Borough pat with $418M budget

PALMER — Though the picture is almost certainly going to change, the Mat-Su Borough budget on the table right now is flat — no change from last year.

“We are slowly tightening up and we are pretty much close to the end,” Borough Manager John Moosey said. “There’s not a whole lot left to tighten.”

Which is to say, that if the mandate from the assembly is to cut money from the budget or to give a greater percentage of it to schools without raising any taxes, it will come at the cost of other services the borough provides.

“If there’s a direction they want me to go to provide less service in some areas or tighter service, I’m able to do that and I’m willing to do that,” Moosey said.

So here are a few key numbers from the budget:

• $418,479,711 is the total borough budget, including state funds for schools.

• $287.2 million of that goes to schools.

• $33.5 million is to service debt on the borough’s various bonds.

• $50.5 million is for borough operations.

• $9.1 million is for the fire service areas and $10.8 million for road service areas.

• Zero new positions are proposed in Moosey’s budget.

Some pieces of the budget are already in motion. For instance, Assemblyman Ron Arvin introduced legislation last week that would bump up the borough’s tax on tobacco. The ordinance points out that the borough is taxing at a rate 15 percent less than Anchorage.

“I have not had any discussions with the assembly, but there will be some revenue there and I’m sure they have some thoughts on where that revenue is going when it’s raised,” Moosey said.

The school district has made clear it intends to ask for increased funding in 3 percent increments each year until the contribution to its budget from local tax revenue is between Anchorage and Fairbanks rather than below both of those communities.

In the aggregate, Moosey said his goal is to reorganize the borough.

“What I’m trying to do is we’re organized traditionally by department, and when we’re little bitty, that’s OK. But as we’re getting bigger and we’ve got more and more projects going, we really need to start reorganizing around final output,” Moosey said.

For instance, a team of borough employees would work on capital projects. The team would consist of public works employees, planners, finance folks and others. Projects would stay with that team rather than moving from department to department.

“We’re going to be looking at being much more efficient in those areas,” Moosey said.

Speaking of staffing and budgets, Moosey confirmed that he has recently put some restrictions on what’s called “flex time.”

“Flex time and the different anything outside the 8-to-5 (workday) has to make sense for the borough operation and borough services,” Moosey said. “And for those instances where it will make sense to provide good services, that will continue.”

So, an employee can modify a schedule attend a public meeting as a borough representative, for example, but not just because that employee would like a three-day weekend.

“If a three-day weekend somehow benefits our operations, wooly bully, have at it,” he said. “But I need my people here.”

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