City of Kenai administrators and city council members will host a work session this weekend to present a draft 2017 budget that’s open to the public.
Kenai City Manager Rick Koch says he got good news when the healthcare renewal quote arrived for city employees.
Koch: “I had built in a 20 percent increase on healthcare costs, our premiums are about $1.6 million a year so in round numbers it was a $320,000 increase across all the funds. But we were told that the increase would actually be five percent of less, it could even be zero. So I’ve got somewhere in the area of $320,000 built in that will not be necessary to be used for healthcare.”
While the reduction in healthcare costs frees up money for the city, Koch says he didn’t feel it was the right time to add projects to the budget like an outdoor event space.
Koch: “Just because this year we’ve seen a reduction in some revenue sources that we have, most notably some state stuff. The chair of that committee, he and I spoke about whether it should be in or not be in there and it ended up not being in there but that’s certainly something that I expect there will be some discussion about.”
Koch says there won’t be many changes to the city’s budget from last year. The proposal keeps the city’s mill rate at 4.35 and there are no changes proposed thus far to increase taxes.
The budget work session will be at 9:00 am, Saturday, April 30, in the Kenai City Hall Council Chambers.