Consider the cost of change

It’s no secret. For a long time, the Mat-Su has been one of the fastest growing areas in the country, and certainly in Alaska. Legislative House boundaries have been redrawn based on populations, and Wasilla has gained a new House seat.

The population is surging, most notably in the greater Wasilla area, and the demand for more public services is growing, too. The problem for local government is how to meet these needs.

Borough tax, along with state match monies, fund schools, borough roads and fire services. The cities, such as Wasilla, have other and very unique problems. Our cities provide services such as airports, parks, public safety, public works, sewer and water, event centers, road maintenance and the largest libraries in use, just to name a few.

But what is the revenue stream that feeds this engine?

The city of Wasilla, unlike Palmer and Houston, derives its funding primarily from a 2 percent sales tax on certain goods and services, with a cap at $500, meaning the maximum tax collected from the consumer is $10 on a transaction. Wasilla levies no property tax, and that is in keeping with its stated policy that no property owner should ever have to be in business with government.

Simply stated, you own your property. It’s yours. The city will not default you for nonpayment of property tax and attempt to take your home.

Together, we enjoy Wasilla’s amenities — its roads, parks, street maintenance and library, to name a few. The users of these facilities are not just city residents, but everyone who comes to Wasilla.

This places a strain on city government to keep up with building and maintaining not only a physical infrastructure, but also a service sector used by all, such as road, water and sewer crews, parks workers, police officers, dispatchers and many others who are among a group of city personnel on duty. Unfortunately, along with the majority of responsible user groups come the vandals, drunk drivers and calls for help of all kinds to police, abusers of public property and other assorted graffiti artists as a blight who add significantly to a city’s cost burden.

In sum, city government does quite a bit to enhance the environment we all live in, and it is this level of government that voters can most directly impact.

So what about our future?

The cost of local government increases about 3.5 percent a year by factoring in infrastructure maintenance and replacement, equipment costs, fuel for vehicles and machinery, personnel costs, insurance increases and more, as it does in any other business. Wasilla has done a good job in keeping costs down, eliminating by double digits expenditures from the budget over the last few years, yet still paying off long-term debt (such as the sports center) and keeping the general machinery of local government going primarily on the 2 percent sales tax.

However, federal dollars via earmarks are drying up. State expenditures are spreading thin, too. Looking to next year’s state budget, where it may run as high as $618 million in the negative column, and by 2018 as much as $1.5 billion. There will be less for local government, in spite of reserves.

What does a local society do to survive? Quite simply, it has to examine its priorities, decide what is most important for overall quality of life in the community and turn to itself.

We can all witness every day in Wasilla that the old village is bursting at the seams. Gone are the halcyon days of the homesteads, single-lane roads, no traffic lights — let alone traffic — no large retail centers, everyone on wells or creek water and an old crib system for waste. These nostalgic items of the past have all but completely vanished hereabouts.

We live in a booming, vibrant 21st century society. As a result, the demand for more paved roads, sidewalks, public street lighting, a larger and more efficient library, more public safety personnel, parks and recreation — among a number of things — is heard and called for of local government.

When the quiet rural lifestyle is gone and a thriving city springs up, just about everything changes. These facts are nothing new in history. Every area of development in the whole United States has gone through these growth pains.

We shouldn’t even ask what happened to New Amsterdam, which became New York. Or to the prior small logging town of Seattle. Or for that matter, less than 100 years ago, a railroad tent city that became Anchorage. We are all familiar with the history. However, everything that changes comes with an increasing cost.

Wasilla, these are things to seriously think about in the times to come.

Verne Rupright has been mayor of Wasilla since 2008.