Mayoral vetoes rejected

June 11, 2006

By DAWN DE BUSK

Frontiersman

PALMER - The Mat-Su Borough mayor threw the assembly a curve ball two hours before Tuesday's meeting when he filed five line-item vetoes in an effort to lop nearly $2 million from the proposed budget, which assembly members thought had been completed on May 25.

According to borough code, Mayor Tim Anderson is required to submit in writing any veto and the reasons behind it before the next regular meeting after the assembly passes a motion. Anderson was absent during Tuesday's meeting because he was on a consulting and developing job in Juneau, he said Thursday.

Of the five vetoes, the assembly upheld only one, which cuts $100,000 from the amount budgeted to keep 10 borough schools open during the summer.

The borough had miscalculated the amount needed.

Anderson said he spent the week after Memorial Day weekend with school district staff working on a way to keep open some area schools for summertime use.

At the time, he discovered the operating cost was $50,000 - instead of the $150,000 the assembly had appropriated.

Once Borough Manager John Duffy confirmed $50,000 as the correct amount, assembly members unanimously supported the mayor's veto.

The other four vetoes, which the majority of the assembly voted to override, warranted a little more discussion.

If all the vetoes had been OK'd, the mill rate would have been reduced for 2007, and individual property owners would pay $50 less for the year, Anderson said.

The way the vetoes had been presented irked some assembly members.

&#8220These vetoes are attached to a press release. If these are things important to the mayor, they should have been discussed, instead of tinkered with in the form of a press release,” assembly member Bill Allen said.

Fellow assembly member Cindy Bettine agreed.

&#8220This is most inconvenient to deal with at 4:15 p.m. before the 6 p.m. meeting, after spending hours and hours and hours on the budget,” she said.

She was discussing veto No. 5, which would have slashed $200,000 from 11 borough departments. The cuts would not have affected salaries and would allow department heads or the borough manager to decide where cuts should be made.

&#8220I think these little amounts should have been taken out while we were discussing them. I'm all for property-tax relief, but not to the detriment of the people,” Bettine said, expressing particular concern over emergency services losing $20,000 and public works dealing with a $26,000 loss.

Assembly member Betty Vehrs expressed sympathy for taxpayers.

&#8220I don't think we did that good of a job on our budget, when people are still calling and e-mailing me complaining about mill rates and property taxes,” she said.

&#8220Their idea of our good job and our idea of our good job might be different when they're writing out their checks.”

To be a little easier on her constituents' budgets, Vehrs supported four of the mayors' mill-rate-reducing vetoes.

Other veto items shot down by the assembly:

€ Anderson suggested in veto No. 2, splitting into three phases the $1.5 million project to remodel the old school district administration building in Palmer.

That would have decreased the 2007 budget by $1 million. Allen said it was short-sighted on the part of the mayor to remove from the budget a valuable asset like reconstruction of an administrative building, when the population is growing and construction costs are rising.

The assembly voted to override the veto, with only deputy mayor Jim Colver backing it.

€ Veto No. 4 would have removed $400,000 from a $750,000 emergency-reserve fund. The Millers Reach Fire alone cost $750,000, money which was reimbursed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency five years later, Duffy said. Only Colver and Vehrs supported the veto.

€ Veto No. 3 called for cutting in half the $500,000 reserve fund for repairs and renovations. That would have saved taxpayers $250,000. Allen said if the borough faces major maintenance or renovation projects, but the reserve is too small, ultimately the bill gets overwhelming and taxpayers are strapped with the debt. Again, only Colver and Vehrs voted to support the veto.

Colver said he was disappointed with his colleagues' votes.

&#8220The assembly hasn't had the discipline or the restraint to lower the budget,” he said following the meeting.

&#8220The mayor had a tough job. I congratulate him for stepping up for tax relief. It would have been helpful if he was here to defend his decisions. Maybe the votes would have turned out different.”

Contact Dawn De Busk at

352-2252, or dawn.debusk@

frontiersman.com.