The Kodiak City Council may cap how much it gives to local nonprofits annually

Mitch Borden/KMXT

The City of Kodiak is trying to save up enough money so, if it needs to, it can fund city operations for at least 6 months. At a recent Kodiak City Council work session, Mike Tvenge, Kodiak’s city manager, told the council that the city only has enough money in its general fund to run for about three months.

One of the ways the council is looking at generating revenue for the general fund is capping the amount of money Kodiak annually donates to local nonprofits.  Usually, the city disperses about one percent of its budget to local organizations. The council is considering making the max it can give away $175,000. If one percent of the budget is more than that amount, the excess will be funneled into the general fund.

“Really what we’re hoping for is that if there’s some catastrophic failure that we need to put out a couple of million dollars for something, we will have it eventually. This is not going to fill back the bucket very quickly, but it will over time.”

Tvenge told the council that in the past the city has had up to $14 million dollars in its general fund. He says currently there’s only about  $4 million dollars in it. City Mayor Pat Branson says its important for Kodiak to have enough savings to be able to cover operations if a natural disaster like an earthquake or tsunami strikes.

“We have to have money to cover that because the feds aren’t going to come in right away to help us.”

Once there’s enough money to run the city for six months, Tvenge says the funding cap for nonprofit funding can be removed. The city will vote on this resolution at its regular meeting tonight at 7:30 pm in the Assembly Chambers at the Kodiak Island Borough Building.

Kodiak Public Broadcasting, which KMXT is a part of, is one of the nonprofits that receive funding from the city.