Borough assembly holds the line on budget, approves $443 million in spending for upcoming fiscal year

The Matanuska Borough Assembly approved a $442.7 million budget for the borough’s Fiscal Year 2024, which begins in July, at its Tuesday, May 9 meeting

“We continue to experience growth and increased demands for virtually all services and area,” borough manager Mike Brown and budget director Cheyenne Heindel said in a letter transmitting the budget.

Even with that, the budget keeps the borough on an even keel financially. . Overall spending is slightly down, and the property tax mill rate per $100,000 of assessed value is $839 compared with $890 in the current fiscal year.

“The Matanuska-Susitna Borough has been the strongest source of growth in Alaska for the past decade. Even though the Borough faces the challenge of ongoing federal, state, and local economic uncertainty,” Brown and Heindel wrote in the letter.

“The Borough saw a 10.1 percent increase in taxable assessed value. To offset the Borough portion of this increase in property taxes, this budget proposes a decrease in the areawide mill rate by 0.101 mills, a decrease in the non-areawide mill rate by 0.05 mills, and a number of service area mill rate decreases,” the letter said.

The assembly approved the budget at its May 9 meeting with several amendments, mostly making minor additions. One amendment, by Assembly Member Dmitri Fonov, is aimed at helping to dispose of junked cars. But the assembly also reduced the borough’s contribution to the Matanuska-Susitna School District by $5 million. This was at the school district’s suggestion, Borough Mayor Enda Devries said.

The budget also includes $1.65 million in matching funds to help secure grants including $800,000 to the Mat-Su Visitors and Convention Bureau to help the group take advantage of state and federal grants.

DeVries said the school district had agreed to the reduced borough contribution. “We’re very thankful for them, and it just shows really good organization and cooperation between the two elected bodies,” she said.

“With the increase in assessed valuation on property within the borough that we need to look at exactly how much money we should spend and how we should go easing the tax burden,” the mayor said.

“That mil levy on an average priced house of $354,000 in the Borough will be just a little over $100 a year, and that comes out to about 4 percent. As you know, inflation is far above that, but as Deputy Mayor Yundt has said, ‘we’d all be very happy if gasoline or bacon and eggs had only gone up 4 percent,” Devries said.

At the end of the May 9 budget meeting a request was brought by Assembly Member Dee McKee to establish a committee between the assembly and the school board members to review how money appropriated by the assembly to the school board can actually reach the classroom. It received unanimous support from the assembly.

The budget document noted several accomplishments for the past year:

• Preparing for the 2024 Arctic Winter Games

• Land lease and sales for a youth shooting range; YMCA residential camp, and Houston solar power project

• Receipt of an Economic Development Administration (EDA) grant for constructing the Gateway Visitor Center

• Funding the 2021 Transportation Infrastructure Program approved by voters without taking on new debt service obligations

• Effectively providing emergency services and increased service demands. Among these were managing approximately 2,800 animal intakes at the borough shelter along with 1,233 adoptions

• Completing a tax rebate of nearly $12 million

The FY 2024 budget also sets out priorities for the coming FY 2024, including:

• Offsetting increases in assessed value

• Shoring up employer contribution to healthcare

• Sustaining borough operations

• Developing opportunities to improve services and create efficiencies