City and Borough Assembly - Regular Meeting

Well, welcome everybody. Thank you for joining us on a sunny Tuesday. We really should pass an ordinance that shifts meetings due to sun. If any yeah. If anybody wants to cosponsor one of those.

United States Of America and proud to the And

of

Assembly of the City and Borough of Sitka would like to respectfully acknowledge the traditional first people of Sheetka. With gratitude, we proceed on Tlingit Ani. Sarah, roll call, please.

Mayor Eisenbeis? Present. Mister Pike?

Here.

Miss Carlson? Here. Miss Riley? Here. Mister Christensen? Here. Mister Mosier?

Here.

And mister Saline?

Here.

Thank you. Any, correspondence or agenda changes this evening? Seeing none, that'll bring us to special reports. We do have a couple scheduled special reports this evening. We will start with our Sitka child care needs analysis report. Blue, I understand you're on Zoom here. Hey. There we go. We gotcha. The floor is yours. Thank you.

Okay. Let me share my screen so that my face isn't on your giant screen.

Second.

Well, I'm not seeing that screen. I am not seeing an option to share. It's not pulling up my screen.

I wish I could help you, but I am not of the IT type.

It was working fine a minute ago. One moment, please.

Can you maybe log out and then go back in?

Yeah. Oh, there it

is. Okay.

Can you see that?

We do. Yeah. We see blanks. Yeah. There we go.

Okay. I'm not sure if you're seeing

It's in presentation mode, so we can see your add notes. Next slide.

Yeah. I don't okay. Well, I'm gonna leave it at that because I don't wanna mess it up. So my name is Blue Scheibler. I'm the executive director of the Southeast Childhood Collective. We used to be known as AEYC. We're a 40 year old nonprofit serving families and children with a variety of supports, including a large focus on childcare as a system throughout the region. I come to this work with twenty years of childcare experience. I owned childcare programs for many years before I came to the nonprofit world. And so when I do this work, it's my passion, and it's largely passion because of that lived experience.

Just for a quick overview, earlier this year, the city and borough of Sitka contracted with our agency to conduct a child care system analysis and develop practical strategies to address the emergent needs of families who need child care. The goal was to report the findings and provide the city with some programming options to strengthen Sitka's child care system and support the long term sustainability of the sector. For this project, we examined childcare supply in Sitka, workforce conditions, family affordability of childcare, and barriers to the current childcare programs possibly expanding. For this work, I included a lot of data review. I regularly engage with child care providers in Sitka through all the the time, but we did a little more in-depth engagement for this report.

And then I came to town and held three stakeholder listening sessions and then had additional one via Zoom that was hosted by the chamber. Some key findings from the data review, and this is using data from the Department of Labor. They they use the the data from, I believe, PFD applications, so it's believed to be probably the most accurate population data that we could find. And so it shows a need of approximately 485 children needing childcare with a supply of about two zero four that are currently being served. And, you know, we use rough estimates based on sort of national recommendations that outline that of the approximate seven seventy seven kids in Sitka, we can just estimate that between sixty and sixty five percent of those kids have all available parents in the workforce and then therefore they need some type of child care.

So that presents a gap of around two eighty one child care spaces. And again, that number seems really high. It is an estimate. We do know that what is not often captured in data reports and numbers is how many families are able to come up with creative ways to take care of their kids, including flying in grandparents and having sort of offsetting schedules so that there's always a parent at home and other family members. There's also a lot of in every community, there's a lot of what we call family, friend, and neighbor care, which are, like, more of those informal child care settings that people have been using happily for decades.

They're just not easy to measure because when we look at supply and demand, are really looking at publicly available data which comes from the State Department of Child Care Licensing and the Sitka Tribes and Head Start and public school data. Another key finding is when I talk to child care providers who are currently operating Sitka has some really amazing child care programs that have hung on throughout the pandemic in really difficult economic times. They're very, very dedicated people in your community. Many of them have technical spaces still that could be filled with children in need, but they can't fill those because they just can't hire enough staff to take care of them. And in the supply and demand world, shortages exist for infant, toddler, and school agesummer care.

And the reason that childcare has become an issue for many city governments is because it's in childcare is considered to be in market failure, and it's having a huge economic impact on communities because it affects all other workforce sectors. We hear this from businesses in almost every industry. We hear it from chambers across the state and across the country that the number one reason they have a hard time attracting employees and keeping employees because they can't find childcare. Housing is right up there too, but childcare is a big one. And just to go really quick into the market failure of child care, the cost of providing that care, especially right now in a really competitive labor market, the cost of that cannot be passed on to families because they can't afford it.

The cost of everything else is up, the cost of living, everything's up. So childcare providers can't really increase their costs too much more and they can't recoup their own expenses, especially if you are trying to pay a competitive wage, much less a living wage. And that's not unique to Sitka. Of course, these same shortages are seen definitely all across the state and across the nation too. The private market just cannot help increase the supply on its own.

And it's important to note that the impacts of that, of supply shortages, extend across the community in terms of reduced workforce participation, employer recruitment challenges, and ultimately population decline. That has been talked about throughout the Southeast Region quite a bit that we're losing families and the workforce age demographic in general because they can't find childcare. And so what I was asked to do is come up with some possible solutions that could help bring about better supply situation in Sitka and better working conditions for the sector. And this work that I propose in here is largely based on what has successful in Juno. If you've read the report, the Juno child care grant program looks a lot like option number two with a a little bit of one mixed in.

And so not sure what level of investment the city is considering. I wanted to kind of give a a broad range of basically a price tag to solutions. And so the first one looks at workforce incentives, and it does have some language in there about operational cost relief in terms of giving some sort of waiver to childcare businesses to not have to pay city utilities. And I know that might not even be possible. I just had to throw it in there because when I had my listening sessions and I was talking to child care providers, it was brought up quite a bit that utility costs are really high.

And any time you can help eliminate any portion of an operating cost for a childcare provider, those savings can then be directed to paying staff a better wage, which if we go back to earlier slides, we definitely heard that that was the number one reason that current providers cannot expand or even operate at full capacity. And it's definitely one of the reasons that you're not seeing new new businesses open. Right? In a normal business market, when supply is low and demand is high, you would see new entrants coming in to meet that need and create supply. That just can't happen in the childcare business because they can't charge what they need to charge to recoup their costs.

So I can go into a little bit of detail about these different program options if you all want. I'm not sure how detailed you want me to be with these.

Yeah. I think we'll have an opportunity on our following agenda item to kinda dig in a little deeper.

Okay. So option one, you know, is primarily focused on workforce incentives. Incentives. This directly addresses the low wages that we heard about from all providers. They have a hard time attracting employees because they can't compete option with other wages.

The second one one the second option provides a per child operating grant. And so providers would report how many kids they have, and they would get a certain subsidy. There's two levels of subsidies that you could look at giving, and then they would get that in a direct grant. In Juneau, we saw that do what option one did, which was increase wages. We didn't have to really spell it out for providers.

We we offered this grant. It was based on a per child amount every month. And hands down, every single child care business, when they started receiving this grant, they raised wages. And once one center raises wages, the others kind of have to because you don't want to get into a situation where you're competing for other centers' staff. And so it had this ripple effect in Juneau when we first implemented the per child operating grants.

Starting wages were around $13 an hour, and they've gone up to $20 since then. And then having option three blends all of that plus a little bit for affordability. We heard that in our listening sessions, and it's certainly known in a broader context that child care is unaffordable for many families. And there are some statewide tools that can help address that. There's a statewide child care assistance subsidy program that is notoriously hard to access.

And I also heard from a lot of sick and families that it doesn't meet the needs of seasonal workers. It fails the fishing community pretty seriously because it will only pay for childcare when they're actually on the water. So little examples like that make it not ideal for a lot families. And so option three added in an amount that could go to those families that either childcare assistance from the state isn't enough or it doesn't doesn't work for their work situation. Isn't And then there were some in addition to these more formal options, there were some additional things to talk about, including startup grants.

We know in Juneau many people who do want to start a child care program, and we have. We've had providers and a couple of centers open since we started this. They have a hard time accessing traditional capital that other businesses would have largely because we go back to that market failure. They can't really show a huge profit and might not have the ability to pay back loans. So startup grants have been a really important tool in Juneau.

And then there's there's some mention of seasonal programming. You know, South Sitka is definitely has a tourist economy in the summer. And so the need for childcare theoretically goes up and really cannot be met by the year round programs who are struggling to meet the need of just the people who are in the community working year round. And then I did address a variety of state policy advocacy opportunities. There's a lot of work being done done at the state level right now to address childcare, including money put into a state childcare grant program that is what the Juneau program and a lot of these options that I mentioned in my report is really based off of.

It's a really small amount right now. The state childcare grant program is like $50 a month per child. So it doesn't make a huge difference in a budget. But that amount has been increasing, and there's there's a lot of work that can be done by community leaders to advocate for more work to be done there. So just to wrap up, Sitka's childcare supply challenges cannot be solved with private market alone.

A sustained public investment is needed. And that public funding really in turn supports local businesses, increased workforce participation, and economic resilience. It will help stabilize child care providers, improve workforce retention, and just generally expand access to child care. Strengthening child care is a long term investment in Sitka's economy, families, and community sustainability. And I'd like to just pull up, if my computer will let me, the executive brief that came with it, I think it does a good job of sort of summarizing what we just talked about.

So this again, it just summarizes the supply and demand and different options that can be looked at to try to fix it.

Well, great. Thank you, Blue. I thank you for all your work on that and, you know, letting, I think, the community and the assembly know kind of what we already knew, but we needed some hard hard data on some of the figures there. So appreciate that. And I understand that you'll be staying on for our our item later this evening?

Yep. I'll be available on the phone. I'm gonna go watch a baseball game.

Great. We we thank you for double duty and allowing us some questions if we do have them later. Appreciate it.

Thanks. I look forward to it.

Moving on with our scheduled special reports this evening, department quarterly reports harbors. I think Brandon Harbormaster is here.

Brandon Calhoun, harbor master for the city of Sitka. Crescent Harbor High load dock and the workflow are both officially wrapped up and back in use. We are working towards our Elias and Harbor electrical and float upgrade project. We're setting the scope and specific items we're going be doing there. And then we're going to do a bunch of upland maintenance this year, parking lots and other working areas. We've been looking at our service levels and kind of increasing that where there's mitigating some of the traffic and Crescent with all

the

tourism, boats coming in and out of there all the time. And then other than that, we're going to have a little bit of a short staffed summer. Tom retires into June. And our other maintenance FTE is out on leave for most of the summer. Hopefully, he'll be back in August. And we've been able to get four of our six summer temps. So we have port security pretty well covered, but operations is going to be a bit busy this year since we haven't been able to find a temp for that. That's it.

Please.

I recall in the resource proposals that we've seen with this budget process, the awnings for this section of doc right out here is to be replaced shortly. What's the schedule on that? Because that's going to be CPV money going towards, and I wanted to see the community has always been interested in what that CPV money gets used for. So can you tell us a little bit about that project and the timeline there?

Yes. So once that once the budget is approved, we move in to FY 2027, we'll be able to order materials. It's all been specked out. It will be the same roof upgrade that we did at the bridge and the Lyasen Harbor where we changed it over to a metal roofing rather than this canvas. Obviously, we get a lot more life out of that. And then that's all covered by CPV funds.

So will that be completed by, you know, June of next year? Is that a winter project? Is that a summer project? Is that next summer?

Yeah. That'll be a fall winter project once the ports are closed.

Great, thank you. CPV money in action.

Anything else for our harbor master, Katie?

Yes, thanks. Can you tell us a little bit more about the changes to Crescent Harbor, the mitigation strategies for tourism, the new painting at the bottom of the blue ramp, I believe, no parking or something. Let the community know what's going on down there.

Yes. We painted where the pump out is down at the bottom of the main gangway in Crescent Harbor. We painted that yellow as a loading zone only because we were it was being used as an extension of the two hour zone. So you'd get boats in there blocking the pump out for a couple hours and then we have boats jogging around waiting to get their turn in. So we painted that to be a loading zone.

