Voting concerns among issues at Palmer City Council meeting

PALMER—Budget priorities for 2018 topped the agenda for the Palmer City Council’s Aug. 8 regular meeting. Most of the discussion centered on capital improvement projects and the other areas where the city is experiencing growth.

City Manager Nathan Wallace gave a PowerPoint presentation reviewing budget numbers and spoke on several major infrastructure projects. City Clerk Norma Alley focused on three areas of concern — electronic archiving of records, voting machines and the need for additional help in the clerk’s office.

Alley said the city is at a pivot point regarding records archiving.

“We are maxing out in archive files and archive rooms,” said Alley. She said effective this December, the city police department will not have additional room to store such data and will have to start paying for off-site storage. “The closest (facility) we have is (in) Anchorage.”

Alley said if the council decides to go that route, there are additional concerns such as losing custody of city records, accessibility, transportation and monthly maintenance fees. Alley suggested the council consider going to an electronic storage system. The initial startup fee is approximately $52,000 but would drop to about $2,000 annually after that.

“It’s a matter of a one-time fee,” Alley said.

She felt moving to electronic storage would also allow the city to provide more accessibility to the public and free up current employee time spent researching and locating requested documents.

Moving to annual elections, Alley said that currently the state’s equipment is dilapidated and outdated. The city utilizes state election equipment and Alley said she feels it can do so again next year, but the city should be ready to move on its own by 2020. The need, Alley said, derives from the fact that Alaska legislators did not budget funding for replacement equipment in the recently passed budget. Further, she said there is talk that Alaska may go to a vote-by-mail system.

“We need to address this as a city because the state is basically on hold,” Alley told the council. She said it is waiting to see what direction the state’s municipalities are going to take. “That cost is now on us.”

When asked what the city would get for the investment, Alley said the initial cost figure includes four Accu-vote machines, six memory cards, ballot boxes, poll booths, tables and other related equipment. Once the initial investment is made, Alley said at this point, she estimates recurring annual costs of $5,000-$6,000.

“It’s very preliminary at this point to see how numbers are really panning out…I do think it can be tightened up,” Alley said.

In a related item, Alley said the city will not have a borough ballot for the October elections and believes this marks the first time ever this has occurred. She said because of the way the school board has been aligned — to match the borough assembly districts — voting will be a little different for people this year. Additionally, the borough does much of the administration and coordinating of elections which will fall back on the city. Alley said in past elections where there was a borough question on the ballot, it split the costs of election officials, which will not happen this year.

Alley said at this point, she believes there will be no borough ballots available at city precincts for people who may live in other Mat-Su locations but want to vote at a city precinct. The clerk will be attending an upcoming borough meeting to discuss those and other topics and will report her findings back to the council.

“We need an administrative assistant now,” said Alley about her third request. “With the current workload and workflow, management is falling more and more behind.”

Alley said she would like to see an annual $19,000 earmarked for a permanent, part-time assistant. She felt it would allow current employees more opportunity to focus on their jobs and help quash a backlog of public requests such as documents and records.

Council members said they were pleased with Wallace’s pragmatic look at the 2018 budget. Wallace said next year’s budget numbers are relatively stable despite an expected flat growth in income. He said the city is lean as far as personnel goes and that about 70 percent of the approximate $10 million goes for that.

“It’s the nature of business,” Wallace told the council. The manager said he anticipates flat revenues in both the city sales tax and property taxes. “That’s the direction we’re going to be going (in finalizing a budget).”

Wallace noted the city tightened its budget somewhat and there are expected to be fewer excess funds to work with for next year’s numbers.

“We’re not spending more, but we budgeted a little less. That’s why I don’t think we’ll grow our reserve as much,’ said Wallace.

Going through revenue sources, Wallace noted that about 26 percent of the city budget is not derived from either above-mentioned tax source. Councilman Brad Hanson was concerned that most of that difference came from grant sources, which he felt will continue drying up. Wallace said most of that figure is from capital projects, which is a secure source and a large chunk of it comes from the borough.

“We’ve got a good handle on about 20 percent of that,” Wallace said. “The other 5-6 percent is based on historical data to back it up…I don’t think we’re overlooking anything.”

Reviewing this year’s major infrastructure improvement projects, Wallace said the new wastewater treatment facility construction is going well. He said the floor is poured and walls are going up.

“If you drive by, you’ll see lots of rebar in place. It’s well on its way,” said the manager, adding that federal officials are pleased with the progress to date.

Two other projects, the refurbished runway at the city airport, along with the Glenn and Palmer-Wasilla Highway improvements, are also on track. Wallace said both are fast-paced with deadlines which is leading to double-shifts. Some residents have voiced concerns about late-evening noise and Wallace said the city has requested that second-shift noise be kept as quiet as possible.

Contact reporter Chris Ford at 352-2270 or chris.ford@frontiersman.com