Nix to nonprofits

PALMER — Mat-Su Borough Mayor Larry DeVilbiss has set his budget-cutting sights on matching grants for local nonprofits, prompting some to cry foul.

“The long and the short of it is I’ve got a pretty short list of things that I’ll spend tax money on,” DeVilbiss said. He said that list is education, roads and emergency services.

The program in question is a statewide one, called the Human Services Matching Grant Program. Nonprofits apply and the state picks which ones qualify and hands over grants. But the state only pays 70 percent of the total; the rest is supposed to be paid by the borough. So, organizations don’t get their money unless the borough is on board.

The state doesn’t decide which organizations get grants until sometime in the fall, DeVilbiss said. The letter he sent to Mat-Su legislators is essentially fair warning for what he plans to do. They’ll probably need to change state law if they want to keep giving money without a local match and will need time to do that, he said.

The move has sparked a small effort on Facebook, first to boycott his business and then switching to an effort to recall him from office.

DeVilbiss said people can lose their homes for not paying their taxes and he’s not willing to decide to do that to someone in order to pay for a service the borough wouldn’t fund outright.

“That’s what it comes down to, is what are you willing to put somebody out on the street for and that’s what sets my tax policy,” he said.

According to a borough press release, the list of organizations that received the grants in Fiscal Year 2010 is relatively short, but has a lot of big names on it. The Palmer and Wasilla senior centers are there. Last year, the borough’s contribution fell somewhere between $10,000 and $35,000 for each group. Most received more than $25,000. Overall, $376,000 worth of borough funds went to the nonprofits. The rest of the list of organizations receiving grants includes: Wasilla Food Pantry, Mat-Su Services for Children and Adults, Family Promise Mat-Su, Access Alaska, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Alaska, Alaska Legal Services Corp., Alaska Addiction Rehabilitation Services, CCS Early Learning, Alaska Center for Resource Families, Alzheimer’s Disease Resource Agency of Alaska and the Mat-Valley Community Charities Agency.

The Mat-Su Service District of the American Red Cross of Alaska is also on the list.

“It’s a big part of our budget. It truly is a part of what makes us able to provide disaster response services to our Mat-Su community,” said the district’s director, Linzi Rothermel. “We only really have one other grant from United Way of Mat-Su.”

She said that if the Mat-Su district didn’t have that state and borough money it would have to find something to replace it so it could still help people whose homes burn down or are affected by natural disasters.

“It certainly would be hard for us,” Rothermel said. “It’s great when you get support from your local organizations for local response. It says a lot about us caring for our community.”

The mayor doesn’t generally vote on agenda items as they move through the assembly, but DeVilbiss said he could — and will — use his veto power to strike the matching funds out of the budget. Though other mayors haven’t used it much, DeVilbiss said he believes, and the borough attorney agrees with him, that the mayor can veto specific items from ordinances without vetoing the whole thing. Of course, the assembly can always override his veto.

“I’m not presuming that I would (survive) an override on that, that I would sustain the veto,” he said.

The debate has sparked some pretty heated words, at least in e-mails and on Facebook. Local activist Jamey Duhamel started a social networking page urging residents to boycott DeVilbiss’ farm and the carrots he grows there. The effort quickly switched focus to instead advocate his recall from office.

“Please help send a message to this mayor that if he doesn’t care about us, we don’t need him making decisions on our behalf,” the page states.

DeVilbiss said he’s aware of the recall talk.

“It’s something I would be glad to be recalled for,” he said. “I’m not opposed to these charitable nonprofits. Some of them are organizations that I support privately, but I don’t think it’s charitable to force a property owner to make a contribution to a charitable nonprofit.”

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