Eagle Crest board urges Juneau Assembly to boost staffing, wages and capital funding as gondola work continues

At a joint meeting Wednesday, March 5, the Eagle Crest Board told the Juneau City and Borough Assembly it will seek increased budget support to fill vacancies, raise wages and fund capital repairs as the ski area pushes toward year‑round operations with the planned gondola.

Mike Satri, president of the Eagle Crest Board, said the area remains “an incredibly important and cherished community asset” but faces persistent staffing and capital shortfalls. “We have to pay our people more, we need more staff, and we have capital needs,” Satri said.

The ask comes as Eagle Crest grapples with a season marked by a low natural snowpack, mechanical problems and limits on available staff. Board members and staff described a mix of recent successes — robust season‑pass sales and 39 days of snowmaking this winter — and operational stressors that reduce capacity and increase costs.

Board presentation and numbers Mike Satri and Eagle Crest staff outlined personnel and capital estimates in a slide deck provided to the assembly. Eagle Crest’s budgeted full‑time equivalents have generally ranged between about 30 and 34 FTE; internal staffing models the board reviewed show a need of as many as 56 FTE to meet industry staffing standards. Satri said the board and staff are still vetting those numbers.

On pay, the board cited a wage gap of as much as 40% compared with industry norms. The board estimated that a 15% across‑the‑board pay increase for currently budgeted positions (about 34 FTE) would add roughly $290,000 to next year’s personnel costs; a larger or more comprehensive package could add roughly $800,000 or more. Satri warned that combining a significant wage increase with adding the ideal staffing complement could push additional personnel costs toward $3 million.

The board also cited reliance on temporary J‑1 visa workers as a band‑aid recruitment tool. Eagle Crest staff said J‑1 workers are here for a limited time and that the program imposes administrative work and some guaranteed hours and pay obligations. Staff estimated roughly a dozen budgeted positions were unfilled this year.

Capital needs and projects Eagle Crest’s current capital improvement program (CIP) submittal listed roughly $511,000 in proposed CIP projects, with Black Bear chair repairs and a new haul rope among the largest items. The board said project cost estimates are preliminary and that a larger master list of additional projects totals about $1.5 million through FY2030, with roughly $700,000 of those items potentially actionable in the next fiscal year. A city staff update noted the CIP must be submitted at $350,000, removing roughly $161,000 from the formal CIP list into an internal master project list.

Other operational issues • Snowmaking and equipment: Board members said snowmaking was essential to sustaining some ski days but that water‑intake, pump and snow‑grooming fleet problems reduced effectiveness this season. The water treatment system — which also supports fire suppression — briefly had issues that staff said are now resolved after coordination with DEC and the fire marshal.

• Mechanical systems: A mechanical problem with the Black Bear chairlift was deferred for repair to a later year; the board said the chair remains a priority but that the decision was made to postpone some work to the coming year.

• Summer revenue: Eagle Crest reported about 5,000 summer visitors tied to private coach tours and Segway tours and said zipline revenue generated roughly $50,000. Board members said expanding summer programming — camps and other activities — is constrained by staffing and that sufficiency of summer revenue is central to the long‑term plan for self‑sufficiency tied to the gondola.

Policy options and timeline Board members said the long‑term strategy remains to grow summer operations and complete the gondola project so Eagle Crest can move toward a sustainable year‑round revenue model. Several assembly members pressed the board to consider alternatives to continued requests for city funding if the board’s assumptions prove infeasible.

Assembly member Wade Bryson pressed the board to identify contingency plans beyond repeated budget appeals, saying, “At some point, the board has to have a discussion. What do we do next? What do we do different?” Satri and other board members said they are open to that discussion but that much of the gondola progress depends on engineering and project scheduling managed outside the board’s immediate control.

Reports and studies The board referenced an earlier consultant study (the Duncan report) used as a basis for some staffing and revenue assumptions. Board member Hannah Shively said Duncan’s estimate for transitioning Eagle Crest employees to a city pay scale was on the order of $4.5 million; she described that number as a rough estimate drawn from Duncan’s assumptions.

Next steps No formal motions or votes were taken at the session. Board members said they will finalize a budget request at an upcoming board meeting and that the assembly will review funding options during the city budget process beginning in April. The board requested staff time and assembly guidance on whether to pursue a formal compensation alignment with city pay scales and on prioritizing CIP items.

The March 5 discussion closed with assembly members thanking the board and staff for their work and acknowledging that the budget cycle will be the venue for deciding the extent of city support for Eagle Crest next fiscal year.