City Council Settles on Budget

Kayla Desroches/KMXT

Kodiak City Manager Aimée Kniaziowski read aloud from a memo during last week’s Kodiak City Council regular meeting and announced that the city’s expenses and revenue will balance out to the same number for the coming year’s budget.

“The FY2016 Budget projects combined revenues from all funds excluding capital projects to be $38,034,750, which is a decrease of 8 percent from FY2015’s combined budget revenues of $41,471,414,” she says.

Kniaziowski nodded to the challenge of compiling this year’s budget, but praised the staff’s achievement in maintaining the same departments and community assistance Kodiak has enjoyed in the past.

“I will say that we’ve managed to provide the city, the community with another lean budget and minimal staffing without affecting the services,” says Kniaziowski. We continue to be able to provide the services per both years’ budget goals and I think the staff’s commitment to the city.”

She says one of the barriers has been the loss of state aid even as costs increase.

“We’re all concerned about that,” says Kniaziowski. “Kodiak hasn’t been hit as hard as some communities, but we certainly are expecting some major reductions in intergovernmental transfers.”

The city council voted to adopt the budget for the fiscal year starting July 1. The city council’s next regular meeting is scheduled for next Thursday.