The Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly’s initial public hearing on their draft Fiscal Year 2017 budget was ruled by comments on landfill usage and education.
The borough’s proposed closure of the landfill one day a week as a $250,000 cost saving measure was met with resistance from testifiers like Sara Crapuchettes and George Pierce…
Crapuchettes: “To have that stop, I invite any one of you out on our trucks to see what happens on a daily basis just so you can get a firm understanding of what you’re asking just to get a $250,000 savings.”
Pierce: “If you close the station down in Kasilof just for one day, you probably won’t be able to open the dump there’d be so much trash put out in front of the gate. Bad idea to close the dump.”
Amendments were made to the budget to keep all landfill and transfer sites open during summer months, and Memorial Day weekend. Borough Mayor Mike Navarre…
Mayor Navarre: “We added back in about $42,000, actually about $50,000 because we’re not going to be closed on Memorial Day and then we’re going to be open for at least July and August seven days a week because the summer months are the busiest so we added back in a total of about $50,000 between those two amendments.”
For education, many people stated they would like to see the Borough fund K-12 education to the cap. Mayor Navarre explained that they have a year to do that, depending on how much the state legislature funds schools, as the borough’s formula is tied to that number.
Soon after, Assistant Superintendent Dave Jones announced that a legislature had voted to eliminate the $50 Base Student Allocation.
There was also ample comments about the Borough’s support for Kenai Peninsula College, but Mayor Navarre says there is nothing that’s been proposed about raising the .01 mill that the organization currently receives.
There will be one more public hearing on the borough’s proposed budget on June 7 during the regular assembly meeting.
