Late-arriving Walker wins crowd

PALMER — Gov. Bill Walker didn’t do himself any favors arriving to Tuesday night’s Mat-Su Borough Assembly meeting 45 minutes late. It gave a restless contingent of Mat-Su residents opportunity after opportunity to speak at the podium in three-minute intervals about their concerns and disappointment over his $1.3 billion in vetoes that look certain to become policy after the state legislature failed to find an alternative course last week.

But when Walker and his entourage did show, the governor quickly got down to the business of winning their sympathy, if not their support.

He began his address by reminding the assembly members and citizens of the circumstances behind the last time he visited that very room.

“The last time I was here I signed the declaration of disaster for the Sockeye Fire,” Walker said of the blaze that torched more than 6,000 acres near Willow last summer. “This year, I stand before you with a different issue. I hesitate to use too strong of a word, but I tend to use (strong words) a lot now — we are in a disaster; we are in a crisis.”

Walker came before the assembly to answer its questions with no capacity to give answers as to how individual boroughs were to make up the enormous budget shortfall statewide — Mat-Su’s totalling $5.7 million — only promises of worse things to come if boroughs didn’t come through, peppered with hopes for a brighter financial future for the state.

“I took no pleasure in any of the decisions I had to make, but there are no easy levers (to pull) in this situation. I know how angry people can be, but I wonder how they’ll feel in a few short years when the dividend goes to zero,” Walker told the assmbly members. “There’s nothing on the horizon that’s all of a sudden going to turn the situation around… We’d need oil at $120 a barrel, and it’s at about $45… I can’t make decisions assuming that’s going to happen.”

Each assembly member got the opportunity to ask a question of the governor. None were particularly confrontational or critical. Most asked Walker to look into his crystal ball for clues of what the future might hold.

Ever the optimist on all things Alaska, Walker insisted more woes would have to be overcome before brighter financial days returned.

“Alaska is in its greatest fiscal crisis in state history. We need to act accordingly and make cuts,” he said. “From 2013 to 2017 our spending was reduced by 40 percent. There’s more room to cut, of course there is… But we know we can’t solve all our problems with cuts. There has to be additional revenues, so we need a balanced approach.”

When done taking questions, Walker received a round of applause from more than half of those in attendance. He shook hands and greeted community members and exited through the side door, the one not occupied by a handful of protestors carrying signs denouncing Walker and taking signatures for his recall.

“(We’re protesting Walker) because he’s acting like a bully or a tyrant,” said Karen Perry, also a candidate for the state house in District 12, who was leading the petition charge. “We believe he’s illegally taking the PFD.”

Perry said that about half of the people her group approached to sign the petition did so.

As for making up Alaska’s gaping budget deficit, Perry said there are more constitutional ways of doing it than cutting the annual dividend check to all Alaskans.

“No. 1, Medicaid should not have been unilaterally expanded,” she said. “And state employees — how many more oil czars did he hire? At least three, I believe... No income tax — stop extorting money from hard working citizens and start cutting the budget.”

Once the governor departed, so, too, did better than half of the crowd on hand, though the real business of how to begin to cut $5.7 million from an already tight borough budget was about to get under way.

While waiting for Walker’s arrival, Borough Manager John Moosey gave an overview of some savings that could be realized by pushing certain capital improvement projects down the road.

“We began with $18 million in requests and the assembly whittled that down to $5.9 million. Some of them we have to get done (soon); some we can push off to the future,” Moosey explained. “With that, we can reduce our capital by $3.09 million. There’s also half-a-million we use as a match for RSA dust control, so I think we can credibly save $3.76 million by pushing things to not this budget. That leaves $1.9 million to cut.”

Having already denied all cost of living increases for borough employees, instituting a soft hiring freeze and cutting all non-essential overtime, Moosey said, he’s not sure where else to cut.

“We’re looking at other areas where we can reduce that, but I do not believe I can get a whole $1.9 million from just these items,” Moosey said, reminding the audience that the $8 to $9 million in savings from recent years of plenty have been invested into keeping property taxes low.

Assembly member Jim Sykes said the decisions needn’t be made hastily, and should include public input.

“We have the opportunity to welcome the public in. Our budget process, which starts in January, needs to be a more open one, both for us and the general public,” Sykes said. “I think we have some time to source this out.”

Sykes later added that he didn’t want to see raised property taxes as part of the solution. Assembly member Randall Kowalke suggested that the borough look at cutting excesses in borough staffing and automobile fleet.

Assembly members asked, and borough mayor Vern Halter tasked Moosey with forming estimates for various ways of increasing revenue and cutting expenses for the borough’s next meeting on Aug. 2.