Kenai City Councilor are today discussing the City’s FY16 budget, combing through the various departments and deciding on future projects.
Finance Director Terry Eubank and the city manager presented the proposed budget this morning.
Eubank: “What we’ve presented to council right now has about a $210,000 surplus that we’re projecting, knowing that council probably has some pet projects that they want to interject in there but it’s our goal to have a budget surplus in this coming fiscal year to start to rebuild some fund balance that we spent in the last couple years like the city shop and things like that.”
He said obviously the budget will be slimmed down as they depend on less state funding due to Alaska’s dismal current fiscal situation.
Eubank: “Our budget is a little leaner, we’re expecting pretty lean capital budgets coming out of the state for the next few years, especially, we had our annual dance with healthcare this year trying to maintain good benefits for our employees but not break the bank and that was another one of our big dances. Other than that we’re not looking at any changes to our mill rate, our mill rate will stay the same and all of our other revenue sources are pretty much in line.”
Kenai’s mill rate increased to 4.35 last year.
The budget work session is scheduled into the evening at the Kenai City Hall.