The lightering facilities are being used as reservation facilities this year and moving forward. So our larger inspected cruise vessels are using this Crescent Harbor lightering facility on a reservation basis. And that's it for our traffic modifications for now.

And with the reservation system, are those being charged? Is that available after hours? I know that the Science Center is an entity that previously used those spots to offload marine debris and kind of just wondering how do we or if there's a way to balance the community use of those facilities with reservations? Can we keep them open when they're not reserved? Or if you have any thoughts there?

Yes. So it's just going to be during the summer season that we operate them as a reservation facility. That has to do with our the way our port security plan is set up. Benefits us there as well. There's still obviously the two hour load zone that everybody gets to use. And then as far as other loading zones, we have loading zones in Elias and Harbor with drive down access and stuff like that as well. Come the end of the summer, it will open back up to free public use.

And is the reservation is that charged? How much revenue is that generating?

Yes. So we've added five operators that are paying to use that facility where previously, it was mainly just one. And we're also before, it was basically first come first serve with some priority, but it was a little bit of a gray area. It was when we could help mitigate traffic by actually being down there and keeping available. Where the way we're doing it now, you have a reservation and then there's your dock when you have that reservation.

And is it reserved well in advance? Is there like days that it's open to the public or

No. It's going to be reservation dock all summer. The operators are providing me a schedule for the summer and then everybody has to modify to make sure that they fit.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Brian. Appreciate your time this evening. Moving on in department quarterly reports, public and government relations. Welcome. Thank you.

Thanks.

Melissa Lunas, public and government relations director. Here to give you the quarterly report, covers for me February through April. So the citywide communications plan, the purpose of that is to help communicate clearly, consistently, and proactively with residents, businesses, and community partners. The first draft's content of the plan includes the purpose, how the plan how to use the plan, what we've heard from the community, goals and actions, core communication channels, standards and guidelines, and a playbook. And the playbook will include an implementation guide, tone, roles and responsibilities, best practices and templates.

So this quarter we received feedback from about a dozen staff across the organization in the initial draft that was developed through the public outreach targeted engagement and the internal staff report or input. So there's a meeting next week with the consultants and John and Josh and myself for hopefully like a second round of a of a draft and then we'll see where it goes from there eventually it'll be coming to you all the ADA title two administrative policy has been completed so I'll be working with staff awareness on that over the next few weeks and then trying to come up with like a continual basis in order to do that. And then we launched the new website on March 19 without too many hiccups. While some pages still need some refinement, feedback has generally been positive and staff continue to work on content updates and accessibility improvements and overall site improvements. And in the communications plan, there is, you know room for that to grow as well like we'll probably be doing a audit of some sort so that will improve that as well the FY '27 CPF and CDS requests, Congressman Begich recently posted the CPF requests and that he submitted to their Appropriations Committee and unfortunately our haul out was not included in the request.

He only gets 15 to input but it was just announced yesterday that we have 5,000,000 in for the marine service center center seawall and it's been included in senator Murkowski's request so it it's going to be an appropriations bill and then the next step is for to see if the Senate Appropriations Committee funds the project. So we had originally a request requested over 14,000,000 However, their office came back to us and asked if we could scale it back. So we presented 5,000,000 to be used to stabilize existing infrastructure and advance design project.

And that's what I have.

Questions for Melissa? Katie?

I'm wondering if you can coordinate with Harbors to distribute some communications about modifications to Crescent Harbor. I would love to. Thank you.

When does that seawall money become available potentially?

Oh gosh, I mean, it takes another year. You know, we we received that 10,000,000 for the wastewater effluent system and still haven't quite heard back. So we're still waiting on that. So, again, it takes takes a little bit of time.

But it's here in the budget for what we're passing here in the next item.

That's $10,000,000

Okay. So, fiscal year twenty eight, most likely. Likely, if it

goes through all the channels.

Thank you, Melissa. I don't really have a question per se. I did notice that the website is definitely easier on the eyes when you're using your phone, which I really appreciate. And I think a lot of people really appreciate that. That was good news about the $5,000,000 That's really exciting. Hopefully, it'll go through. And I just wanted to say thank you for your work on the communications plan. I think that's really, really crucial to improve the synergies within the organization of the city of Sitka and as well within the community. Think that's something that we really have needed improvement on for a long time and I'm really excited about it and thank you for your work.

Me too. Thanks.

Katie?

Just one more thing I do appreciate the new website very exciting. I have tried to look up a couple things and I'm getting like a four zero four you know page not found notice. Legistar is not accessible on here. It's it's not 404. It just says leads to a page that says legislator, but not the actual data for how to access the meetings, the minutes, agenda, and stuff. So is there a

have a

transfer plan. They actually had a little crash today and yesterday, so they're working on it.

Okay. Okay. The other pages, are they gonna be migrated over at some point, or is there an effort to go through and find out which pages are leading to links that don't work?

I

think the ADU rules aren't available on the planning website anymore.

Oh I didn't know that.

There's like a page on like a easily like how do you build an ADU that

Oh right that's under the building department now I think. But, yeah, that's more on the technical side of things so I can relay to Grant and we can try to work through that. But I know that there was something to do with Google where not everything had migrated over on their end as well. And so I think that that takes several weeks to do, they were saying. But that's more of a, like, technical side of things.

Okay. Well, maybe you can communicate that to the technical team

to make Thank you.

We'll look

at things.

Thanks, Melissa. Appreciate it. Moving on in special reports this evening. Is there anyone here for government to government, municipal boards, commissions, committees, municipal departments, school district? Great. That'll bring us two persons to be heard. This is public participation for any item off of tonight's agenda, not to exceed three minutes for any individual.

Hello. My name is Carrie Segal. I'm here on behalf of Rachel Roy, who, as the chamber director, had intended to be here but has a family emergency. And knowing that I would be here, she asked me to extend this invitation and make this announcement. Good evening, Assembly members.

We wanted to provide a brief overview of the Rasmussen Foundation Tending the Future Fund grant that has been awarded to fund the Sitka Child Care Funding Summit. The grant was awarded to the Center for Community Early Learning Program as fiscal sponsors in partnership with the Sitka Chamber of Commerce as co chairs. The Early Childhood Coalition is meeting Mondays at one p. M. Participate in the planning for the summit.

We invite you and the city staff to participate in both the development of the summit and by attending. The $15,000 grant supports a community convening focused on identifying sustainable funding strategies for child care and Sitka. The summit would bring together business leaders, tribal partners, educators, child care providers, parents, local government, and community organizations to discuss practical solutions and next steps. We also have guests who work on child care on a national scale attending. We're very encouraged that the assembly is continuing to prioritize this issue and explore sustainable funding option.

The chamber consistently hears from employers that housing and child care are the top barriers to workforce recruitment and retention. We believe child care is essential infrastructure for families, businesses, and the long term health of our community. One of the goals of the Sitka Child Care Funding Summit is to support a strong public process around these discussions. We see this summit as an opportunity for the assembly and community partners to engage directly with residents, employers, and stakeholders to better understand priorities, evaluate funding options, and assess the best steps moving forward. The summit would not be intended to predetermine a specific funding outcome. Instead,

it would create a structured community conversation focused on identifying practical, locally supported solutions that can improve access to child care and Sitka. We appreciate the Assembly's leadership on this issue and look forward

predetermine to continuing to work collaboratively with community partners as these conversations move forward. So the first meeting is on Monday at 01:00, and we extend this invitation. Thank you.

Anyone else under persons to be heard this evening? Any item off of tonight's agenda? Seeing none further, we'll move on to consent agenda, please.

I move to approve the consent agenda consisting of item A, approve the minutes of the April 2428 meetings.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to approve the consent agenda.

Is there

any public comment? Sarah?

All right. On the motion to approve the consent agenda, Mayor Eisenbeis?

Yes.

Mr. Christensen? Yes. Ms. Riley? Yes. Mr. Mosier?

Yes.

Mr. Saline? Yes. Miss Carlson? Yes. And mister Pike? Yes. The motion passes seven zero.

Thank you. Item b, please.

I move to appoint Michael Hall and Brian McLaughlin to permanent terms on the local emergency planning committee under category two law enforcement civil defense firefighting first aid local environment slash hospital and transportation personnel. Second.

It's been seconded to appoint those two individuals to the L. E. P. C. Is there any And the in

the

we're

neither one of them has a choice. I was about to say the same thing. Katie?

Oh, I thought sorry. I thought I saw your mic. Sarah?

All right. On the motion to appoint Michael Hall and Brian McLaughlin to permanent terms on the local emergency planning committee. Miss Riley? Yes. Mayor Eisenbeis?

Yes.

Miss Carlson? Yes. Mister Mosier? Yes. Mister Pike? Yes. Mister Christensen? Yes. And mister Saline? Yes. The motion passes. Seven zero on item b.

Thank you. Item c, please.

I move to approve ordinance twenty twenty six zero nine on second and final reading in manual title one, general provisions of the general code by adding chapter 1.36, acceptance of donations to the city.

Second. That's been moved and seconded to approve ordinance 26 dash zero nine. Is there any public comment? Assembly deliberation.

Sarah? Alright. On the motion to approve ordinance twenty twenty six dash zero nine on second and final reading, mister Christensen?

Yes.

Miss Carlson? Yes. Mister Celine? Yes. Mister Pike?

Yes.

Miss Riley? Yes. Mister Mosier?

Yes.

And mayor Eisenbeis? Yes. The motion passes. Seven zero on item c.

Item d, please. Move to approve ordinance twenty twenty six dash 10 on second and final reading, amending title 14, streets, sidewalks, public places of the Sika general code by adding chapter 14 dot 35 naming of public places.

Second.

That's been moved and seconded to approve ordinance 26 dash one zero. Is there any public comment? Assembly deliberation. John? Thanks, mayor.

I just wanna point out online one forty two of this the changes were the administrative changes were made as we discussed at the last meeting so it now says for public places administered by the parks and rec division instead of department those those minor changes were made just for your notification.

Thank you. Anything further? Sarah?

Alright. On the motion to approve ordinance twenty twenty six dash 10 on second and final reading. Miss Carlson? Yes. Miss Riley? Yes. Mister Celine? Yes. Mister Mosier? Yes. Mayor Eisenbeis?

Yes.

Mister Pike?

Yes.

And mister Christensen? Yes. The motion passes seven zero on item d.

That'll bring us to new business this evening, item e.

I move to approve ordinance twenty twenty six dash 11 on first reading, adopting budgets and capital improvement plan for the general fund, internal services fund, and special revenue funds for the fiscal year 07/01/2026 through 06/30/2027.

Second. It's been moved and seconded to approve ordinance 26 dash one one. John, would you please introduce this?

Thank you, mayor. I was just gonna read the entire budget letter, but it's about six pages long, so I'll save you all from that. But thank you, mayor and assembly. Before we dive into the budget, I just want to take a moment to recognize some folks. First, the Assembly, thank you. You've put in a lot of time and effort this year. I think the deliberations were very thorough throughout this four or five month long process. Questions were good. The decisions weren't easy in some cases. And I genuinely appreciate the care and thought you brought into this process.

I especially want to thank our Finance Director, Brooke. She was exceptional. She was sharp, always prepared, kept us all honest on the numbers from the earliest planning sessions right up through adoption, hopefully. Quality of this budget document is a direct reflection of her work, and I'm very grateful for that. On the budget itself, the FY twenty twenty seven consolidated operating budget is fully balanced, and that took some work from all of us.

We got there through some targeted adjustments. Just to summarize some of them, there was a revised health insurance assumption that was better than the information or the information came in better than we expected. A police sergeant position will be held vacant for this next year. And we kind of recalibrated the public infrastructure sinking fund and how some of those funds were being used. Our expenditure growth in this year's budget is driven almost entirely by the cost of just maintaining our existing services, and that's in wages benefits and in infrastructure.

So we are not adding new services this year. Sales tax remains our foundation, but we're watching the tourism season closely. And federal funding uncertainty continues to create planning challenges for all of us. Fuel costs costs for me are a particular concern this year, and those hit us on both sides of the ledger. So it raises our own operating costs while it also potentially dampens visitor activity and sales tax revenue that comes with it.

