Wasilla council delves deep into city budget

Government entities are often offered up as grist for the political mill for frivolous spending of the public’s hard-earned cash. We are used to hearing about abuses such as lavish junkets to tropical locations on the public dime, or wasteful spending on studies that don’t seem to make much sense.

That’s why we are pleased to see the Wasilla City Council has taken its fine-tooth comb to the city’s proposed fiscal year 2014 budget. Mayor Verne Rupright and his administration prepared a $36 million proposal that sparked a flood of responses from city council members.

In fact, the council proposed 57 amendments to the budget recommending a host of cuts and changes, including personnel, how to handle city vehicle use and the overall size of city government. While not all amendments made their way into the proposed budget, they did help pare the document down to about $29 million. That includes removing $8.2 million in a request to the state for a new library and adding about $4.5 million in state funds for sewage treatment and road improvements.

That the city council would not simply rubber-stamp the city’s budget and really delved deeply into just how the city is spending and where that money is coming from is a great sign for Wasilla. That’s not saying we think Rupright or his staff presented a bad budget. Far from it.

One area of particular concern for council members was the budget for the Curtis D. Menard Memorial Sports Center. It has one of the largest budgets for the city at more than $1.1 million, and historically has been supplemented with $500,000 or more from the city’s general fund.

While it may seem unrealistic to expect the sports center to ever fully fund itself without any appropriation from the general fund, narrowing that $600,000-plus gap is a priority. We’re pleased the council and administration are on board with greater scrutiny of this area of the budget and that they seem to appreciate that “wishing” for more revenue to magically appear isn’t a viable solution.

When the council is asked May 13 to approve a $29 million budget for FY 2014, that will include a directive for Cultural and Recreation Services Manager John Combs to come back to council within 90 days with a realistic and attainable plan for how the sports center can pull more of its own weight.

After watching our dysfunctional federal lawmakers try to plot a course through the budget process, it’s refreshing to see this sort of accountability and follow-through from city of Wasilla leaders.