1. The City of Sitka currently gives less than 1% of its total budget to social services. Where do social/human services lie in your funding priorities?
Jack Ozment: Social services, in my personal priority, stands high – my giving is considerably different than what the city’s is – but the city can only put out what they have. We have only so much money, and services to maintain like police, fire, schools, with a set amount of money. 1% may not sound like much – I talked with people in Juneau, and they give more money – they give $600,000 instead of our $100,000, but that’s still only 1% of their budget. They used to do $1 million, but found that to be unsustainable. We can only give what’s available. If we can get the city foundation started, maybe we can work out something better than that.
Joseph Reeves: There’s only so much money there, so we have to try to support them as much as we can with the money we have. I think it needs to be communication between the Assembly and these non-profit organizations and services. Maybe we can help them work their budget a little bit. One thing I would like to see is them looking through their budget and separating their wants from their needs. I know there are a lot of things they need and should have, but there will be times there are things they’d like to have but don’t need. Maybe they can fluctuate their budget that way. Maybe if there’s more money for something in the future, by all means we should give it to them.
Reber Stein: The $100,000 plus that was dispensed recently is actually closer to 1/2% of the city’s $20,000,000 budget. I understand the Assembly’s fiduciary responsibility to the greater community when it comes to making decisions. However, I support the idea that the Health Needs and Community Services Commission has floated, and that is a community foundation for funding non-profits. That fiduciary responsibility to the greater community might suggest that the Assembly has to strictly watch how they disperse monies, but I think having an umbrella foundation to dispense that would provide an opportunity to bring in money from outside of town, which would increase that pot, and I think be a good balance for funding.
Heidi Raffaele: anybody who knows me knows that clearly social services are at the top of my list; because without the support of social services, the community falters. We’re all working together to make this community a safe place to live. Without taking care of ourselves in the ways that we need to, to help those who are struggling, we won’t have the community that we need, or that we want. Funding is always an issue. Funding is going to continue to be an issue. It doesn’t always come down to money – it comes down to service and action. We can build a human service support network here that’s based on funding, but also based on the energy of the resources that we have here, of the people we have here in town.
Chad McGraw: I am not familiar enough with the existing budget process to properly respond to this specific question.