Our enterprise funds are managing significant capital needs across water, wastewater, electric, harbor and airport operations. So this budget doesn't resolve every long term pressure that we're facing, but it's responsible, clear eyed response to where we are right now. And tonight, we're taking action to hopefully approve both the operating budget and the capital improvement plan. And again, I'm just really proud of what this team has put together.

Thank you, John. Is there any public comment on ordinance 20 six-eleven? Assembly deliberation?

Tore? Yeah. Before we I don't know if anybody wants to really get into it, but I just wanted to amplify what John said about the staff. And especially Brie, this was her first time on her own going through this. And it was very well done and flowed well.

And I really can't say enough nice things about how the staff was responsive. As usual, the finance department is pessimistic on how much they think things are going to spend or pessimistic on both ends actually, which is appropriate. Confident in that at this time next year, when the final numbers come out, we'll probably have a bit of a surplus because that's the way as it should be. So I just wanted to nice things about the process and the staff, and that it makes our job a lot easier. And we were given plenty of information to be able to make our decisions.

And I can't express how much easier this has been the last few years than the way it used to be. So again, thank you guys. And hopefully, you'll get a little bit less late nights now. Katie? Yeah.

Big thanks to Brooke and the staff for putting this together. A lot of hard work went into it. And really appreciate presentations as well that you put together. Those made it very accessible, not only for us, but the rest of the community to understand what was going on and the things that we were having to balance and deliberate through. Thank you for all that hard work.

My question is in regards to the unexpected costs that we're facing due to mainly the Iran war essentially and increasing fuel costs that was started like later in our budget process. And so I am wondering if we are, you know, if there's any kind of educated guess about whether or not we're going to be facing increased requests for supplementals or we've got a great balanced budget now, but there were some things that were unanticipated at the time that we were making a lot of these decisions and putting those figures together. So any educated guesses about how that's going to impact us?

I don't know if it's going to be an educated guess. But I would just reiterate that we budget extremely conservatively. And I hate to say that we always have the midyear supplemental that we can depend upon. We're going to have a lot to learn, I think, in the first quarter. We still have some still want to see where we land at the end of the FY 'twenty six budget.

I think we're going to have a bit of a surplus there mainly due to some personnel vacancies. So we'll have a little more flexibility if we have to do a midyear supplemental. But I think over the next few months we'll learn more on how potentially increasing fuel costs are going to affect us and how they affect our capital projects. And then we'll have to regroup and see if we need to bring a supplemental adjustment forward.

Great. Thank you. And then is it common practice to report on sales tax income after Q2 and the end of Q3 and like whether or not that is as expected or lower than expected?

Yes. It will either be in the quarterly report, quarterly financial statements or I can bring

that forward. Okay. Fantastic. Thank you. Yes, I would just love to stay up to date to that so that we can be the most judicious possible going forward with those unexpected costs. But thanks to the whole team for all the hard work that you put in.

Kevin? Okay. Yeah. Same thing, just Thank you for your hard work. I was just going to encourage people in the public who are listening, I really would encourage you to read those first couple pages, John's kind of summary. I know he did that with the help of his team. I could clearly see that. Thank you so much. Much. I really appreciate that. It's very well written, and it kind of gives a whole picture kind of painting of where we are. And it's very educational, and it's a good read. Encourage people to do that, it's really helpful. Thank you. And again, thank you for all your hard work.

JJ?

Yes. Our budget here, just for us all for reference, is 153 pages. And that's effortful and takes a lot of appreciation from just the you know, me as the one of seven up here to see, you know, the six month process that we're a part of, and then all that time in advance of that, that staff goes through to get us this point to have, you know, about, you know, last year it was a thermostat, this year it was sand, and there's something to get us there at the end. Just thank you for for helping us along and guiding us through this process. The budget is a very important guiding document, but it's always alive so we'll see it change throughout the year and the code says or charter says we do this in conjunction with that capital improvement program that's the five year look ahead and it culminates into this one year budget so as we continue to balance how we document that five year kind of look ahead this is going to get to be even a stronger and stronger process in in planning for our for our future here in Sitka in alignment with our strategic plan that really focuses on, you know, doing this in a sustainable way through interest infrastructure and service, and we can get a couple more check marks off of this one pager here through that dedicated work of our staff.

So thank you. Thank you, Brook.

Jim? Thank you.

Yes, I mean, I think this is I mean, you talk about the number of pages, but entirely accessible information and very transparent and very clear. And I mean, I'll refresh my memory with we Brooke finished up an audit, right? Clean audit came through that and then we said, okay, let's do the budget. So I mean there hasn't really been a break since explaining what the last one was and then starting on the next one. So fantastic.

And kind of gauge it by conversations I have about the budget. So people as this process went along, we're able to ask questions about different bits and pieces of what we were talking about because they actually understood the budget and it was making sense. It was penetrating out to people in the community in terms of what their community was doing and why they were doing it. And so I think that speaks very highly of Brook and John's process and making sure that we all have very accessible and transparent look at it because it's we're explaining to the people what we're doing for them and how we're spending their money. So I think this has been fantastic and can't say enough good things about what I see this time, a very professional budget.

Katie? Yes. I just wanted to note that we have $260,000 budgeted for the utility subsidization fund. This was something that came up during our government to government meeting with the tribe that I think we're expecting some pretty hard winters for folks as we, just have these cost adjustments with fuel and inflation and the rest of that. So if that program experiences a large growth in funding, I would like to know about it early on and to figure out what we can do to address that because I think that's going to be one of the things that certainly the rest of Alaska is facing and I don't expect us to be immune for as well.

So please do keep us apprised of that.

Tore? Yeah. I just want to apologize, Brooke. At least they didn't call you what my like, I call my daughter the dog's name. So and I've definitely been known to do that. I run through all everybody in my family before I get it right. So I apologize I got your name wrong. I do it all the time. So it's not you're not alone. So sorry about that.

Anything further from the assembly? Sarah?

Alright. On the motion to approve ordinance twenty twenty six dash 11 on first reading. Mister Pike?

Yes.

Mister Moser?

Yes.

Mayor Eisenbeis?

Yes.

Mister Celine? Yes. Miss Carlson? Yes. Mister Christianson? Yes. Miss Riley? Yes. Motion passes seven zero on first reading on item e.

Thank you, item f.

I move to approve ordinance twenty twenty six dash one twelve on first reading, adopting the budget and capital improvement plan for enterprise funds for the fiscal year 07/01/2026 through 06/30/2027, amending rates in title 15, public utilities of the secret general code, and adopting mortgage rates than other harbor fees.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to approve ordinance 26 dash one two on first reading. Is there any pub or John, I'm sorry. You have an introduction for this as well?

Oh, it's the same introduction as the last one.

Okay. Next.

Is there any public comment on twenty six dash one two? Back to the assembly for deliberation. Katie?

I will just comment that I really appreciate the staff's willingness to well, and acceptance of taking in the assemblies comments about the electrical rate increases and punting those. I know that we are going to be not doing some projects that were desired as a result of that, but you know all the more important given the pressures that we're facing. Juneau is just announced that ALMP is facing a 20% rate increase. So just want to reiterate and that's over two years. How lucky we are here to have a municipally owned utility where we can balance those considerations and look out for current sick ins, future sick ins, but we do have to plan for those things as well.

So happy to see this this grateful for the work went into it and also just wanted to remind all of us how lucky we are to have the utility department under municipal control.

JJ?

With the enterprise funds, it's the rate payers that provide that base for it, and we as Assembly just help find that right number that keeps everything balanced. And that's through looking ahead at operations and those those capital projects that are coming down the line. So this, you know, ordinance tonight approves the budget and that capital improvement plan for that that next five years. You can look back in the past meetings to see that that full five year outlay. It's it's really we're doing the work to keep things in line for for what we see coming, and it's because we do that, we're not seeing like 20% increases so so thank you to the leadership here at the city that's really dedicated tirelessly to to the work of outlining what we have what we need and the gaps that are that are in between Thank you.

Anything further on this item? Sarah?

Alright. On the motion to approve ordinance twenty twenty six dash 12 on first reading, mister Mosier?

Yes.

Mister Pike?

Yes.

Miss Riley? Yes. Mister Christensen? Yes. Mister Celine? Yes. Mayor Eisenbeis?

Yes.

And miss Carlson? Yes. Motion passes seven zero. I'm frustrating.

Great. Thank you. As we are at the top of the hour, we'll take a recess. Assembly, please be seated when you're ready to continue. Our agenda this evening, that'll bring us to item g tonight.

I move to approve ordinance twenty twenty six dash 13 on first reading proposing to amend section 6.01 initiative and referendum of the home rule charter and submitting the question of such an amendment to the qualified voters at the regular election on 10/06/2026.

Sorry.

Sarah, I understand you have an introduction for this one for us.

I do. Thank you, mayor. So I have brought this item forward this evening, kind of to close a loop, on some questions that were raised by assembly members last year and then members of the public, with regards to the special election that we had last year and the mandatory requirement in our charter for such, and then associated election costs. So our charter currently states that when a citizen initiative petition is signed by at least one third of the total number of voters who voted in the last regular election, that a special election must be scheduled within forty to ninety days, after the filing of the petition. So the ordinance before you this evening would, it proposes an amendment to remove that mandatory requirement, and it replaces it with a discretionary provision that allows the assembly by ordinance to order a special election if it determines that it's in the best interest of the municipality.

Otherwise, the certified petition, it would go to the fall election. Or if there was another special election that was already scheduled, it would fall to that. And because this is an amendment to the charter, it does require it to go before a vote of the people. People. I also wanted to note that under Alaska statute, municipalities may decide whether to call a special election in similar situations.

And in talking with clerks, this is a very common practice and one that many use. They were actually surprised that we do have that provision in our charter for a mandatory special election. And then finally, the cost of the special election for the one last year was a little over $18,200.

Alright. Great. Thank you for that introduction. Is there any public comment on ordinance 26 dash one three? Back to the assembly for deliberation. Tor?

I mean, I I think this makes common sense. And I just the the one thing I would like to add is the $18,000 plus is not the only cost. The the our staff, especially the clerk's office, has plenty to do and adding this on top made it harder. And it's amazing that more things didn't get dropped because when you get overtaxed like that, things get dropped. Dropped.

And if we had a we were just lucky to have a staff, a clerk's office that could handle it, but I don't think we can count on that forever. And to me, this just makes sense. Go to the next election. If it's something worth a special election, it can I don't see why it can't wait till the next regular election?

Katie?

Yeah. I don't have particularly strong feelings about this, but I have heard some concerns that this gets rid of special elections, and I just wanted to reiterate that that is not true. What it does is gives the assembly, more ability to weigh in on whether or not a special election is warranted or whether it should go to, the regular election. So just wanted to say that, you know, citizen input, citizen initiatives, it's very important. I think we have great, citizen access to the government process here.

I want to maintain that, but I do appreciate, the ability to give the assembly a little bit more, discretion over when that is scheduled so that we can fit that in with everything else, that you do and everything else that we need to accomplish as elected representatives. So thank you for bringing this forward.

Kevin? Thank you, mister mayor. Yeah. I did what what was said. I believe this is probably a good thing, and thank you for bringing it forward. I want to reiterate what Katie said. It doesn't mean we can't have special elections. If someone can choose to have a special election and retains that ability. I see this, and after discussing with you further too as well, is that thirty to ninety day window to try to have a turnaround can be problematic, because not just the money, but because like I think around the time that that special accident was happening, there was a lot going on. You were understaffed.

There's a ton of public records requests these days. There was a lot going on. So logistically being able to do it was very, very difficult. And if we're ever in a situation where there's something dire or urgent that has to be done trying to have that meet that timeframe would be very difficult. So that just offers some flexibility.

Jim? Thank you.

Yes, I think is something that we have kind of probably needed for a while. Maintains citizen access to the process. I mean it allows, still allows for a special election as needed and I think it meets the needs of that process without overburdening and kind of making it more and more special elections would be a challenge. So I think the money is a little less important than the process and I think the process in this case in terms of an initiative I mean any assembly would see the importance of getting the answer to a question that was very important sooner rather than later. I think this is a good compromise on how to make this a better process.

