Dad’s view of the budget

Last week, Wasilla Mayor Verne Rupright wrote a column (Frontiersman May 7, 2013) regarding the proposed fiscal year 2014 Wasilla city budget and the budget process.

In this column, he stated that the city has a balanced budget and that the city is doing fine. What I pointed out at the council table was that in the past three years our general fund operating budget has grown by 25 percent, and more importantly that general government has grown by more than 27 percent. I stated that we needed to reduce this unprecedented growth. So yes, we have a balanced budget by dipping into our savings by $543,000 to fund the FY2014 budget. However, dipping into our savings is not a fiscally responsible solution and will continue to lead to a non-sustainable budget.

With the goal of creating a more sustainable budget, the council rolled up their sleeves and worked through more than 50 amendments to trim down the ever-increasing growth in general government and was successful in reducing this growth by 3.4 percent. The amendments passed during the budget process in no way affect essential services that the city directly provides to our residents such as public safety, road maintenance, water and sewer and cultural and recreational services.

Over the past year, the administration has professed that “the sky is falling” and therefore the city needs to raise our sales tax by 50 percent. Council voted down this increase in taxes four times. However, in Mayor Rupright’s column, he states that the city is just fine. If so, then why continually propose to increase taxes on our residents when they are still reeling from the economic challenges over the past few years? Why not tighten our belt and concentrate on reducing the operating budget by looking for more effective and efficient ways to provide service instead of hitting the citizens’ up for more money?

The council majority and I believed we needed to do better to reduce government growth and find efficiencies. In addition, we looked to our sister city of Palmer and other cities across the state to compare how they are fairing during this economic time and have seen that they have taken steps to cut government operational costs significantly. The city of Wasilla should do the same.

For example, in order to find efficiencies and to reduce personnel cost, the council requested that administration look at adjusting employees work schedules in order to cover the extra hours needed to serve citizens after normal office hours. Also, consider cross training employees so they can cover other positions when needed. Regarding conferences and travel out of state, I suggested administration look for ways to use online conferences, teleconferences or webinars as opposed to spending thousands of dollars to go out of state on the public dime. So again, if the sky was falling, why are we not looking for more creative ways to reduce this non-sustainable budget?

Administration had proposed in this year’s presentation that the city had a shortfall of $543,000 for FY2014. The next biennial budget cycle administration is projecting it will be $730,000 for FY2015 and $800,000 for FY2016. This is a trend that is unsustainable and must be managed better. For a city the size of Wasilla (8,400 population) our personnel and operational costs to run this city is more than $16 million. If the projections are to be considered accurate, the city needs to manage its operations more effectively and efficiently and hold back on the growth of government.

To sum up this year’s budget process between administration and the council using the mayor’s mom’s analogy. Dad (council) has told Mom (administration) that we need to tighten our belt and live within our means like other families (cities) because Dad does not plan to go back to the Boss (taxpayers) for additional money to fund an extravagant lifestyle.

Deputy Mayor Colleen Sullivan-Leonard has served on Wasilla City Council since 2010.