Assembly overrides mayor’s veto

PALMER — Mat-Su Borough Mayor Larry DeVilbiss didn’t really put up much of a fight when the assembly struck down his veto that would have retained a cap for how much money the borough can put in savings each year.

DeVilbiss said after talking to the borough’s finance department he considered withdrawing his veto.

“I decided not to withdraw it. It is a policy call,” DeVilbiss said, and that’s the assembly’s bailiwick. “Probably if I hadn’t said anything you wouldn’t have overridden the veto.”

In hard numbers, the legislation DeVilbiss put his veto pen to would have allowed the borough to sock away $1.25 million instead of $750,000 when doing its yearly budgeting. Borough staff pointed out that the borough currently is running low on reserve cash, and reserve cash is what bond rating agencies consider.

Assemblyman Warren Keogh said that, by his recollection, a reserve of more than $50 million had been cut nearly in half to around $27.5 million.

Borough Finance Director Tammy Clayton noted that the reserves were used in last year’s budgeting to pay for expenses, avoid a mill rate increase and set aside a fund to pay for expanding borough headquarters.

Clayton told the assembly that when the borough goes to sell bonds — large packages of which passed in the last election — it’s first going to have to get its credit rated. And those ratings agencies like to see big reserves.

The legislation DeVilbiss vetoed wouldn’t allow the borough to sock away any money prior to getting those ratings. There actually isn’t an opportunity for that, but maybe if the ratings agents saw the borough was allowed to put away more money than it had in the past they’d see the borough is serious about saving.

DeVilbiss told the assembly that he and Clayton sat down to talk with a bond rating expert and he came away pretty sure that a downgrade in the borough’s credit rating would cost millions over the life of those bonds.

“They were pretty down on the fact that we’re not only lowering reserves, but we’re vetoing the concept of ever adding to them,” the mayor said.

Borough Manager John Moosey noted that staff would take to heart the concerns underlying DeVilbiss’ veto decision.

“I think the message the mayor is trying to send of ‘don’t charge the borough taxpayers more than you absolutely need to’ is heard loud and clear,” Moosey said.

Keogh said overriding the veto was a “relatively simple decision,” reading out portions of past ratings that viewed healthy reserve accounts as a positive.

“From my perspective, this is a very simple call,” he said. But the assembly wasn’t convinced at first.

Assemblyman Jim Colver noted that the move to tap those reserve funds was at least partially motivated by a sense that the borough was overtaxing its residents.

Assemblyman Ron Arvin wasn’t fully convinced the move would do any good.

“While we have this the-sky-might-be-falling position, is it really? Are we really going to be able to shore up the sky from maybe falling by overriding your veto?” Arvin asked the mayor.

In the end, both Colver and Arvin voted to overturn the mayor’s veto. The only assemblymember who didn’t was Darcie Salmon.

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