For me, I see nothing in this ordinance that is preventative of it going to the voters. And really that's what we're being asked to do tonight is submit it to voters. So I will be voting in favor of this.

Sarah?

Alright. On the motion to approve ordinance twenty twenty six dash thirteen thirteen on first reading, mister Celine?

Yes.

Mayor Eisenbeis?

Yes.

Mister Christensen?

Yes.

Miss Carlson? Yes. Mister Pike?

Yes.

Miss Riley? Yes. And mister Moser?

Yes.

The motion passes seven zero first reading on item g.

Item H please.

I move to accept the child sick child care needs analysis report. Second.

As we move and seconded to accept the sick we're to

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the get a we'll get of company. A then And into if we're interested in moving forward as what we want to do as far as some of the options in the report and then how to fund it. I do want to make sure that we include this as a very public process. I am very cognizant of the fact, the things that Katie mentioned about the fuel prices increasing and that the extra cost that that will have on the community. So I'll get more into the discussion as I share my thoughts on it, but I want to be cognizant of that and make sure we involve the community and because this is going to be something that we would have to have community buy in to do.

And I believe this community is desirous of it. We just need to make sure we do it in an open and public way that the community is excited about. Thank you.

Anything else from either the co sponsors?

Yeah. I mean, this has been an interesting process. And Blue's report, I think, really laid out the issues really clearly that we were kind of floundering. We all knew it, but it laid it out in a way that's concise and allows us to look at it. We can't really start to tackle the problem until we know what the problem is.

And I think we have a better idea of it and what's going on now. And I know that others will wanna talk about various aspects of it. For me personally, you know, we started talking about this years ago when the Early Childhood Coalition came in and saying what they need. And I wrote down dollar signs in my notepad saying this is this is gonna cost money. There's just no way around that.

And I know other people have different aspects of it, I was like okay, if if we're gonna do this, how on earth would we come up with the money? Because we know that the budget doesn't begin to have any kind of movement for this. It's in the letter talking about some of the ideas of raising the money that would need to come. And of course, anything would have to come before the voters. I just wanted to say that we did talk about a lot of different possible funding sources, not just the ones that we put out.

And for various reasons, none of them worked. Things like taking the cap off the sales tax. Well, that it's extremely we don't know how much that would produce and probably not enough. Things about other more targeted taxes like bed taxes and head taxes on cruise ship passengers would probably be illegal. There was a lot of blue sky going on.

Either everything we thought of either didn't produce enough money was way too hard to administer or would, like I be illegal. I know Kevin was talking about, I think, we're probably heading towards a work session if we want to keep forward on this. And we'll be talking a lot of different aspects of it. But I'd say for me, was like, all right, how are we gonna pay for this if we're gonna do it? And one of the sales tax that are in there, going six percent year round or 7% in the summer, probably are the ones that would work.

It may not be what eventually we do, but they're the ones that would be the most stable funding and the most you'd able to have a pretty good idea of what you got coming. But regardless of what we do, in order to raise the amount of money to move the needle, we're gonna have to go to the voters. So I'll be very interested in hearing what everybody else has to say. And like I said, I don't think we're gonna solve it tonight and maybe we just start scheduling a work session because this is gonna but we do have a little bit of a clicking clock that we need to get if we're gonna put it on the ballot this year. How long do we have, Sarah?

An ordinance would need to be introduced by the second meeting in July.

So we have a little bit. Yeah. But anyway, I will say that it's it's been a pleasure with everybody that we've had. We had meetings with child care providers, obviously with Blue, with a lot of people with the tribe, getting input and suggestions. And there's a lot of interest in this.

And so, you know, I guess I hope that we have a good discussion tonight and a work session because I think it's up to us to at least put something before the voters to give people a choice. And then it's up, know, once we put it on the ballot, then it's it's on, you know, then it's it's up to the people to decide if they really want to try and tackle this.

Thank you for that introduction. As we go to public comment, I want to remind everyone that the motion on the floor is to accept the needs analysis report. Discussion direction on next steps will follow after. So is there any public comment on accepting the needs analysis report? Back to the assembly for deliberation. And, again, we will move on to the discussion direction after we've accepted this report. JJ?

I have questions for Blue if she is on the phone. Yep.

She is.

Okay. Hi, Blue. This is JJ. Yeah. There's too much background noise of cheers and celebration.

We can move on if anyone else wants to talk. Oh, okay.

Katie, please, while we're getting you.

I just have questions for her about the report.

Okay. We'll stand by. We'll go back to JJ when ready.

Please. I'm on now.

Hi, Blue. It's JJ.

Hi.

Great report. Thank you so much. I appreciate all of your decades of advocacy for children in Southeast. And you're just so well suited to help us out on this. So I appreciate application of your skills and talent.

Thank you. Yes, I am comparing this report for us and the Southeast Alaska 2030 economic plan from Southeast Conference there's a very great priority in there about objective number three increase child care capacity in Southeast Alaska so a nice regional approach that you've contributed to. And the funding model here is like a three part, onethree communities municipality, onethree corporations, and onethree state government. Is that what we're seeing, that kind of onethree contribution in this report that you've prepared specifically for us?

To some extent, yes, it can be looked at that way. The feds reauthorize the child care block grant every two years, and then that trickles into the state. And then the state can add to that. But what we're seeing, and that has been happening for decades, but what we're seeing is that's not quite enough to really make a difference at the community level, which is where the biggest pinch of a child care shortage is felt. And so, yeah, that's sort of like the tri share model is that communities have to invest in their own system while also taking advantage of what is out there from the state and feds.

Okay. Okay. Thank you. We heard in after your report in persons to be heard that our local chamber of conference com conference. Yeah. Commerce is gonna have a conference. A summit for early childhood funding. They received 15,000 from the Rasmussen Foundation. Is that an opportunity to kind of meld these? What can the feds help with? What can the states help the state help with local contributions and then local corporations? Is that are you participating in that, or do you know of this? And is that part of the plan?

Yes. I am going to participate in that, and I look forward to working with the Sitka chamber on all of that. And I think it's a great opportunity to be doing a deeper dive. I don't know when they plan to host it. They just recently all the grant awards were just recently announced. So I I don't know when it's gonna be hosted.

Great. So that's that's one of the things we've we've been seeing. We've been looking at childcare and Sitka for for several years, and there's always something new happening. So so when does, you know, the city step up, step in to do something because the balls keep changing. You know, the the landscape keeps keeps adapting. There's more kids. There's fewer kids, and that is is a kind of a blessing that we're we're being flexible or adapting to things, but then also it's it's hard for your slow government to really know where it can fit in. Is there anything else like that coming forward that you can help us understand as we start this discussion tonight?

Anything else in terms of child care policy?

Oh, yep. Or or new things that are gonna hit us before October when this may go to the voters that we should know about that could either join our groundswell or throw a curve ball since you're at a baseball game? Yeah.

I mean, the the curve ball is going to be the sort of fiscal cliff that child care programs are potentially going over now that all of the pandemic era relief dollars have been spent. I think Sitka and and largely helped by the Sitka tribes of Alaska. I think Sitka child care programs raised their pay with those funds and did some other quality measures that they're going to have a really hard time sustaining now that those are gone. So you're either going to see program closures or you're going to see rates go way up to stay open. The positive things could be so we got $7,500,000 added into the base state operating budget last year for child care.

And that increased that statewide per child subsidy program that I talked about. They just now implemented that rate increase even though they had the funds July 1. They just now implemented it, and they did a great thing where they are giving, larger amounts for infants and toddlers. So that that's a great recognition that that care costs more to provide. So, we're gonna see programs getting larger grants from the state.

It's hard to say what impact that's gonna make right now because it's still very new. And then this year, we got an additional $7,500,000 added into the budget on the house side, but the senate took it out. And so now it will go, to be debated about in the conference committee. That $7,500,000 was added with intent language for it to go directly to child care workforce. And so if it does somehow come out of the conference committee in the final version of the budget and also not get vetoed by the governor, that could be a big help in terms of providing child care businesses with a little bit of extra money to pay better wages.

Yeah. I think that if it does stay in, it will be used for retention retention awards. Awards. The people in the sector know these words as Roots Awards, which is a one time financial award to people working in the field. And so it will be great if it passes, and that's what they do with it.

But But I don't think it helps businesses with sustaining budgets and having revenue that they can count on and forecast and confidently just bring up wages knowing that they're gonna have this revenue every month. And that's really where a city funding mechanism is plays such an important role. It it's it's programs trust it. They rely on it. In Juneau, when when people think about opening a child care program and they do the quick back of the napkin math and they get to that deficit, and I say, oh, but wait. Add this grant money in, and then all of a sudden they're breaking even or even profitable. It changes things.

And that is the city being the the sole help or part of this TRI funding model that I've learned about in the

Yeah. It adds to what the state and feds have contributed. So it's in addition, yeah.

Okay. And that's what the pooled funding model means is kind of everyone working together in that?

Kind of. What I had envisioned with the pooled funding model is actually more like a pooled fund that would grow over time sort of like a permanent fund, a trust fund, that every municipality in Southeast Alaska would contribute to it at determined levels based on their population. And that would then be used, and it would grow over time, and it would pay dividends. And then the dividends on that would be used to pay out these grants. And so it would be sort of a grant program that's in every community in the region.

That was my vision. I think it would it's a big lift to get there. But when I was asked to write that, I was told to dream big by Milani. So I did.

Okay. Thank you. That that helps me understand that we're working on things kind of at two different levels here. You know, the SICCA sole approach and then maybe a regional strategy at the same time, but maybe separately. Okay. Thank thank you. I was trying to kind of merge those two ideas, and it it it needed some clarification. Can you tell me more about the Alaska Rural Health Transformation Program? That seems promising.

Yeah. So this is part of the one big beautiful bill all signed into law by congress, and Alaska's share of this, health care funding is $270,000 or $70,000,000 a year for five years. And the framers of the state plan for how those funds would be spent were very wise to weave in some child initiatives with the recognition that if we're going to grow our health care workforce capacity, child care needs to be robust and in good supply. And also that child care, maternal and child health overall contribute to the overall health of the state and communities. So my understanding is that the state has until October to obligate $270,000,000 through a variety of initiatives that it chooses.

It so far, it put out a letter of interest process where you could submit a project idea, and you'd kinda give a budget range, but you didn't ask for a specific amount. And the so they accepted all the LOIs. They closed that opportunity, and now they're pouring through those. And when they decide they want to fund one of the ideas, they will invite the interested parties to submit a full grant application with a more detailed budget. I did, on behalf of of my agency, I did submit several letters of interest, and one of them is really to get that pooled pooled funding model started.

Excellent. Mhmm.

So that's promising. Although, I have heard that they got more in requests than they can fulfill, though I I find that comment to be strange because the the projects really just proposed a range of funding, not anything exact. So

Mhmm.

Unfortunately, we haven't had any feedback for the past six weeks since those were submitted. We have no idea when we'll know. So we're all just kind of waiting.

Yeah. Yeah. 'Tis the process. Apologies from being a part of a government that does that to people to some degree as well. So you're understood here. Thank you. I appreciate your interest in my questions and your diligence in responding to them.

We'll go Katie and then Scotty.

Yeah. Hi, Blue. Thanks so much for the report. I found it to be very helpful to put some figures to what we're talking about as well as the ideas. My questions were primarily around Juno's program and also workforce development.

In my conversations with community members, not just the contributions towards supporting people who have education, but I know that the Sika tribe of Alaska has also supported workforce development efforts to create a pipeline of folks who are able to go into the child care field. And I kind of I didn't see reference to those efforts like the curriculum that has been created. The I believe there's like a dual enrollment at UAS class, you know, how how we're getting the next generation into childcare jobs and training and certifications. Do you have any comment on that or what that might cost, especially considering that the tribe might not won't be able to make the contributions that they have previously? I believe they bought a bunch of textbooks.

Any any thoughts on that? Was that something that you heard from the folks that you did community outreach with as well?

