Winter in Unalaska by Sam Zmolek
Your voice in the Aleutians.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
The KUCB Newsroom provides newscasts Monday through Thursday at noon and 5 PM on KUCB Radio. You can find many of our local news stories here.

Unalaska Expects Budget Surplus Of $7.8 Million, As Officials Credit Conservative Spending

Berett Wilber
/
KUCB

Unalaska's budget is in good shape as fiscal year 2018 comes to a close.

Finance Director Clay Darnell said the city has already banked a surplus of $7.5 million — a number that's expected to grow as his department crunches the final figures for June.

"We project that we'll be at $7.8 million, so we're really doing good," he said. "We're approximately $4.6 million better than we anticipated we'd be at the end of the year."

Darnall said the surplus is a result of conservative spending on top of already conservative financial plan.

Every city department is under budget through May, putting Unalaska on track to spend just 84 percent of estimated expenditures.

Darnall said that'll more than offset a one-percent dip in revenue, brought on by underperforming seafood taxes.

Projections show that Unalaska's raw seafood tax and Alaska's resource landing tax will generate almost $1.7 million less than expected, thanks to low fisheries quotas. 

But Darnall said modest increases in investment earnings, electric utilities, and port income will help protect the city's surplus.

Laura Kraegel reported for KUCB from 2016 until 2020. She was KUCB's news director starting in 2019. We are proud to have her back in the spring of 2023 filling in as an interim reporter for KUCB.
Related Content