Mat-Su Borough begins budget season

PALMER — Budget season has officially started for the Mat-Su Borough and, at least for now, it seems departments are holding the line on spending, or proposing funding cuts.

“Do we actually have enough employees to do the job we’re asking them to do?” Borough Assemblyman Jim Sykes asked Borough Manager John Moosey on Tuesday morning during a series of presentations from department heads about their various budgets.

“I don’t think I have a single division that could not use more help,” Moosey replied.

So, here’s a few numbers gleaned from the budget — available in all its glory, along with supporting documents, at bit.ly/1r3EWDj:

• Moosey has proposed a budget of just over $403 million.

• Last year’s budget was almost $423 million.

• This year’s budget equates to 10.052 mills, or $2,010.40 in tax on a $200,000 home. The assembly could choose to tax up to 10.62 mills without seeking voter approval.

The budget breaks down into subcategories:

• $269 million is headed to the school district.

• Of that school money, $51 million is proposed to come from local tax dollars. The lion's share comes from the state legislature.

• Nearly $56 million will go to borough government operations.

• $34 million is slated to pay down debt on the borough’s various bonds.

• $10 million is divided up among the various fire service areas

• $11 million among the road service areas; and nearly $10 million for the landfill, port and ferry funds.

As for what the various divisions said about their budgets, Moosey, who oversees the administration division, said he was asking for elimination of one full-time position.

Eileen Probasco, who is in charge of planning at the borough, said the budget, as proposed, leaves her no money to pay overtime to planners attending community council meetings and no money to beef up community council mailings. She said there would make it difficult to implement the newly created storm water management plan.

There also would be no money for the borough’s Fish and Wildlife Commission to travel. The commission was one of the borough’s main bragging points this year, as it won hard-fought concessions from the state board controlling fish allocations.

In the capital projects division, manager Mike Brown is asking for a position to help secure land on which to build borough capital projects, and a project manager that he would share with the landfill.

He proposed staying in the department’s current home — a building in downtown Palmer that belongs to the University of Alaska and is colloquially known as the Kremlin. A year’s lease is $89,000, but Brown said he’s got a lot of work slated for this summer with multiple schools and roads under construction.

“I don’t think this summer is the right time to move the department,” he said.

From Port MacKenzie, Port Director Marc Van Dongen said that he’s implementing a plan to provide protection on the pilings that support the borough’s docks. That protection requires electricity, thus necessitating more than $100,000 in extra electric bills at the port.

In Animal Care and Regulation, Assistant Borough Manager George Hayes handled the presentation duties — manager Carol Vardeman was out of state — and said that the staffing changes included dividing one part-time job into two minimum wage jobs. He said the shelter has a large cadre of volunteers. If they were all paid minimum wage for their work it would cost the borough $8,600 a month. He said the shelter is asking for two new or upgraded vehicles. Each patrol vehicle is driven about 22,000 miles each year, and that’s only responding to the calls they’re able to get to.

“We don’t have enough manpower to do all the calls we’re called out on,” Hayes said.

At public works, manager Terry Dolan said the landfill is seeking a new $250,000 scale and a new $50,000 pumping system for leachate, neither of which were funded in the budget, though there was $75,000 to get the process moving on getting a scale.

Leachate is a liquid that flows out of the bottom of a pile of trash. The borough used to be able to let it seep into the ground, but rules have changed.

Currently, the borough collects it and hauls it to Anchorage. That city has a permit to dump minimally treated septage and leachate into Cook Inlet. But there are worries that permit might not last forever, and the administration there has asked the borough to find another way to dispose of it.

Dolan’s plan was for a pumping system to put the water back on top of the pile.

“I guess the question is, ‘really? We can just sprinkle it back on the landfill?’” assemblyman Ron Arvin asked.

Dolan answered that the Fairbanks Northstar Borough is doing it that way now.

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