Yes. I did. I heard that from providers especially they want more opportunities for professional development and especially paid professional development I mean it's not uncommon in the child care sector to expect people to get training on their own time and on their own dime. And so we our agency, one, has a child care apprenticeship program that we do operate in Sitka. We just had somebody graduate from it in Sitka.

She works at Sheldon Jackson. She just graduated this fall and walked. And so we have that going on. And then I would just say, generally, the work that's being done with CTE and dual enrollment between the high school university is all super fabulous. But where we really need to ramp up that work is by making child care work pay a living wage.

And and until that part is addressed, you're just not gonna see too much interest in the field or investment in the professional development. And and we heard this from the CTE teacher a few years ago when there was a symposium in Sitka really looking at how to get those that younger generation into it. We heard them say it's really hard to encourage a young student to go into a field that that the compensation is so poor in. And so that in my mind, the the local funding piece starts there, which is addressing the the low compensation.

Thank you. Did you get any idea of costs associated with supporting CTE efforts?

I did not. I don't know a lot about that side of it. And there is a lot of work done in the statewide level on this. There is funding from the child care program office that goes directly to the university system that pays for tuition and books for people who take at I mean, for at least one early childhood class a year, maybe two if they have funding, there's some of that. And then our child care apprenticeship program is free for people to enroll in, and they actually get paid while they're, taking classes. They get paid for their homework. There's coaching and mentoring built into that as well and that's free for participants.

And that's in Juneau?

Mean our office is in Juneau but we work with students throughout the region. This year, we had two in Juneau, one in Sitka, one in Yakutat.

Oh, okay. Great. Mhmm. Yeah. That would be fantastic.

I don't know if something that can come out of the summit that the chamber of commerce is doing is like an appendix or something on the CTE efforts and and ideas like that. Like, one of the things that I found most helpful about your report was those specific incentives and funding ideas and so that workforce development is a particular focus that I'm interested in as well and would love to have that information collated if possible. Yeah. My other question was around so you're based in Juneau. And does Juneau contribute like, how do they fund child care, and how is that going to be impacted by the budget cuts that are happening?

Great question. Right now, we receive an assembly grant. My agency receives an assembly grant around $1,500,000 And it's funded largely from the general fund through tax revenue. Portion of it is from a temporary 1% sales tax that gets renewed by voters ideally every five years. And that money is typically dedicated toward community improvement projects.

And we believe that child care is a community improvement project. So it's sort of a blend of funds. And just looking at the proposed cuts this year, child care was not on the list anywhere of the 40 items being proposed to be evaluated. In fact, we're looking at, hopefully getting an increase to include more support for school aged care. That ordinance will be voted on on next Monday. So think Juneau has seen the value of these funds and what it has done for the child care sector and the community. And I just don't see them cutting it.

Thanks. That's very helpful information. Appreciate it.

Scott, you had a question for Blue?

Well, what I was hoping to learn this is Scottie Celine, Blue. I was hoping to learn from this is, you know, you've you've mentioned workforce, and they're up to $20 an hour or whatnot. But when when you have the insurance and you've had the education, then you're the the person that runs the child care, like and if there's no money to go down to the workers, you know, what are those costs? And what is the education you have to have? And what did you pay for that education to run a child care?

And, you know, and then if your workforce is just people that are working there and they they get incremental child care education, but where do those costs come from? Does the money go when you are paying for insurance to have so many kids? Or does it go down to each kid? A set cost where it's the same for insurance in Juneau, the same in Sitka. And then, you know, what's left, you try to pay the people who are actually taking care of the kids.

Am I making any sense to you of what I'm not learning about, you know, the cost of childcare. I can understand that there's no money for the people that are changing diapers or whatever and taking kids for the walk. But who's paying for the insurance with the education that they have? And then where does the money go? And is it the same in every town to have coverage, to have somebody else's kids under your care during the day?

I'm not exactly sure what you're asking. Childcare businesses are required to have liability insurance, so that's part of the operational costs. And when we look at the cost of care and sort of the gap in what it costs a business to provide care and what it what parents can afford to pay for it. All of those operational costs are factored in. And you're right that right now, most well, many childcare workers, especially entry level when you're hiring new people because there's a lot of turnover.

They don't have a lot of formal education in the field because it we don't pay it doesn't pay a wage that garners that kind of credentialed teacher. So so insurance, overhead, you know, personnel usually makes up about 85 to 90% of operational costs. Those are all a big part of puzzle. And I don't know if I addressed your question or not.

Well, kinda, it's getting me on the right track that, you know, if 85 to 90% of the whole costs are going to the people doing it, you know, then I'm on the wrong track when I read about it, and I try to learn that the the the bar of education that you have to have in order to run a daycare, and then to get that money back by what you're charging people and then not being able to pay the people that are actually doing the work. That's what I'm trying to figure out because nothing's changed in this from twenty two years ago when we did two years of collaboration here in town. Not one thing has changed. It's the same thing you said now as was before. You know?

And, I'm just you know, all the subsidy talk, it's just something basic is wrong, and I'm just trying to get a grip on it. My kids all got to go to Mount Edgecombe. I, you know, I just I don't I don't know. I'm trying to get there, and I I'm not seeing the whole picture. And I thought I was gonna get more information from this report, and I'm still clueless.

Okay. I'm yeah. I I understand. It is it's a very complex issue. It really is because what we're talking about is public sub subsidy of a private business.

But I guess the the big picture, the story behind it is that it is a private business that has failed to succeed in a free market economy, and that has been true for actually, like, four or five decades. And it's because you cannot act like other businesses where you charge what you need to charge to recoup your costs. If you're if you open a business, you can say, I'm providing this service or this good, and this is how much I need to charge for it so that I can pay myself a living wage and and all of my overhead costs. You can't do that in childcare because that number would be far more than what most families could pay. And it's already twice what the feds, like, the treasury recommends.

They recommend that childcare costs no more than 7% of a family's household income. Well, in Southeast Alaska, it's more like 2025%. And so that's where it just it it is it doesn't make sense to a lot of people, to be honest with you. It takes people a really long time to to wrap their brain around it because it's kind of a conundrum. But in my mind, that's what it really comes down to is it's it's it's in market failure.

Thank you. Kevin,

question for Blue? No, was just logistically I was wondering if maybe we could it's just awkward making a motion to accept, maybe we could vote and then then we'd be free to add more thoughts that necessarily aren't on the report that makes sense

it does but we do have a motion on the floor right now Blue, do have one question for you. Just because I'm familiar with this style of program as my kid is involved in it, and I didn't see it specifically called out in the report. So as I as I look at it and try and make sense of it, so did you look at a school based system? In Sitka, we call that program Ventures. And does that raise the overall cost of childcare or lower it? I'm wondering that because of potential economies of scale and potential reduced operating costs of such a system.

I think it depends on how that program is structured. For example, if Venters is using state certified teachers and they're being paid a wage that is much higher than your average child care center employee, like in a private program, then the costs might end up kind of evening out. Yes. They don't have the overhead costs of a facility, but they have higher personnel costs, especially if you factor in benefits as compensation. And in in Juneau, those programs, along with, like, Head Start and any other program that already is subsidized to a large extent of its budget, they are excluded from participating in this grant program, under our MOA.

And so details like that, I think, do need to be looked at, like, sort of a deeper dive. And if you all decide to fund one of these options, those little details would need to be worked out.

And did did that particular style of program make it into this report?

Well, the numbers of children that attend ventures, they're they're counted. I don't think I dove into the economic model of the subsidized nature of it. No.

Okay. Thank you. Katie, you had one more question for Blue.

Yeah. Just kind of maybe ripping off Scotty here. On page nine, you have the Alaska true cost of child care tool that kind of lays out this is the cost per child and then this is where the money goes for personnel, wages, benefits, occupancy, insurance, food, etcetera. You said that this problem, this market failure has been happening for four to five decades, but this shows operating at a loss of like $816,000, if I'm reading this table correctly. How have centers been able to stay open for that long if that is the kind of revenue gap they're facing?

Yeah. Great question. So that commissioned by the state of Alaska, comes with this tool, which is a spreadsheet where you can toggle for different conditions. And so the figure that you're referencing on page nine assumes a living wage in Sitka. And so we know that that's not actually what sick and child care providers are being paid. So this is an example of what a deficit a program would have if they were to pay living wages. They're not.

Yeah, that makes Do you it doesn't have the detail of like what the living wage is or the differential that we know exists. Do you know what assumption is being made there for the living wage?

I thought I pointed to it. Used the MIT calculator for a living wage standard, I feel like it was around $25 an hour or a little bit less.

Okay.

I do think it might be in here somewhere.

Page eight, middle paragraph 25 confirmed.

Okay. Thank you. Yeah. And again, that's a non city specific data point that I had to use because I had worked extensively with the Department of Labor to try to narrow that down more specifically, and they really didn't have that data. And so it was the Department of Labor that suggested that I use this MIT living wage calculator.

Okay, thanks. Yeah, I think that those two pages are helpful to understand the gaps there. So thanks for that. Yep.

JJ? One more question. Hi, Blue. Hi. I heard in your presentation, but didn't really see it in the report much, but I also have in front of me the report that came in January 2025 from our Health Needs and Human Services Commission that talked about utilities. You mentioned that in your an introduction. Is that, you think, a viable avenue for I mean, it's not gonna, you know, get the 1,000,000, $2,000,000 in in subsidies needed, but is is that, you think, a successful strategy to look at if we're trying to find some long term solutions here?

Yeah. And that was mentioned in option one, you know, sort of like the but I I wasn't able because I don't know those costs. I really wasn't able to pencil it out, like, what that would look like for programs or what it would cost the city. City. But in general, anytime you're reducing operational costs for providers, you're freeing or for business owners, you're freeing up money that they can use for better wages.

And it has been my experience in working with child care providers in the entire region. Every child care provider, every child care business owner you talk to or man program manager, that's the number one thing they want. They want to pay better wages. They deeply care about the the health and welfare of their employees, and they want them to be compensated better. So anytime there is operating revenue freed up, that's where it's going to be directed.

Yes. And I think with our communications with the school district too during a budget cycle, We see that in in the higher levels of education as compared to early childhood. You.

Blue, thank you for your time this evening. I wanted to make sure we got some robust questions out of the way as our conversation develops this evening. So I do appreciate you taking the time to jump on the phone with us as we develop the next as we accept your report and then develop the next steps.

Great. It was my pleasure, and I'm happy to come to future work sessions or be available on Zoom for, other questions anytime. We did our agency did get a Rasmussen grant also to do this work in Southeast communities. And so please just look to us as a resource anytime you feel like you need more information or want to chat.

Thank you. We'll continue to utilize you and your agency as a resource.

Great.

Alright. Anything assembly on accepting the child care needs analysis report? Sarah?

Alright. Mayor Eisenbeis?

Yes.

Mister Christianson? Celine?

Yes.

Miss Carlson? Yes. Mister Pike?

Yes.

The motion passes seven zero.

Alright. And then sure. There's a kind of a two step process tonight on this, so we can continue our discussion direction, after a recess. Alright. The second step of our process tonight, a discussion direction decision on some next steps. Tim, do want to start this one? Sure.

You know, I think I don't think there's any question that there's an issue with childcare in our community and actually across the country, to be honest with you. It comes into a couple of different areas. And so when I approached this process, I kind of skeptical about what the city's responsibilities or role was in this to be honest with you because like JJ talked about, there's this optimistic three legged stool, right? So there's industry, the people who are actually benefiting from the childcare so that people can come to work for them. There's the federal and state government and then there's the local responsibility.

And I say it's an optimistic three legged stool because I was imagining that the city would become a facilitator of this process a little bit and would pull together the major employers or all the employers in the community and say, okay, what can you do here? Like how can you help this process along so that we can make sure this works because you're the main beneficiary of this, right? You're the people who are benefiting from this. But that's really complicated and it's gonna take a long time and it's going to take a lot of staff and it's going to cost the city to do that anyway. And I think that's the same problem that everybody else has run into too when they look at this thing.

