The Kenai City Council adopted a resolution authorizing a budget transfer to provide supplemental funding to the Communications Tower Condition Assessment and Capacity Study Project. The FY22 budget included $34,000 to complete a communications tower condition assessment and capacity study on the public safety communications tower. Upon soliciting quotes to complete the project, it was determined that $34,000 is insufficient and supplemental funding is needed to complete the project.
According to Finance Director, Terry Eubank, $25,000 is available in the General Fund Contingency to provide the supplemental funding:
“Included in the FY22 budget was $34,000 to do the study that we’re asking. We issued, with the help of an IT manager and Public Works, we issued a request for quotes because it was under $35,000 and didn’t require a formal bid. We didn’t receive any respondents to our request. We reached out to the contractors and tried to inquire why, is there something in our scope, what was going on? What we determined is that what we guessed was going to be sufficient funding was insufficient. I wish I knew the year the tower next door was constructed, but certainly predates me and it’s been there a long time. We’ve added a lot of equipment to it over the last ten years, different communication equipment and we want to make sure that it has the capacity to hold what we’ve put on it and provide safety for the people that work under it every day over there.”
Eubank says that completion of the project will ensure the safe operations of the tower and determine if there is additional capacity on the tower for future needs of the city:
“So, we’re here looking for a little bit more money to go to what we believe after talking with perspective bidders. We’ve prepared a formal bid document that will be issued if this passes, and we hope to have the funds encumbered before year end and get that study completed.”
The resolution was adopted unanimously.