of hearing from me, but I will continue to advocate for our students regardless. And graduation is Sunday. These scholarship awards come out tomorrow. And you're going to be very, very impressed at what our students have done. And we're always talking about the lower end.

We have several students that are achievers. So, um, thank you for your time. Thank you for your input. But my last thing is going to be, you talked about kicking our can down the road and not closing the school for this year. But the reason there's so many facility facilities that need maintenance is because a past borough assembly kicked it down the road for many years and said, oh well, we aren't going to repair that this year.

That roof, we can put buckets under. How long did we have that at Peterson? Buckets with the, with it. So it's, it's part of every board. You kick it down the road.

So We're starting over, and next year we'll come for the full ask again. Thank you, all of you. Thank you.

Any calls? No. Okay. Oh yeah, we do have a phone call. Would you like me to take it?

Sure, yeah, if that's okay, Kim. You are now answering a call from the queue. Good evening, assembly meeting. Please state your name for the record. Good evening, Brenda Schwanes.

Thank you for your meeting tonight. I think you guys did a good job compromising, so I appreciate that. However, I wanted to add a couple things that I didn't say earlier. I get to work with some of the high school students and graduating high school students. Recently I had a graduate come in and I'm not saying if it's this year or last year, but a very recent graduate who could not count back by 5 or 25 or add and told me that because it was a question on a training questionnaire.

Can you add, subtract by 5, multiply, you know, and they could not. I can't emphasize the difference between my son, who is 9 years older than my recent graduate, and when the iPads were introduced and how that affects learning by doing by hand. You know, they learn how to navigate a screen, a device, but they're not learning to They can't do cursive, they can't do— they can't print, can't spell because spell check, blah blah blah. I disagree with one assembly member, um, who said that the more you spend, the better educated the child. It's just not that way.

And I'm not trying to be a hard nose, but you know, the state quit funding the school district 7 or 8 years go, the school district. You can't spend beyond your means. They've spent their savings account. Who does that?

I, I just don't understand, you know, just give, give, give, and it's all gone now. And next year, yes, the school's going to shut down. It's going to be doubly hard. Um, anyway, it's just really scary. I see, I see a snowball Next year is going to be a big problem, so I hope people start planning.

It's really unfortunate that the, uh, public, um, doesn't feel like they want to come to meetings. I reached out, Mr. Martin reached out to 20 people. They don't want to come. They're tired of this. They made their feelings known.

Close the school this year— didn't happen. I support not increasing the, the mill rate because people can't afford it and I can't. So thanks for your time. Good night. Good night.

Good evening, Assembly members. My name is Kim Saunders. I'm the current assistant superintendent for the school district, and I wanted to speak for Dr. Cindy Micka, the superintendent, this evening. She wasn't able to be here because she's homesick, but I wanted to give Just a moment of thanks for the collaboration and hard work that you've put into a difficult decision. We certainly recognize that no one has an easy task before them, and we certainly do the best we can to be good stewards of, of every vote of confidence that we have in this community to do our job and do it well.

I appreciate the thoughtfulness, the, the questions that you ask that we're able to provide insight and answers to the decision-making that both our board and our administration makes for students. So I hope that continues into the future, and we welcome really creative problem solving moving forward. We all can see this, um, not on a trajectory toward improvement, and I think the best thing that we have going for us are people who care that want to find creative ways to do it Smarter, not harder, right? I also, just because I can't help myself and maybe I'm looking at retirement on— in July of this year, um, we are looking to prepare students for their future and not our past. And I just would like to remind everyone that that's a scary thing sometimes, the evolution of education and, and what students need to know and be able to do education looks different than it did 20 years ago, and we have to keep up with that, or we're tying Kodiak kids' hands behind their back if they don't know how to use the tools that other students might know how to use or use.

Anyway, it's just, it's a different time, and I just want to remind the assembly of that as well. So thank you very much, and thank you for the funding. Thank you. Anyone else?

Again, hi. We want public comment. We want people to speak up. I am so sorry, can you state your name? My name is Leanna Harrington.

Thank you. We want people to show up. We want people to give public comment. I could have stood here all night and said I don't think we should fund this as a business owner or property owner. Instead, I give specifics, but those are labeled as anecdotal opinions.

But then we have assembly members who can give their anecdotal opinions and contribute. So again, I guess this is a really good reason why people don't show up to these things, because here you are. And then anecdotal opinions, I'm going to take also the same way Mike took it. Um, I guess take those up with the state and those numbers because that's black and white and it's a lot of documents and I've combed through them and I'm not sure why I continue to show up and speak. So thank you.

Thank you.

Hello, thank you. My name is Dan Rohr. I don't want to have to come to next week's meeting, so I want to pre-make a comment. The question about what do we do with the money that was saved/cut, I don't know how you want to think of that, but I am and have been for more than a decade now a very firm believer in we have to fund our facilities repair maintenance stuff, and we have funded that, or we did fund that for a number of years. And so I would be a big fan of staying at what MAPTR allows us to and making sure that we put those— I don't like the word extra monies— but those, the delta that's there towards facilities maintenance.

And so I know that I tend to come talk in opposition to taxes and things of that nature, but I am actually I do understand the realities of if we don't fully fund MAPTR and what that does to us long-term-wise. And I do think our maintenance fund— the reality is our facilities are aging and it is not getting any cheaper to maintain and fix things. So again, would ask you to do that. Secondly, just one, I would encourage you guys to— we need to look into what Robert's Rules of Order says. The call— a call of the question is not a debatable question.