So the industries are struggling to make be profitable in some cases and they're not interested in participating necessarily directly. And the state and feds as we now know, especially in our state in this current environment are becoming a very weak leg to that stool. And so like many other things, the remain responsibility has ended up here, right? Like we've how many different issues have we looked at from this table where we've picked up the responsibility because the state or the feds have dropped it. And so that was where I started.

I started with a process where know there's a big problem, but the real question is who's responsible and who's gonna be funding this thing. And so as we start looking around and talking with the different groups about this thing, the model that Juno puts forward about the city accepting responsibility and funding it is one that works. And I think that's the main point that Blue was getting at and that's the main thing that we're going to end up discussing here. We need to decide as a group what level of service we want to provide our community in terms of those different options that you laid out. To be clear, those are some options.

There are other ways of looking at that. But I think we're gonna have to figure out a sustainable way to fund this going forward because whether we like it or not, we are the one legged stool that's gonna make this process work because I don't think that we can count on the feds and the state to come through. Yeah, dollars 50 a kid a month sounds like a really good thing until you realize that how much does it cost to send your kid for one month? 12 to $1,300.50 dollars is great, but it's not super it's not going to work necessarily. So I think that's where it started.

And I think that's what we're here to that's what this conversation I hope will come to is what do we want to do. I don't know that we're going to come to that realization tonight because I think there's a lot of new information that everybody got and I hope we'll be able to process a little bit. But we need to recognize our responsibility on this issue and decide how we wanna do it. And that's where that whole funding thing comes into play, right? Like once we decide kind of what we want to do, that gives us a sense of what we need to find in terms of revenue and that gives us options that we can look at in terms of how do we do that.

I think Tore spoke already a little bit about the general fund. While Juno has that opportunity to do that, information trickling out of Juno indicates they may or may not be able to continue that level of funding over there, right. They were handed a pretty dire set of circumstances by their voters. Their general fund is in free fall. They're gonna have to make some hard decisions over there.

I wanna see us go down a different path where we make sure that we have a sustainable process and I also want to ask the community what they want to do. I want us as we go through this process to discover what we want to do, I want us to ask enough questions that we understand where the community wants to go but in the end I want them to vote, I want them to pick something, I want them to say this is important to us as a community and if they say no, that gives us an answer that we're going to then have to work with after that. But I don't actually think Sitka is going to do especially if everybody does their background for everyone and helps them understand where we're at as well as where it's going to go and how it's going to play out. So I think our goal here is to figure out what services we want to offer and then we can work on what that sustainable funding source is. I am not going to suggest that the general fund is that because we all sat here, we have to make hard decisions about the general fund, we cut the sand, you know.

So these are it doesn't sound like much, hey let's cut that by 10%, right. Sounds like a little bit of a thing, but it's a big deal down the road. So that's where I'm at. That's what I want to see us do. I'm one of the cosponsor for this for a reason. I think it's a very important issue. I think it probably trumps housing to a certain extent in terms of that. I'm disappointed that we're not going to have the resources and time to help the main beneficiaries in that being the businesses to be able to come up with where they fit into this process. Maybe over time they can start to help with that. But again, we are the one legged stool that's going to make this work.

So like you're saying with Juno eliminating the food tax and getting $10,000,000 out of the general fund, this program that they developed is going away? No, not yet.

Going away, but I think it's going to be under stress for sure.

Kevin? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Well said, Tim. So yeah, I agree 100%. There's a couple things going on. There's the what we wanna do. And then, of course, future discussion will be how we wanna fund it. And from my perspective, since we've started all this, in my mind, this is what I would like to see. Just my personal opinion is, say we decide something.

Say we decide something around the version of, say, verse something around version two, which is, like, 1,400,000 or something like that. Then I do not envision the city running a program. I see I envision us deciding on something that we wanna do, then figuring out a funding mechanism that voters would have to choose, and then we would collect that revenue for, say, a year or what have you, and then we would outsource that the services or the administration of that to an outside entity. A Blues organization could be one that could apply. We'd have to do an RFP for that or another organization could apply.

But this way, the city would not I just wanna clarify. It's not my personal desire to have the city running this. It is to somehow get the funds, you know, approved by the voters and then have an outside entity administer that. And the purpose would be to shore up the childcare industry. I mentioned before concerns about the expensive living since we initiated or sanctioned this study.

We did not know a war was going to start and oil prices would increase. There's we haven't even fully realized the foundation have for And company. Strong and will save us money in a certain way in the end. That needs to be shared and explained. That being said, I want to make sure in my mind, I was pushing that we were going to do and we've talked to several people in public and in private.

Was pushing in I my mind. I think we all were thinking the 1% additional sales tax in the winter. But and then trying to get that on the October ballot. But since thinking about it, I I think that I wanna do this right. I don't wanna rush it. And I'm not saying I wanna put it off. I'm saying, like Tor suggested, a work session. We could could talk tonight about what we wanna do, and then we might need another works a work session to discuss that even more. And at some point, we need to talk about the funding mechanisms. And so my point is, I think we're probably inevitably going to need a work session.

And we're going to outreach the community that could be something along the lines of the chamber, what the chamber's got going on. But also another idea would be, I'm just throwing out an idea. Say we come up with a list of funding mechanisms, this is going a little farther, we could put out survey that is done in a way that reaches a large share of the community, get their ideas. And my point is, if we don't because I'm looking at the timeline. What I'm trying to say is, I I don't wanna rush this to just get on the October ballot because we want to do that.

I want to make sure the public, is heard and we hear them loud and clear because if we're doing this, we got to do it right and we got to make sure the public has buy in and they're on on board. We can do a special election if necessary, as we discussed tonight. So, that all being said, you know, kinda dovetailing off of what Tim said as far as tonight's discussion. I believe this is absolutely crucial. I believe the community needs it and does desire it.

And it like I said, I do believe it will help us with the cost of living in the long run. But my idea or my thoughts on how to address it would be something in the line of version or idea number two or a mix thereof, around basically around $1,000,000, give or take. That's my thought on what we should do. And like I said, to clarify, I don't want the city to run it. I want us to choose something like that where we're supporting the childcare industry.

We figure out a funding mechanism. We raise the funds, and then we outsource that to an outside entity. I just want to make sure that's clear. I don't want the city running this. We raise the money, and then we outsource it. That's my personal thoughts on it for now.

Tor? Yeah. I, in a lot of ways, very similar to what Kevin is saying, although I'm not sure I mean, to be upfront, when I say option two much better articulated than we were initially thinking is what we were is I think is also probably the most workable and doable that will actually move the needle. Because when I got into this, I mean, it's will it move the needle? I'm not interested in doing anything that's nibbling around the edges that doesn't actually help.

And so I do think we need to talk about which option we want and the funding source at the same time because they go hand in hand. And they can't really be separated because if we, by figuring out the funding source, that to a certain extent dictates which of these models or hybrids of it we would pick. I mean, so I think, like I said, a work session is also a good idea. Although I'm not, I think we should be talking about what funding source and what model at the same time. Because they can't be separated.

A couple of thoughts about the timeline. I think that that cliff Lou was talking about is very real. And that if we spend too much time, we might not have as many child care providers to keep running at that point. And it's a lot harder to start something up than it is to keep something running. The other thing to think about with this is that this is a long term issue.

And I know we've got some stresses right now but they're outside of this issue. But this issue is not going to go away. Need to whatever And we do will be affecting things for a very long time, and the situations may improve worse than whatever. And and thinking in terms of what's the economic situation this second is might not be a good idea because it's going to be a long term thing. One of the things I'm a little afraid of is the, well, what about?

Well, what if we did this, we could get money? Well, what if we could do that? And we never do anything. I know that we brought up RHDP earlier. My company, first of all, it's a short term program.

From what I was told, that about $2,000,000,000 have been asked for in the first round for $270,000,000 And that's only supposed to be a startup thing. And we're too late for it this year anyway, way too late. So if we get up and running, and we say we need money to ramp it up, then we would have a very good chance next year. But I don't think we'd have a very good chance to say we want to do this and subsidize health care because one of the first things they say is they want sustainability. This is supposed to be the seed money to get something rolling.

And it's honestly a very small amount of money compared to how much they took out of the health care system. So while we might be able to access some of this for, again, for the ramp up process, I don't think at least when I went through working with our HTP, they were not interested in having something go for a few years and then die as soon as the funding stops. So I fully support a work session. For the people who are actually doing this job and providing care and figuring this out, it's very complex. Honestly, for us, it's not.

Because we need to come up, if we wanna move the needle, we've gotta come up, at least when I read this, in the neighborhood of a million dollars a year. And then how we do that, there's not a whole lot of options for that either. Know, Kevin's So, right, we need to do a lot of outreach and things, but we've also got a group of people, some of them sitting here, who will help us with that outreach. And they're gonna be way better at it than we are. And if, you know, we need I think we need to get something before the voters.

And, you know, we've been for as long as I've been on the assembly, this has been has come before us. And this is the first time we've had to say, Okay, now this is what we came up with. Now it's time to put up or shut up a little bit. It's, you know and I think it's good that, you know, we all recognize it. I mean, my kids are out of day care, and it was a huge lift to get them through that. But I don't want to say, well, mine are done. I don't wanna I don't that's not my problem anymore. And I don't think the most is sick to Willie.

So, Thor, you're you're thinking about a million dollars and then for the 485 kids, then like $2,000 per kid? Or where is that going to the workforce?

Yeah. That's the direct operating grants to the childcare facilities, option two report. And it may be slightly tweaked with a little bit, but roughly option two. If we came up with a way to raise more money and we wanted to go with option three, I wouldn't fight that. But looking at this, option two is roughly right around $1,000,000 And the thing about it is that it would depend on how much it raises.

Because if we said that that whatever mechanism we raise the money for however much it raises this is vastly oversimplifying. But we basically say okay how many kids do we have and divide it? But it's going to have to be constrained by however much money, whatever funding source we come up with. So it's not going say it's gonna be $400 or $600 It's gonna depend on how much we raise.

From the comments tonight, I'm gathering that another meeting will have to happen on this one. I don't want the assembly to not talk about their thoughts right now, but I also want to like, if we expend all of our ideas now, are we not bringing that synergy back into this next meeting? So being cognizant of that too when we when we move on here. JJ?

Yes. Just a little overview for those who are listening or, you know, for the record. The revenue sources that are being considered are 2% alcohol tax that's estimated to earn about $500,000 every year, or a 1% seasonal sales tax for the winter months October through March and that's estimated at potentially a million dollars every year, or additional summer season 1% tax which could earn double that about 2,000,000 a year. So those are the the three kind of revenue sources that sponsors brought forward just to help with discussion. And the other side is those operating models or those options are being considered.

The operating grant that's been kind of supported by the sponsor so far is to look at, doing $250 per child per month, which would equate to about that that million dollars. If we are able to also add some some capacity to our existing system. Or the million dollars could also be, you know, with the numbers we have right now, $400 per child per month subsidy. So that's just a frame for anyone listening, for anyone that, you know, doesn't wanna look through papers in the future when you come back to this meeting and listen to this recording. I think it's helpful to kinda mark moments in time and give a little bit of that backstory for for accuracy.

Katie?

Yeah. Thanks for the discussion tonight. I agree with you that an additional discussions are needed, another session. But just one thought on something that we could do tonight and then some thoughts about what has been discussed. I appreciated that Blue flagged the budget discussions that are happening right now at the state level and the budget is going to conference committee and I'm wondering if the body would be willing to consider asking the administrator to write a letter saying that we support this $7,500,000 that was in the House budget making it to the final budget.

That is not insignificant, obviously not going to solve all our problems, but I do think that kind of anything can help here and that is something coming out of the state level that we could consider advocating for. In terms of what we bring to the voters and whatnot funding mechanisms, I won't you know go ad nauseam or anything but I do think it matters what is on the ballot and I don't think that it should be taken as an indication that the community doesn't support funding this initiative if they don't pass what we put on there. What we put on there very much matters and I am extremely uncomfortable with putting on a winter sales tax increase because I think that that is a burden that the working families of this community right now simply cannot afford. And that doesn't mean that they're not thinking long term. That doesn't mean that we don't know the importance of this.

