After the Soldotna City Council approved a special election but then failed to approve funding for it, administrators said they could find floating funds for the financing. Those available monies have been found in two appropriations already made for this fiscal year.
City Manager Mark Dixson detailed where they found $3,400 for the special election to ask voters if they support creating a home rule charter commission…
Dixson: “Well we had two accounts that hadn’t been fully spent: one of them was with regard to recording fees and the other one was in regard to travel budget.”
Soldotna’s City Clerk reviewed appropriations already made and found that while $2,000 had been appropriated for recording fees this year, only one recording for $25 had been made.
In a similar case, the city appropriated fees and expenses to for all seven elected council officials to attend the Alaska Municipal League Conference in November, but three members did not use the allocated funds.
The $1,900 from the excess recording appropriations and $1,500 leftover from monies not used for the AML conference equal the $3,400 needed for the special election.
The notice of funds found states that if recordings increase throughout the remainder of the fiscal year, an ordinance will be brought forward to cover those costs since the funds were spent on the special election.
The special election will be held May 10.