This work session, held at 6:00 PM in the Valdez Civic Center, focused on the 2026 budget for the Museum, Valdez Convention & Visitors Bureau (VCVB), Valdez Fisheries Development Association (VFDA), sponsored events, and the Administration Division. Council reviewed appropriations, debated event funding, and discussed department budgets. No formal votes were taken; the session will continue the following day.
Okay, we'll go ahead and call this work session uh to order. Um Jordan, take it away. Thank you, Mayor. Check uh my check one, two, three. All right. Get the sound audience correct. We are gonna kick it out tonight with uh museum BCB VFDA sponsored events in this administration division. So first corrections right away, right off the bat. The sponsored events belong in this title slide. So uh but yes, you can see it would uh mess up the stuff. Yeah, it was beautiful. Thank you. All right, so uh yeah, we'll just start right away with museum. I submitted a packet as you all recall. There is some annual meeting notes, page 18. Is this the financials that are up on the screen? The screen is uh very small and you can't read it, so just refer to your packet. Uh this just gives you a little context and some history of the museum and their appropriations requests. So I'll stop right there and see if there are any questions and uh let April come up if she so desires. I don't like how you work with that as well. So any questions, go ahead. Uh not really any questions, April. Um I just looked over the museum's annual report and uh just saw everything that went on in the last year, and uh it just looks really positive overall. Um I didn't see anything uh like major concerns if there were major concerns you're gonna come up for the museum. Maybe I missed them at the annual meeting. I'd appreciate if you brought those up. But um overall from my perspective, it looks like things are just going really well at the museum. I just thank you for your leadership. Um also just looking at the financials. I just saw that you guys are anticipating you know net revenue. I think 46.5,000 dollars, so that's great from a financial position. Um I appreciate that, so I really appreciate the board you know doing that due diligence and uh uh running the museum from the financial perspective. Um yeah, I I mean I didn't have I I support this ask for the museum for the same for last year, and uh look like you know the budget for this year, you'll still be able to have some net revenue and uh I was talking to your board presidents you having having conversations more ahead of time of you know the direction that the museum might want to go and whether or not council what council is willing to support, so definitely open to those conversations in the future. Um yeah, that's kind of my comment. I didn't I didn't know if there's any big concerns or kind of future things you wanted to bring up with council now or no, no, we didn't miss anything from the annual meeting. I think maybe my soft shoe routine, but other than that, you didn't miss anything. Um yeah, no, no major concerns. We are um really excited about our next year and what we're doing, and looking forward to having a full year of not as new staff. And um, our major change is that we have um we are contracting with an accounting firm. Mission first operations is going to be our new accountant firm, and um so we're excited about that finally to get that's kind of our next step, getting all financials in order and so we can move forward. Was uh just follow-up question? Is it we saw the financials? Is that we guys just do that mostly in house before and then just move in that direction or yeah, the ones you saw were actually um produced by Carl over time. Contracted him and then um officially hired, but he's been on board for the last few months. Yeah, so um, yes, that's just something that yeah, as all staff prior to me and board has put together over the years. Yeah, well, I really I really do appreciate the financials you guys presented in your uh in your uh museum in the annual meeting too. That's really clear and easy to understand to track uh what's going on now and in the past too. So appreciate that. Thank you. Any questions?