That means that right now, cost pressures are insane and people do need to look out for their short term, costs in addition to thinking about that long term picture. So I wouldn't want a no vote on that to be an indication that this isn't a priority for our community. And I think that a survey or something looking at some of those different options before we put that to a vote would be really helpful, right, to get some more feedback. We certainly got some feedback and emails about funding ideas and you know from what I've heard in the community that one is is really hard to swallow right now and also in general. So I do wanna explore those a little more.

I would like for that to be a part of the conversation that happens at the Chamber of Commerce convenings and look forward to hearing what comes out of those. But maybe it's best if we come up with a set of, short, mid, and long term fixes, you know, like short some advocacy on the state budget, mid, what can we figure out to do ahead of the October ballot or a special election. And then long term is like, know, is there a way that we could measure the success of whatever we do and scale it. I thought it was very illuminating that Blue said that Juno is considering cutting 40 items from their budget including like a series of you know well beloved recreation facilities, closing pools, closing Eagle Crest, things like that. And the child care funding is not on that list And that to me indicates that the community is like, this is like one of the most important things that we can do because they are, you know, considering making some really drastic cuts to things that the community really cares about.

So those are just a couple of my thoughts. But yes, in terms of how we get to what we want to do and how we fund it, I think some real thought needs to go into how we structure that conversation.

Tim? Yeah, I just want

to throw a different word in for what we're talking about when we talk about the budget, right? I mean, I've heard the word cost a lot. I actually think the right word is investment. We're investing in our children as a community and I think it's important for us to keep that in front of us as we look at this funding process. It's not a cost, it's an investment.

It will pay dividends for us down the road and it helps our community go forward. I just want to make sure we keep an eye on where we're headed with it and as the conversation with the community comes around, that's also the point. The point is we as a group are deciding to do this. So I understand about the winter sales tax thing. I agree with Tor and you, like this is a long term thing so we can't look at the short term and say it's not gonna work but on the other hand it has to get over the line and so we have to figure out how we're gonna do that. But as an investment that's a whole different thing. And our community has come forward for investments for the schools and droves. I think the last one was north of 80% support.

JJ and then Kevin.

So I'm thinking a bit about who pays sales tax in Sitka and there's an exemption for seniors that's 65 and older contributing to this. So you're, in essence, getting those funds from working families. We'll just lump that a as a word there, or or people of childbearing age. And so you're kind of taking $2 from their left pocket and then giving it back to them, and the subsidy is $2 into their right pocket. Like, that's we need to be finding a different base, especially if we're looking at that winter sales tax.

So that is the people we're trying to help, but we're taking money from them to help them over on this side. And I think additional options for for revenue sources was is a good thing to think about over the next month before we convene in in that work session. I think for the schedule of things needs to happen next month to be able to have something ordinance wise by by July to get it on the ballot for for October. So that's what I'm gonna be spending the next couple of weeks on.

Like thinking about Petersburg senior show cause for sales tax. Petersburg, you got to show that you're broke in order to get the

Hey. Look at you. Strategizing already. Scottie.

Kevin? I'm

just trying to think of logistics of how we do this. Yeah, I would be interested to know I've always thought the additional 1% in the winter would be simplest because then it would create a net de facto year round tax rate of 6%. I understand what you're saying though, JJ, about the senior exemption.

But

there's so definitely, we should be looking at all options. And I encourage everyone to be thinking about that for when we do meet what I would hope would be in about a month. I think we should meet in about a month. We'll have another discussion, perhaps a work session, a little less formal. I'll probably be attending the chamber of things.

I want to find out more about that and find out what kind of time frame because I know they've got a grant, but I don't know exactly what kind of convening time that would be. Mr. Mayor, can I ask, I think Ms? Segal has that information and I didn't quite write it down. Do you think I can ask her?

She's willing to come up and speak, yes. We can ask questions of anyone in attendance.

Originally wrote the grant, there was going to be a convening in August. But Rachel expressed the ability to pull that closer to this time, possibly in July, possibly even in June. She had had it timed for national and state chamber conversations regarding the same topic, but thinks that it could be pulled sooner. So I would say it's a bit flexible.

There is something they're going to be like really soon, we're going to be talking about that? When and where

is that?

On Mondays, the early childhood coalition is going to agree to help with the planning of it, and we typically meet on Mondays. Oh, okay. Monday's at 01:00. And we may be meeting this next Monday, we'll be beginning the planning of that summit. Then we may meet weekly or every other week regarding planning the summit.

Okay. Thank you. And then if I could just finish my thoughts. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yeah, my point is, I've been fixated on the 1%, and I'm not married to the idea. I'm open to suggestions. In my mind, that's the one that's the most solid for generating real revenue. But I would be curious and to we've

And we've

there's no harm in doing that. So I'd be okay with that.

John, a resolution or a note from yourself, signed by yourself, would be pretty easy to craft to the legislature.

I'll do some research into the exact topic, and I can put something together.

Accurate would be important as well. Thank you. Katie?

Yeah. I do just want to say that JJ and I have been investigating the sales tax cap as mechanism, just a revenue generation mechanism. And I know that it comes with trade offs in terms of reliable generation of funding. It fluctuates more than sales discussions with the finance department, it was very much not an insignificant amount of revenue that was estimated to be generated by either the removal or adjustment of that sales tax cap. I think there are a number of considerations that the assembly needs to make for that for construction and boat building.

Those are two things that generate large purchases that would be heavily impacted by the removal of the cap entirely. But if we were to raise that to say $20,000 $25,000 that is an additional 1,200 or 1,500 if you exceed a purchase like that that would be generated. And it adds up I mean for cruise ships alone for the month of May that's an extra $50,000 So it's something I think that we should explore and I believe that Brook can help us do that. Again not as reliable or predictable as the other funding sources. But if we put in some sort of fund that is allowed to accumulate over time that can also manage some of the balance between years where that might increase substantially and years where it might not increase as much if there is like significant construction projects or purchases and whatnot.

So I just do want to throw that out there as not an option to be dismissed out of hand that could require some more information.

Do you mind if I follow-up with a question? Did you ever get a ballpark number? Or is that something that we're going to need Brooke to get? Know the

question on the elimination of the cap completely?

Well, yeah, I understand doing that is a complex issue because you do have to make exemptions and things like that. And that can have unintended consequences which have to be thought out properly. But I just didn't know if you had a vague ballpark.

Elimination of the cap ballpark is about 2,100,000 to $2,200,000

That's eliminating it entirely.

Eliminating it entirely. And we don't know if that would we don't want to have negative add on effects to other industries and things like that. So that would obviously have to be looked at in research.

That's the main reason why nobody's bringing their boat here to Sitka to do any work because of that cap. And, you know, the main thing to me of talking about that cap is a guy that pays for all his charters like a corporate thing on one sales. He doesn't he doesn't pay tax on everybody that so, like, if you have $50 worth of charters, you're only paying tax on up to 15,000 or something

like that.

But thousand. Because I've been here since it was, you know, way nothing, but that's my hackles are up talking about it. But then the one that's not being captured is that somebody that pays for an entire charter party and then missing that whole thing. But having the sales or that cap on boats at twelve or 15 or going to 20, that's the number reason why this shipyard has issues.

Katie?

A slight correction. We did talk to Highmark. No one has done $12,000 worth of work yet at a time.

And they're not gonna.

Well, I I'm like people haven't reached the sales tax cap yet. So like the transactions that they've been doing. But I think before we get into the the nitty gritty of that, like what would be most helpful is getting presentation from Brooke on how that cap works, how it's charged. Sorry. But now you're done with the budget, so you get to teach us about other stuff.

It's it's pretty complex for like, you know, day of service or goods. We had a nice briefing on it and I'm still missing some of the details. So I think an education component on that would be extremely helpful. But yeah you know we've been doing outreach talking to people and there's there's been some surprises and some places I think we thought thought it would be an issue that it's not. So we can't know the full picture, but certainly understanding how it should function and how it should be reported is a good first step in being able to make any kind of estimates like that.

Tore? That was definitely one of the things we looked at. And I know I talked to Brooke about it. I couldn't get any numbers. So that's part of the reason I didn't push it.

And I don't know if I want to bring this up. The one thing about that is it actually doesn't need a vote. But I think if we're going do something like this childcare initiative, we probably should put it to a vote. But I just got very uncomfortable when we were first talking about this with the really not knowing how much it produced. And then how do you determine what is generated by removing the cap or moving the cap?

And what it because as I understand it, they don't break down their reporting by sale. Sale. They put it by gross amount. Is that correct, Brooke? Like, I mean, if if if they don't report it if Joe's sales or Joe's whatever. I don't think

Yes, you're right. People don't list all their individual transactions. They So just list

we would have a very hard time saying, Okay, we got this extra money because we moved the cap. And if we're comfortable with that saying we're gonna go ahead and do some sort of a childcare initiative and confident that that change made it, great. But Steven's right. I'm sorry. We should be talking about this all at a work session. I'll shut up.

But it's good that it was brought up because that could give Brooke some time to get us more information. So when we meet next month we'll have more information to go on. I do want to reiterate, mean like I said I'm hoping the idea is, any idea we do whether it's 1% sales tax or something like this, the considerations need to be investigated and thought of so that we're not having a negative impact on industry, things like that. So whatever we do, I do think it needs to go a vote even if it doesn't require one technically. Tim?

Yeah, I mean we're like deep in the weeds here. The first question we have to answer is what are we doing, right? Like what are we doing? What is our goal here? What is the process we want to go through? What are we trying to fund? I mean the communities understand what we're trying to accomplish first. Because they're not going to vote yes for any kind of funding for us until they actually understand what it is we're talking about. So I think that's the very first question. And I said that earlier, and I think that is the question and that's what everybody that's sitting here and listening to this with wants to know.

What is the city going to do? And then it's up to us to figure out, it's not just up to us, mean it's up to the city. John can certainly help to figure out like how are we gonna do this so it's a sustainable thing. John and Brooke can work on magic and figure this help us understand what we can do. But you know if you want to get it across the line on a boat people have to understand why you're doing it.

The reason why school stuff passes and other millage rate stuff doesn't is because schools are people are like yes we support schools or yes, we support activities or yes, we support, you know, a performing arts center. We think that's important for our kids. And so then they say yes, even though it costs them money. And I want to go back to the investment part, right? Like so I've seen a lot of these ideas come down to someone else is going to pay for this, right, like the visitor.

And I think that's fine to a certain extent. They benefit from this to a certain people work in the visitor industry, right? But I also don't wanna let everybody else off the hook, right? I start with a conversation by saying I'm disappointed that we're not gonna be able to bring the third leg of the stool along, right? Like the people who actually benefit from it, the employers, they should be participating in this process. They're a third of this process according to your cool little thing. I mean, but that's entirely optimistic. That's not, you know, who's going to set that up? The chamber of commerce is going to set that up? I hope so.

Because, you know, they should be of this. So but we're funding it. We need to figure out what we're going to do first and take over that responsibility and then we can figure out where we're going to fund it from. But if we get deep in the weeds with this funding thing, we're never going to figure out and we're going to be stuck on that we get $2,000,000 we get this that or the other thing. First, let's figure out what we're doing because that's what's going to sell it to the voters, that's what they're going to vote on and that's what they're going to invest in.

Kevin? I do agree with you, Tim. I think the temptation to go to the money right away is because that is what creates the realm of possibility in our minds. You know what I mean? Because we think, well, that's great. We want to do something. And then we immediately want to go to the money because we want to say because part of us doesn't wanna put all energy into something unless we know we can we can do it. But you are right. You're a 100% right. I mean, my you know, maybe at our work session and possible agenda item as well. Next month, we could, you know, split up into two things. What are we doing? Possibly funding ideas. I mean, I threw out the option two, idea. No one shot it down.

For people who are listening to, and I'm glad you said something JJ about, because we've read this report, we're talking about it, not everybody has. A lot of people listen to the meetings and a lot of people listen to these meetings. It's impressive that people are really laid by him. But the crux of these ideas, these grants and such say option two is direct operating grants. Theoretically we have money.

