The City of Nome has passed a budget for the next 12 months, and even dropped property taxes, but at Monday’s city council meeting residents came out to ask the city to find more room in the budget to support community nonprofits.
Earlier this month the Nome City Council passed an $11.3 million budget for operations, and saw fit to also drop the property tax rate from 12 to 11 mills. But what wasn’t in that budget was any mention of funding for various nonprofits and other charities in Nome, some of which have relied on thousands of dollars of funding from the city in the past. Even the annual Community Benefit Share, given each year by Norton Sound Economic Development Corporation for public projects, remained earmark-free in the city’s budget.
That saw many community members come to speak at the meeting to ask not just for a piece of the benefit share pie—but also for some kind of dedicated city funding.
Danielle Slingsby, executive director of the Nome Community Center, said nine out of every ten dollars her group spends comes from state grants. Now, with state budget deficits in the billions, Slingsby pushed for a permanent place on the city’s ledger.
“We’re running programs even when we get funding pulled, and we try to make sure it works just to fill in the gaps in the community,” she said, addressing the council.
“We’ve got the Boys and Girls Club [and] funding was pulled, we still made it work. We pulled some strings, we’re keeping it together to still run with one staff, 50 kids … it’s still running, but its something we could use constant and continued support for.”
Several members of NEST—the community’s emergency shelter, made a similar appeal to the council. Lance Johnson spoke to the role the shelter plays in preserving lives, reducing homelessness, and keeping police from responding to calls better served by the shelter’s services.
“We can’t afford to see NEST go away in this community, or we’re going to see some really bad numbers,” Johnson said. “I hate to put things in numbers but that’s what it is, it’s numbers from [a] financial standpoint, it’s numbers from casualties, it’s numbers in substance use increasing greatly because of … homelessness.”
Johnson added that “joblessness and homelessness are things that are going to contribute” to those issues the most, concluding that the community “can do something about one of those two things.”
Council member Stan Andersen invited the nonprofits to find a supportive council member and have them introduce an amendment to the budget, or otherwise wait for the community benefit share to be divvied up early next year.
Moving on to other business, the council approved a few items—including a rate hike for ambulance services, as well as an increase in charges per mile for EMS calls. They also renewed city planner Eileen Bechtol’s contract.
In his report to the council, utility manager John Handeland said the city’s water fluoridation has been spotty, due to both a lack of the chemical and a lack of certified operators to add it to the city’s water supply. The Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium has in the past provided money and know-how for fluoridation, but council members said if ANTHC cannot continue to provide the service it would require a careful cost analysis by the city.
Handeland said state loans continue coming in to repay the city for its multi-million dollar line of credit, extended last November. More than $1.2 million remains outstanding. As the utility continues getting its financial house in order, council member Stan Andersen harangued the utility—and Handeland—for failing to cut off customers who don’t pay their electricity bills.
“There’s a whole listing of people that are still on the grid, and they owe thousands of dollars, and they’re still drawing juice!” Andersen said. “Why don’t you cut them all off? But there’s nothing in the tariff that’ll let you do that. But these same characters also owe back property tax. And it keeps, every year it goes on and on and on, and I don’t see—I don’t see any progress.”
Handeland said progress on utility finances is being made, including plans to make permanent a utility rate increase that is set to expire this month. He says the new rate is still to be decided, but it will be similar to what’s now in place. (As of January, Nome utility rates increased to roughly $0.19/kWh to $0.20/kWh for most households.)
“I don’t think there’s any question in anybody’s mind that the [rate structure] that was put into effect in the beginning of the year was long overdue,” Handeland said. “And more than likely there will be some continuation of the existing rate … we will see a permanent rate structure and that’ll be adopted in July.”
As the utility contemplates rates, Handeland said cheaper fuel being barged in this summer could help soften the blow. Last year the 2.3 million gallons of fuel for Nome’s generators cost $3.30 a gallon, in all costing about $8 million. Final prices aren’t set yet—that’ll happen using a formula for the market price in July—but costs are now coming in at about $2.70 a gallon, meaning the same amount of fuel will now cost about $6 million.
It sounds like a savings of $2 million—but Handeland said the utility won’t know the final cost they’ll be charged until next month.
