Schools gain others face cuts in borough budget

PALMER — The final word on the Mat-Su Borough’s budget for next year: More money for schools, less for a number of other borough departments.

In the end, the borough assembly voted to decrease residents’ property tax burden ever so slightly. This year’s mill levy is 9.98. Next year it will be 9.956.

Having spent three meetings deliberating the budget, the assembly wound up Tuesday afternoon staring down a roomful of first responders. There had been an attempt to cut the ambulance budget. But by the time the dust cleared, the paramedics and EMTs wound up with a 6 percent pay increase.

Comparing one item in the budget to another, Assemblyman Mark Ewing pointed out “these people that are going to save my life are paid less than a librarian’s assistant.”

Still, Borough Manager John Duffy pointed out bringing those positions into parity with other employees would have required a 10 percent increase in wages.

As for the cuts, the assembly chose to give less money to the Animal Care and Regulation Department than Duffy had recommended. The assembly chopped funds out of Duffy’s recommendation for the shelter’s supplies budget and $50,000 from what he recommended for staffing.

“We’re reverting back to the funding levels of the old facility,” said animal care chief Bob Haskell. “Double the animals, triple the space, that’s what we would be doing with one extra temporary worker.”

Among the starkest warnings Duffy gave, though, came when the assembly considered a motion from Assemblyman Ron Arvin to eliminate overtime wages in nearly every borough department.

“You’ll see a very drastic change in what we are able to accomplish,” Duffy said.

He said the borough has heard loud and clear the assembly’s directive not to add any new staff positions. Part of the way staff manages to do as much as it does, Duffy said, is by putting in long hours.

But Arvin defended his cut.

“This is belt-tightening,” he said. “The borough needs to be smaller. It needs to be leaner, and this is how you do it.”

In the end, the vote came to a tie. Borough Mayor Talis Colberg broke that tie and saved the overtime wages. But, when the deliberations ended, he used a veto to cut half of the overtime wages from the departments of administration, law, human resources, information technology, finance, planning, community development, animal care, economic development and solid waste. He also cut nearly half of what was requested for public works.

And last, but not least, the economic development department saw drastic cutbacks when its proposed budget was hacked from more than $500,000 down to about $214,000.

Arvin had moved, initially, to get rid of the department entirely.

“The reason why is the borough is not in the business of economic development. The private sector is,” he said.

But Assemblywoman Cindy Bettine stood up for economic development, wondering why, if the borough isn’t in that business, the borough is building a prison, has built a port and is getting a ferry.

And where did all of this budget slashing lead? The assembly voted to give the school district $3.25 million more than Duffy had suggested.

Colberg said he didn’t plan to issue any vetoes. But he didn’t necessarily like what he saw in the school district.

“I am troubled by the school district’s growth of budget,” Colberg said, adding that in a few short years the district’s budget had added $63 million. “I worry about what in the long run the school district is getting used to.”

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