Kenai Peninsula Borough finance department seeks new sales-tax manager and budget software in FY26 proposal

The Kenai Peninsula Borough finance department asked the assembly May 6 to approve a FY26 budget that includes a request to hire a new sales tax manager to overlap with a long-tenured employee and a capital appropriation to investigate and potentially purchase budget software.

Finance presenter Brandy Harbaugh told the assembly the department is proposing a period of overlap so the new hire can be trained by Lori (last name not specified in the presentation), who will retire at the end of the calendar year after about 25 years of service. "We're asking for a longer time frame to be able to hire a sales tax manager just after fiscal year end," Harbaugh said. "Lori is looking to retire at the end of the calendar year. So, we're asking for that type of crossover."

The department also included a capital request, presented in the capital projects fund, to procure a more modern, centralized budget software platform intended to reduce manual spreadsheet work across departments. Harbaugh told the assembly the finance team currently spends months collecting and reconciling spreadsheet attachments from departments and that new software could reduce duplicated entry and streamline verification. She cautioned the assembly that ongoing cloud-based licensing and operating costs will likely continue after an initial purchase.

Why it matters: The sales tax division manages collections for the borough and remits city shares; Harbaugh said the borough collects "over $80,000,000" in sales tax revenue that includes city portions. The proposal aims…