It's not debatable by the mayor, the clerk, or anybody. It is a call— a call for the question by Robert's Rules. My understanding has always been, and I double-checked it, if somebody calls for the question and somebody seconds it, it doesn't matter if it cut off debate. That's actually what it's used for. But it has to be passed by two-thirds majority.

So that's, that's the, that's the safety measure, is so if an assembly member tries to cut off debate and nobody's had any bites at the apple and somebody else chooses to second it, two-thirds of the— two-thirds have to agree to that. So anyways, I, I appreciate that that didn't change the outcome of tonight at all. It didn't make the meeting long or anything of that nature. But I do think as you look at contentious issues on budgets and things of that nature, I think making sure we understand exactly when the question can be called and what that actually means, I think is important. So anyways, thank you.

I appreciate your time. And I think that was it. So thank you. Thank you, Dan. Anyone else?

Okay.

All right. We'll move on to Assemblymember comments, and we'll start here to my left with Mr. Gardner. Even though we always, you know, Things don't always go where we want to go, and everybody's got to make concessions. I do appreciate everyone at the table here. I think that we need to cut more across the board, not just school district, inside our own house.

I feel like we're already doing that. So I don't know, that's all I got to say. Thank you. Mr. Johnson. Thank you.

No comment. Mr. Smiley, uh, 9 years ago, uh, Pat Branson pinned me to the wall and told me I had to run for Borough Assembly. And I realized that the largest expenditure that the assembly makes is the amount of money we give to the school district. And I didn't know what that money was and how it was spent. So I sat in on budget development with the school district to try to understand that.

It is incredibly complicated. It is not basic in any way, shape, or form. There are guesses involved at every level. We should be doing it 2 years in advance or something, than what we do now. But you can't trust anybody with the right amount of money from the state or, or these other things as well.

At any rate, there's an idea out there that the money is poorly spent in the school district. This is not correct. I mean, the people that audit us, the borough, give us a gold star. They give a gold star to the school district too. And the school district has a lot more money going through it than we do.

So please be respectful about the work that the school district does in terms of its budget. It is not a trivial occupation at all, and I hope that some of— if you don't understand it, go to those meetings and learn. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Ames.

I'm glad we could kind of reach compromise. I know everyone's not happy, but I think what we did works. Other than that, no comment. Thank you. Mr. Whiteside.

Yeah, just wanted to thank everyone who was involved in helping us reach this decision. A lot of time spent. Board of Education, school district staff, we really appreciate all the information, the discussions, the back and forth you shared with us, um, borough staff and helping us move numbers back and forth to see what would make sense, um, and considering what our options were, um, and especially members of the community, whether you were for the full ask or completely the other way around or somewhere in the middle, thanks to thank— I want to thank every single person that came and shared their thoughts with us. I think collectively, along with my fellow assembly members and the mayor and the manager, I think we— our collective wisdom is always helpful. It may not land on the decision that us as an individual would prefer, but I think the amount of input that went into this decision this year compared to my previous 2 years on the assembly far outweighed the amount of information and discussion, and just collaborative effort towards reaching a decision was substantial this year.

So thank you to everyone involved. Thank you. Ms. Roberts. Thank you. I just want to say thanks to everyone that came out to give testimony, uh, during this really tough school budget season.

I'm glad that we were able to compromise and come to an agreement tonight. I agree with Mr. Woods, this is This is one of the toughest decisions I think we've had to work through. I also want to thank the school board for all the hard work that they put into this. I know it's not easy, and I thank you for the continued work that you do. I think we have a lot of— it was put really well earlier tonight— a lot of creative problem solving in front of us.

So I just want to thank everyone that was involved in this process. Thank you. Mr. Woods.

I mean, the amount of information we received this year is truly fantastic. Um, I want to give props to, uh, Miss Irons and all the rest of the school board staff and affiliates that showed up tonight. It is an uncomfortable thing every time you walk into a room of people who you know don't agree with you, and you expect a contentious issue, and you stand up to give your opinion. I have a tremendous amount of respect for that, and a tremendous amount of respect for each of you personally. That is a tough thing to do, and that really words don't go far enough.

Thank you for what you guys do. I know it's not the last anybody really wanted to deal with and this is not where anybody wanted to end up. But I'm glad we were able to work through it and thank you guys for all your input.

Thank you, everyone. Next, before we adjourn, we are going to be moving into executive session to discuss the Borough Manager's performance. Performance Evaluation. Is there a motion? Mr. Whiteside.

Mr. Mayor, may we entertain a break before moving on to the next agenda? Well, I was going to take a break while we are transitioning. Okay. Sounds great.

If that is okay. Works for me. 60 Seconds. Move to convene into executive session under the authority of Kodiak Island Borough Code 2.30.030 to discuss the Borough Manager's Performance Evaluation, a subject that qualifies for executive executive session as a matter that may tend to prejudice the character or reputation of any person. It has been moved.

Is there a second? Second. It has been moved and seconded. Anything else to add, Mr. Whiteside, to that? No, Mr.

Mayor. Any discussion? Okay. Roll call vote on the motion to move into executive session. Mr. Woods?

Yes. Mr. Ames? Yes. Mr. Gardner? Yes.

Mr. Johnson? Ms. Roberts? Yes. Mr. Smiley? Yes.

Mr. Whiteside? Yes. Would anyone like to change their vote? Motion passes unanimously. Okay, and one more motion please before we take a break.

Mr. Whiteside? Move to invite the mayor and assembly members into executive session. The manager will be invited at a later time. It's been moved. It's been moved and seconded.

A voice vote on the motion. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. Okay, motion passes.

We are going to take a little break, 5-minute break, as we transition to executive session.

Okay, regarding that.