Assembly declines to refill reserves

PALMER — An attempt to replenish Mat-Su Borough emergency funds depleted during the recent major flooding failed Tuesday.

“I think this has a lot to do with Chicken Little, the sky is falling,” Assemblyman Ron Arvin said of why he didn’t like the resolution on the table.

He said the proposal didn’t force anybody to do anything and didn’t change the rules. Instead, it expressed the assembly’s desire for emergency reserves to stand at $1.25 million.

“I don’t think that we ought to be passing these kinds of resolutions. It does nothing substantive with regard to code,” he said. “This issue is better taken up at budget time. It’s ill-placed and largely sensational on the part of the maker.”

Assemblyman Warren Keogh drafted the emergency fund resolution and took exception to it being dubbed “sensational.”

“I think this is an appropriate time to deal with it rather than when we deal with the budget in six months or so,” he said.

He pointed out that the emergency reserves account had been reduced during budget deliberations from $2 million to $750,000, and then in a subsequent budget cycle reduced again to $500,000. After the flooding, the fund was close to empty.

“And, yes, right now we can anticipate that most of those funds will be reimbursed by the state, but we had a recent example where it took six years for that all to play out,” Keogh said.

He said he thought $1.25 million was a reasonable amount to keep on hand.

“I can’t for the life of me understand why we wouldn’t want to have that amount of money set aside,” Keogh said.

Borough Emergency Services Director Dennis Brodigan backed up the assessment of how low the fund had gotten.

“It certainly wasn’t the largest potential disaster that we could incur, but it wasn’t a small one either,” Brodigan said. “We did burn through over $400,000 in the first two or three days of this particular event.”

He said emergency funds are important.

“It is important during the disaster that the emergency manager have the financial wherewithal to deal with what he’s facing,” Brodigan said.

Borough Finance Director Tammy Clayton also confirmed the last major disaster — the flooding in 2006 — had just closed out in the state’s reimbursement program in August of this year, six years after the event.

“We do not know how much we will be reimbursed and how much we will need to be reimbursed,” Clayton said.

She noted that the state doesn’t pay for regular wages in these kinds of disasters, but hopefully will cover overtime pay.

Assemblyman Steve Colligan said that even so, the borough keeps much larger reserves not specifically designated for emergencies and it could draw from those if needed.

Contact reporter Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.