Questions about oil and gas exploration have contributed to a minor delay in city council’s long-range budget planning.

Council was supposed to review and adopt the city’s capital and major maintenance plan at Tuesday's meeting. That plan outlines big projects for fiscal years 2014 through 2018. But city manager Chris Hladick asked council to wait on it.

He said staff needed more time to fix minor discrepancies in the plan. And Hladick also said they needed to resolve internal debates over one project in particular -- extending utility lines down Captain's Bay Road.

"Whether we need to do that right now or whether we need to scope it so that if grants become available, we'll know how much to look for. That would be a pro to do it," Hladick said. "A con would be, well, if the oil field does show up, maybe they could pay for the whole thing."

Council took the CMMP out of the agenda. They’ll take it up again, at a special meeting sometime in the next month.

With the capital planning on hold, council spent most of the meeting on the operating budget instead. The draft budget allows for $24.5 million in expenditures. That's a 0.83 percent increase over last year.

Interim finance director Karl Swanson gave a broad overview of the city's enterprise funds, which include the utilities, housing, and the airport. Swanson said the city will have spend $2 million to make up projected losses. Except for the electric fund, all of the utilities funds are expected to run at a deficit in 2014. 

Directors from the city’s individual departments, like Parks, Culture, and Recreation and Public Safety, presented their budgets, as well. They had been told to restrict spending increases to 3 percent, to keep pace with inflation.

Most departments were able to stick to that. Ports director Peggy McLaughlin said that just wasn't possible in all areas of her department. The ports budget will increase by about 5 percent overall, even though the department is projecting a jump in revenues. 

That's partially because insurance and maintenance costs will rise in 2014. But McLaughlin says it's also attributable to a change in the way the department does its accounting. She said her staff wrote the 2014 budget to reflect actual operations, rather than following old budget formuals. That made for sharp increases and decreases in some line items.

In other business, council unanimously approved $4,029,640 in funding for Unalaska city schools in 2014. Council also approved more than $700,000 in contracts. They approved a $98,000 order for DAMA Industrial, LLC, to conduct emergency repairs on the CT tank. Council also signed off on a contract with Northern Mechanical for paving at the Unalaska Marine Center.

Northern Mechanical was the only bidder, asking $626,000 -- about $200,000 less than the engineering estimate.

Still, councilor Dennis Robinson said he was not comfortable awarding one-bid contracts. The vote was 5-1 to approve the work, with Robinson voting no.