Wasilla begins budget process

WASILLA -- The Wasilla City Council began reviewing the Fiscal Year 2005 budget at Monday's special budget meeting and will reconvene at its regular council meeting May 24 to continue reviewing each department's budget.

Many departments in the city of Wasilla have been asked to use a zero-based budgeting process, a practice started during Mayor Sarah Palin's administration and continued with Mayor Dianne Keller's administration. Zero-based budgeting requires the department heads to clearly identify where every cent will be spent, and leaves no individual department contingency fund if the budget comes up short.

"In zero-based budgeting, the total general government budget is at the level of last year's budget, we're absorbing new costs for this year," said Wasilla finance director Ted Leonard.

Keller continued with zero-based budgeting in an attempt to have departments, including her own, use the least amount of funding with the highest returns.

"Zero-based budgeting holds accountability," Keller said.

The council began reviewing the budget line by line last week, but then decided to review the budget section by section to save time, with time at the end of each department section to request information on any specific line item.

The council has penciled in a number of changes to the budget, which will be finalized in the upcoming weeks, including a larger travel fund for the future economic development director, from $2,500 to $8,000.

"I'd support even more for economic development, but this is a great start," said Council Member Noel Lowe.

The council agreed that the economic development director, set to be hired sometime in the next year, needed to be able to travel out of state for the city of Wasilla to be competitive with other towns vying for new businesses.

A review of the Wasilla Police Department's FY 2005 budget brought up questions of whether zero-based budgeting would work for the police department, which can sometimes incur costs that are impossible to foresee.

"One significant criminal case can cost many, many thousands of dollars that we have not planned for," said WPD Chief Don Savage.

Leonard explained to the council that the city hopes that extra costs can be absorbed into the already established budget.

"If we come up against something that isn't normal, we would try to find a way to pay for it out of our budget," Leonard said.

In case of a cost that cannot be absorbed, the council can approve funds out of the general fund, which works as the entire city's contingency fund. But that requires a waiting period of two council meetings. In case of a cost that cannot wait for the two-session process for the council to approve, such as costs due to a natural disaster or high-profile criminal case, the mayor has purchasing authority over the budget, and can come back to the council to explain the cost. If the cost dips the general fund to under the minimum balance allowed by city ordinance, the mayor must provide a plan to refund the general fund to bring it back to more than the minimum, which is $3,641,538. The general fund balance is currently $3,883,257.

The council to date has reviewed the clerk and council budget, the mayor's budget, general administration services budget, finance budget, the management information services budget, the economic development budget and the police budget. The council will review the rest of the budget, including budgets compiled by public works, youth court and the Multi-Use Sports Complex, during Monday's regular council meeting at 7 p.m. and a special budget meeting at 6 p.m. Wednesday night.

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