Emergency services budget less dramatic than expected

By ANDREW WELLNER

Frontiersman.com

PALMER — The Mat-Su Borough’s Department of Emergency Services’ budget was arguably the department budget borough officials were most worried about going into the discussions surrounding 2015 spending.

Emergency Services does, after all, have the largest number of employees of any borough department except for the school district. And this year the budget picture there is changing dramatically. A shift in the way the state views on-call responders has necessitated the hiring of seven new full-time emergency medics.

Emergency Services Director Dennis Brodigan presented his budget on Thursday. All told, it asks for $25.2 million, which is an increase, but not one out of keeping with previous years. The budget in 2012 was $18.2 million, in 2013 it was $23.6 million, and this year it’s $23.6.

“We’ve always understood that this is an evolving system, and that is how we treat it,” Brodigan said.

He told the assembly they get a lot for their money.

“Our statistics are incredible in terms of the number of cardiac saves that our EMS staff has been able to affect in their responses. On a national average they had a 29 percent survival rate. We had a 66.7 percent survival rate,” Brodigan said in a borough press release.

He said that the seven full-time medics would be paid for through a combination of savings on part-time medics the borough won’t have to employ and an increased ambulance fees.

In addition to the medics, the Wasilla-Lakes Fire Service Area’s board of supervisors voted to hire four full-time fire captains, paid for out of the taxes collected for fire service in the area.

One thing not included in the budget — money to keep two positions staffed. The positions of Emergency Management Programs Coordinator and Wildfire Mitigation Technician are staffed through grant money that’s drying up in the next budget year. Brodigan said $109,920 would pay for wages and benefits for the coordinator, and $101,936 would do the same for the technician. He pointed out that a department audit described the positions as important.

Brodigan’s presentation included an outlining of priorities for fiscal year 2015. Those priorities include creating a fire district for Point MacKenzie, consolidating emergency dispatch and consolidating vehicle maintenance.

It also includes a bunch of new fire stations, one in the Wasilla-Lakes Fire Service Area near Mat-Su Regional Medical Center and three in Willow — on 4 Mile Road, Crystal Lakes Road and Nancy Lake Road.

Still, though, the biggest savings in fiscal year 2015 over 2014 in the budgets for the fire service area was in capital costs — the money spent on things like new fire stations and new trucks. The 2015 budget calls for $2.5 million fewer dollars spent on those types of projects.

Assemblyman Ron Arvin ended the discussion with a thank-you to borough firefighters who tackled a wildfire that erupted in a neighborhood near his on Easter Sunday. Arvin described the fire near Fetlock Drive as growing “from nothing to a half-a-mile long in about 10 minutes.”

He said he was impressed with the efficiency and the speed with which the borough fire firefighters tackled the flames.

“I really did appreciate the specific and methodical process that you go through,” he said. “You made a lot of people up there happy.”

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