Planning ahead pays off

WASILLA - While the City of Wasilla finance department employees may be scratching their heads trying to figure out how to best finance the Wasilla Public Library for 2005, they appear to be doing a little less hair pulling, compared to other areas in the state when it comes to state funding, or the lack thereof.

"We're a lot better off than some other communities," said Ted Leonard, Wasilla's finance director. "We are going to be able to absorb cuts without lowering services."

Wasilla's policy on funding has been performance-based -- before any service or department receives more funding, the question "What are we getting out of the increase?" is posed by department heads. The city has been looking at the possibility of less funding since the state began warning of increases in retirement and insurance costs three years ago.

"The reason we have pretty much been able to absorb this, except for the library cut, is because we've known about it for three years," Leonard said. "The black cloud has been seen for a while."

While the reduction of funds from the Matanuska-Susitna Borough for the library -- also due to state funding issues -- was a bit more of a surprise, city officials have been taking steps in order to keep other city services without upping the costs.

"We look at grant-funded positions, knowing we will have to eventually fund them with tax dollars," Leonard said. "Once you have positions funded by grants, when the grants go away, the positions are usually still there."

Wasilla has not only reviewed grant positions with a sharp eye, employees have taken other steps in order to streamline funding. Contracting services, realigning positions and automating tax collections have all contributed to the cleaner, and less hectic, movement into a less government-funded budget.

"It looks like our plans are going to pay off for us," Leonard said.

Contact Jen Ransom at jen.ransom@frontiersman.com.