Rising costs were a recurring theme in the City of Ketchikan’s budget discussions for next year. The Ketchikan City Council approved the city’s two overarching budgets at their regular meeting Thursday night. Those are the General Government budget and the budgets for the city-owned Ketchikan Public Utilities.
The Council received presentations from department heads and discussed these budgets at length over five special meetings leading up to the vote at Thursday’s regular meeting.
Thursday night’s meeting began with some citizens expressing concern over rising costs in the city and that it may be compounded by the region’s projected outmigration in the coming decades. Councilmember Riley Gass said that a 12.5% electric rate hike potentially going into effect next year made some aspects of the budget – like hiring new city employees – unjustifiable.
“When our taxpaying base and ratepaying base are staying the same at best or shrinking considerably, it doesn’t make sense to keep bringing on new people,” said Gass. “It’s just not sustainable.”
The Ketchikan Public Utilities budget requests $71 million for appropriations – that’s a decrease of roughly $1.6 million from last year’s budget. It passed unanimously with little discussion. Much of the meeting was dedicated to debates over the city’s general budget.
Gass made multiple motions to remove new city staff positions, all of which failed.
Council member Jack Finnegan advocated for the proposed positions, saying many departments in the city and KPU are working with skeleton crews.
“For us to provide the services that our citizens depend on and expect, we need to be able to create the positions to create the services that our residents deserve,” he said.
The city council approved the general budget with only Gass and councilmember Jai Mahtani voting against it. After the utilities budget passed though, discussion on the General budget reopened at the behest of councilmember Judy Zenge.
During that discussion, Mahtani motioned for city staff to re-assess the entire budget and force each department to comply with a “soft” cap on budget increases, saying the city needs to “tighten the belt” on spending. In other words, Mahtani asked staff to amend the whole budget to ensure no department was receiving more than a 5% budget increase.
City Finance Director Melissa Johnson took exception to the motion.
“This budget document isn’t something that is produced overnight. I’m in kind of disbelief that at this hour, at 9:17 on the last day of the last meeting of the year, that we’re asking all of our staff to go back and revisit their budgets. I don’t understand why we would do that,” she said.
City Manager Delilah Walsh also said that staff had already maintained that 5% cap and presented all exceptions to the council during earlier budget meetings.
Mayor Bob Sivertsen said he understood Walsh’s and Johnson’s frustrations but it was within Mahtani’s rights as a council member to make the motion.
The motion failed. Mahtani was the only one in favor.
The expected increase in the city’s appropriations from last year is roughly $19 million. The general budget lists the city’s total available funds, including reserves, as about $180 million. The projected revenue in 2025 is nearly $96 million — a $7 million increase from last year.
Following the re-opened discussion, the General Government budget passed again unanimously.
