The Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly held the first of two nights of deliberations regarding appropriating funds for Fiscal Year 2023. The ordinance presented to the assembly appropriates money necessary to fund the Kenai Peninsula Borough’s annual budget for FY23 (July 1, 2022, to June 30, 2023). Two public hearings are scheduled for the ordinance with one held this past Tuesday and the other for June 7.
The projected government revenues come to just over $159 million. The government estimated expenditures come to just over $170 million. In addition, the projected mill rate is 4.50, down from 4.70 compared to FY22. In addition, the only mill rates seeing increases for service areas in the Kenai Peninsula Borough are Kachemak Emergency Services and North Peninsula Recreation, both of which will see increases, while the rest will not.
In addition, the largest component of the borough’s budget is the contribution the borough makes to fund the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District. The amount the Borough appropriated for FY23 is $52.5 million, or 100% of the maximum allowed by the statute. The projected number of students for FY23 is 8,429, and the funding per student is approximately $6,236.
Assembly Member Jesse Bjorkman said:
“It’s a good budget that reduces a general fund mill rate by two tenths of a mill, which will provide some property tax relief. In this time, the borough, as a second class borough, and because of how the state of Alaska organizes our borough and limits us in how we can actually adjust the taxes that we collect with exemptions, our hands are a bit tied in what is possible for us to do and the adjustability in our tax structure to provide relief is really in our mill rate and where a lot of that money comes from in this borough is oil and gas property tax and property tax related to oil and gas and personal property. That money, then, doesn’t necessarily go back to industry, that money goes back to the state of Alaska.”
There were five proposed amendments to the ordinance, four of which passed.
The next scheduled public hearing on the ordinance is scheduled for June 7.
Click here to view the entire proposed budget (if the PDF document doesn’t load below).
Mayor Proposed Budget FY23