And to an outside source we start per child have grants of certain fund amount sent to these childcare facilities or licensed care facilities to help them basically stabilize the market. Market so they can use it to basically increase the wages, train people, things like that to make sure that we have qualified workers that are there, that want to be there, and that stay there because you can't have a childcare if there's no one working there. And then the additional part is stabilizing. So if you can pay your people more through this kind of incentive, you temptation or the pressure to raise your tuition lowers significantly. And I agree 100% with him saying this is an investment.

We're thinking money and cost, but yes, this is an investment. But I wanted to clarify for people listening that's the kind of thing that we're talking about. Yeah.

Katie? I also support option two, the direct operating grants.

Just

another you know bit of information out there that I think is is helpful to kind of bigger picture frame this conversation child care centers and say good don't pay sales tax that's an exemption and it's been written down for a while property tax they don't pay as well through that community purpose exemption the last child care center that got in on that was

you

know two years ago. So that's that's good there. So we're trying that's currently what the municipality is is able to help or subsidize through our mechanisms that already exist. So we're just trying to find that that next level of how your group here in local government can help these important workers and families out because they're just so necessary on all things. We have so much data now that tells us that that this is necessary.

And also, if anyone's out there wanting to start up or or expand a program, there's a small business guaranteed loan program that we run here at the city, city, secret journal code 4.1. You can look through that and see because that was listed in the report as important to kind of help get that capacity need met. There is mechanism to do that through an option with the municipality.

Tim? Thank you. This is my last comment. I think we run the very real risk of wrecking this process by heading to money before understanding what we're doing. I think if we aren't careful and make sure that we clarify and explain to the community what we're doing and why we're doing it before we tell them how to tax it because I can think, I mean it's been disappointing to see the emails all saying no, no, no, right.

No, don't do this to me without actually understanding what this is gonna do and what the investment is. And so I don't wanna do that. I wanna be real careful here. I don't want this process to fall apart on the backs of people. I was not on the assembly, but I certainly heard all about the last time we raised the sales cap, right?

Like you would, it was a war, right? Like every business under the sun was in here saying why this wasn't going to work and so you know that assembly was pretty under siege for a while. But that was because they just wanted the money for the city, right, and the people were like no, I don't want to do that. This is a whole different thing, but we run a real risk of people saying no, I don't want to be taxed, legitimately so without understanding what they're investing in. And so I want us that's my final comment. We need to be real clear. What are we doing? Why are we doing it? Make sure the community understands that and then we can start talking about how we get the money for it.

Kevin? Sorry, Mr. Mayor. So I mean, what you're saying is hitting right? Because we're like I said, the human temptation is to talk about money because you don't want to waste your time on something spend your time not waste, but spend your time on something if you don't know you can do it.

You need money to do things. But you're right. We've been thinking about this a while. The public just had eyes on this report just recently. Are you suggesting that maybe we like if we do a work session or what have you next month, we just specifically zone in on what we want to do first and talk about that and kind of do let the public see that first and then we do like another work session? I'm just thinking out loud, like what are you thinking?

I'm kind of a big believer in like you identify the need you have, you identify what needs to happen and then you figure out how you're going to deal with that, right? Like I mean, my career that's the same sort of thing. If I want to move in a new direction with something, identify what it is, I explain it to people, then I try and find the funding source after that. The funding source is necessary to make it happen, but what's the essential is that I understand why I'm doing it and I can explain it to somebody else before I invest in that. And so, you know, no, I'm not saying the funding is not important, the funding is essential and sustainably is the key to this whole thing.

And I'm not saying that any of the conversation about the money was wrong, but I don't want it to be a conversation about money first. I want everyone to understand what it is we're doing and why, and then we can talk about how we're going to fund it. Because the community is going to say, okay, that's important, let's do that. Let's figure out how to spend, let's find the million dollars. We're going to tax ourselves in some way. And we people out there have great ideas. We might find someone we didn't even think of. But I think that's the most important piece. Can go about it the wrong direction and this one's not going to go anywhere.

Interesting.

So at this point, I will work with Sarah to get a work session or however we come up with the wording for this. I wrote down a couple ideas from what I've heard assembly members talk about on what we need to get accomplished. Very large part about this one for me will be relaxing the rules to allow for robust input because we need the input on this. This is a large section that we didn't talk about as much, but we wanna hear from the community what they want us to do as well. We wanna hear from the community how they do want to invest into it. So I will work with Sarah. We'll find some time, and I'll set a meeting.

Thank you. Do

we have anything else in discussion, direction, decision on the next steps of childcare and the future of it in Sitka? Great. That would bring us to persons to be heard. This is public participation for any item on or off tonight's agenda, not to exceed three minutes for any individual.

Annette Evans, I just wanna say thank you to the sponsors, and then thank you to you all for your time that you dedicate to our community. I can talk all night about childcare, but to our community in general, thank you so much for your volunteer time and your commitment and the energy it takes to do what you do. So thank you.

Hello. Assembly. Thank you again. Reiterate her words as well. I'm Margaret Galenin and currently teaching those dual enrollment classes at Sitka High that was made reference to, so I put myself available to discuss that as well.

I had all kinds of things that I wanted to say, but I think it comes down to it's going to be a lengthy process. And I'm thankful that the community is going to be able to be a part of that process. One thing that was clear to me is that several of you are definitely in favor of the Model two, the Option two. And yet, would encourage you to take a serious look at Option three. It's a blended model.

It looks at not only the operating grants, but the workforce incentives. I think if you're looking at some sort of staggered employment based on how many years experience they have, the credits that they have, etcetera, and there is nothing in option two that really allows for people in the field to actually get advancement. And there's a whole chart in here on page eighteen eighteen that goes through how that can be. So I would encourage you to look at that.

What else

was really important? I think also to encourage, I don't want to lose track of the employers that are out there, the other business that are here. There was a time when Search held a child care center for at least thirty years or more from my time in being here. And I would encourage businesses to take a serious look at their budgets and what they can do, even if it's a small number of them employees. Would be a nice benefit to offer.

And without any more deliberation or taking up all of your times, I look forward to the input that we have. And I want to thank you, Tim, for your comments about the investment. As an early childhood professional for close to fifty years, I can tell you research is clear that the first five years of a child's life is the most important. You think of the first year and then the first three years. But it is evidence that those first five years, we need to be invested in, and we need the best.

We deserve the best that we can get here in Sitka. So thank you for your time and energy on this. It's been a long time coming.

Anyone else under persons to be heard? Anything on or off the agenda? I see none. That'll bring us to reports. Quick and easy report for myself. I had the opportunity to meet with a representative from Alaska Airlines. I think that was yesterday. Just kind of a social greeting. Just coming in saying hi, making sure everything was going okay. The good news is Alaska Airlines is preparing itself for higher fuel prices, but that does not mean at this point a reduction in service to Sitka.

They've committed to doing everything they can to continue flying into Sitka even through the the fall season when fuel is estimated to skyrocket from where it is now. So I think it was all good news and just furthered our our relationship with Alaska Airlines as our air and cargo carrier here in Sitka. John?

Thank you, Mayor. Another quick report. Already mentioned it in her quarterly report, but I'd like to reiterate it. We just got the news today that Senator Murkowski submitted her CDS requests, specifically ours for the Marine Service Center seawall and crane replacement. That was something we had at the time funded through a I think it was called RAISE grant at the time.

Cost escalation reasons, we couldn't get that project across the finish line, return to the grant funding. And we've since asked for this request. She has, I will say, approved that with air quotes. It's in her list. And it has been submitted to the Appropriations Committee for consideration. So we'll be standing

that that the able And we're

party stipulated to a joint, dismissal request, and that came through from the judge this morning. So that was dismissed with prejudice. File is closed. I don't get to say that too often, so that's exciting. And then also in Austin, Cranford versus CBS et al, that's a federal court case, kind of an unwieldy number one colon 25 dash c v Dash00010Dash s l g. CBS's motion to dismiss the current complaint was granted, but the court did give the plaintiff twenty eight days leave to attempt to amend that complaint.

Thank you. Liaison representatives.

Katie?

From the Planning Commission, the Planning Commission and the tourism commission are still attempting to have a work session scheduled about cruise ship dock ordinance that was aiming for end of the month early June TBD if that will be postponed. There's some capacity issues in department the right now but that is on the list to happen soon and then they also approved the zoning text change to Gary Paxton Industrial Park and so that will come in front of the assembly and it's very marine business focused. They removed all marijuana uses from the table and had a question in there about petroleum refining which is going to be allowed as a conditional use. There's a community that recycles waste oil. So that will be coming in front of the assembly.

JJ?

Ports and Harbors Commission is meeting tomorrow night. It is their last before they break for the summer. So if anyone has any public comments, they really just need to share with that commission. Tomorrow evening is your last chance until September. The agenda is gonna talk about some opportunities for for increased revenues. They I told them at the last meeting that, you know, the assembly declined their recommendation of a 3% rate increase with the promise to look for additional funds, so they understand that but are still going to look for those additional funds.

Tim?

Thank you. Yes, sustainability met. They meet right at the beginning of the month and they had just reported to us. So it was they had they've been working really hard. SCRES, Activity is underway and I think that's going be very powerful.

I will again encourage the community to take a look at all the information that the group has put together all that is well laid out, easy to access, fascinating. I mean, I had no idea we threw away so many textiles for example. I mean, I was stunned that that was like 18% of our waste stream. So I think those are all powerful pieces of information that people can use and they're kind of looking at some ways in which they can help the community understand how they can access this more on a daily basis or a little at a time sort of thing. Because I think a lot of people think this is a massive problem. Sustainability is a huge problem with big solutions. And I think a lot of it happens at the individual level. And that's what that group seems to be working towards. Great group.

Any other liaison reports? Sarah Clerk's report?

No report. Thank you.

Any other reports this evening?

Please.

Just a note on biking and transportation. It's summer. We have a lot more tourists in town. We have a lot more traffic happening and I want to just reference the the accident that happened. An individual in our community was severely injured, several broken bones up and and almost died. Right? Like ended up on the roof of a vehicle and was observed by an entire fifth grade class in a school bus. So really want to just reiterate to folks to please, slow down. I know it takes longer to get places. I was stuck behind the DOT truck that was painting today.

So please factor that into your transportation plans, and let's all just keep a good eye out for each other.

JJ? I

was able to go to that SCSRAS community meeting last night here in this room and just some appreciation for the sustainability commission who put that on along with Brie and the electric department and the technical assistance individuals that came up as fulfillment of that grant that we have to help us understand the ins and outs and answer community questions about, you know, details far beyond what, you know, good diagrams we have in in all of their documentation. So they were able to provide that backup for people that were were interested. I think it was a very successful workshop, and we'll continue to to seek community input when looking at that future of of energy use in Sitka.

Thank you. That'll bring us to our executive session tonight.

I move to enter into executive session to discuss matters that may tend to prejudice the reputation and character of municipal administrator candidates Ginny Albert and Stephen Dahl and and to identify a path forward in the municipal administrator recruitment pursuant to the statutory exception for subjects that may tend to prejudice the reputation and character of an individual. I further move to invite assistant municipal administrator Joshua Brant over to participate in the in the executive session and to exclude municipal administrator John sorry. To exclude the municipal administrator and municipal attorney.

Second.

I was moving seconded to go into executive session for the assembly's information. Both of those individuals had an opportunity to object to executive session and none was received. Is there any public comment on entering executive session? Sarah?

Alright. On the motion to go into executive session, miss Riley? Yes. Mayor Eisenbeis?

Yes.

Miss Carlson? Yes. Mister Mosier?

Yes.

Mister Pike? Yes. Mister Christensen? Yes. Mister Stalline? Yes. Motion passes seven zero, and we'll be meeting in Room 4.

Thank you. Assembly, please take a break on your way in. A motion to reconvene.

So moved.

Second.

All those in favor say aye. Aye. We are reconvened as the assembly in regular session. We met in executive session to talk about our municipal candidates. We identified some paths forward in the recruitment process, and we'll continue to work hard on our citizens behalf to fill our municipal administrator position. That'll bring us to adjournment.

Motion to adjourn.

All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. Assembly, we are adjourned.