Waste on council's plate this budget season

The Mat-Su Borough Landfill

The biggest loser in the City of Palmer’s proposed budget involves solid waste instead of waistlines.

As reflected in the proposed budget presented in mid-October by city manager Doug Griffin, the Solid Waste fund reflects a deficit of $102,295 for 2013. Chalk it up to flat revenues and a "significant increase in tipping fees at the Borough Landfill in each of the last two years,” Griffin states. “This highlights a need for a review of solid waste rates to get this service back to at least a break-even enterprise operation.”

The manager otherwise anticipates small spending increases throughout the budget plus a nearly $200,000 general fund surplus, according to a written summary. An exception: The Fire Department budget increases more 15 percent, from $604,221 to $715,586, including a substantial compensation increase for volunteer fire fighters. The Greater Palmer Fire Service Association will pay half of the salary increase. 

Animal Control expenditures will also increase significantly, from $4,000 to $16,000. The budget was increased to account for proposed increases in shelter fees that the Mat-Su Borough is planning, although the contract is not yet finalized, according to the budget summary. 

A few slightly larger increases would bring the deputy clerk up to full time - an 8 percent increase from this year - and hire a part-time assistant for the airport manager. 

And in one of the most hotly discussed aspects of the budget, employee health insurance, Griffin suggests that employees now totally covered by the city move to an 80/20 plan “with relatively modest deductibles. If premiums increase 11 percent or less, employees will still not have to contribute, he said. 

In other waste-related news, the city council on Tuesday night approved spending $58,338 on a water/wastewater service rate study by consultant HDR. The city got a grant from the Legislature to fund a rate study. 

Check out the manager's budget at the city's Web site,

-- Zaz Hollander

Smoke 'em if you got 'em (until the new year)

Voters passed a smoking ban this month, with 60 percent of voters in favor of the measure. So are smokers in local bars being asked to stub it out?

Not quite yet, said city manager Doug Griffin. The measure goes into effect in January.

Griffin said city leaders will meet with business owners in the next month or so to answer questions and help them understand what’s expected under the new rules. They’ll also be answering questions about two other recently passed city ordinances – one changing business license rules and one changing how the city sales tax is remitted. More on those later.

The smoking ban doesn’t just focus on bars – it prohibits smoking in any business where the public might have access. That’s the garage of your favorite auto shop, the wash bay at the car wash, pretty much anywhere that is not your personal vehicle or property, Griffin said. Standing on a stoop outside the door doesn’t pass muster either; smokers have to be at least 20 feet away from entrances and also 20 feet away from playgrounds or outdoor seating before they light up. The distance jumps to 50 feet outside health clinics. Places where alcohol is served get a small break; smokers must only be 10 feet away from their doors.

Get caught smoking in the wrong spot and you could get stung in the wallet – up to $100 for the first infraction and $300 if you get caught three times in two years. What’s more, if someone spots a smoker in violation, they can take it to court and get up to $300 from the wayward smoker.

Businesses are required to tell smokers to scram, and to report violators if they don’t. Griffin said he wasn’t sure whether a business could be held liable for people violating the smoking ban on their premises. If a business had posted a “no smoking within 20 feet of the entrance” sign and had done all it was required to do, then probably not, but he’d have to run that question by the city attorney. He also said he’d check on whether the city is going to require signs prohibiting smoking be posted – if so, city employees may be making signs to hand out to businesses, he said.

Griffin said the measure is based on one in Juneau that has weathered legal challenges. 

The other two issues Griffin plans to meet with business leaders about focus on recent changes to city business license and sales tax collection rules.

In September, the council agreed to add a few options for people doing business in the city. Business owners will be able to get two-year licenses, just like the state of Alaska provides, or they can get a license for a three-day event, such as Colony Days. The council also created a state fair business license.

Fees for the new licenses haven’t been set – that’s something the council will do when it considers the city budget next month. But Griffin said he’s not recommending any changes. A yearly city business license currently runs $25; he’ll suggest the biennial license be $50, he said. For the shorter licenses, it’s a matter of finding a fair number. The three-day license might be $10, he said.

“We’re trying to find a sweet spot here, of getting them in (to buy a license),” he said.

Griffin said he’s also trying to make sure businesses are on equal footing – a weekend operator shouldn’t get an advantage over a year-round business.

Paired with the business license changes are new rules for sales tax collection. Currently, any business operating in the city – including vendors only working during the fair – have to submit monthly sales tax reports. Forgetting a report could cost $20, even if no business has been conducted.

The changes set up several tiers of duty for business owners. Businesses doing between $100,000 and $250,000 in taxable sales will be able to submit quarterly sales tax returns and sellers making fewer than $100,000 in taxable sales can submit twice a year. State fair vendors can turn in just one tax report, in October, and special event vendors can turn their reports in the month after their event ends. Businesses doing more than $250,000 in taxable sales will have to turn in monthly reports.

Griffin said the measure aims to streamline reporting and make it easier for businesses and city employees. Processing $0 monthly reports in December from a business owner who operated a booth at the fair ends up being a “needless paper chase, wasting their time and ours,” he said.

Keep an eye on the Greater Palmer Chamber of Commerce schedule for a city presentation about the new rules. Their web site is here.

-- Rindi White

Avs depart ice arena, leaving city with seats to fill

Palmer has lost its junior-league hockey team after spending $1.1 million on a major upgrade to the MTA Events Center that coincided with the Alaska Avalanche's move to the city two seasons ago.

Photo courtesy of the City of Palmer
A Zamboni smooths the ice at the MTA Events Center




 

Last month, the North American Hockey League approved the sale of the Alaska Avalanche to a Johnstown, Pa., partnership. Team owner Mark Lee didn’t respond to an interview request, but the team had logged declining attendance numbers despite two strong seasons. Lee is an investor and co-owner of the new team.

The Avalanche left Wasilla’s Curtis C. Menard II Memorial Ice Arena in 2010. That year, Palmer's city council agreed to arena improvements like new locker rooms, hundreds more seats to meet hockey league standards, an office and equipment storage. Some $400,000 from the Legislature helped pay for the project. Lee promised to pay the city $50,000 toward the upgrades as part of the team’s agreement with the city. 

Lee still owes the city at least $25,000, city manager Doug Griffin said this week. The team also got a reduced rate on ice time for practices and games, though the city shouldn't have trouble selling any leftover time at the popular rink. 

The city is trying to find an "amicable solution" to Lee's financial obligations, said Palmer Mayor DeLena Johnson. City officials this week were looking into what Lee still owes and whether any benefits the city got from the team might offset what’s owed. 

Hockey team or not, the city is still hoping to finish the project that started with the arrival of the Avalanche. 

The team's departure comes even as the city waits on another $725,000 in state funds to finish the third phase of the MTA center expansion. 


Officials last year requested another $500,000 from the state to install an elevator, generators, complete an outdoor canopy and increase arena seating to 1,100. Now that the Avs are gone, it seems the legislative appropriation would be moot, right?


No, city officials say. The upgrades to the arena weren't just for the team, Johnson said. The improvements also benefit future users of the soccer fields outside. The 3-year-old fields still need to green up and aren't playable yet - maybe by late summer, the mayor said - but once they are, players and fans will be able to access locker rooms and restrooms. The mayor also hopes to host future Palmer High School graduations at the arena.


And there's a new emphasis on a potential emergency-response role for the center that comes with a bit of an ick factor. 


A few months ago, the city council amended the description of the center's expansion plans to include emergency response.


On the recommendation of the office of the late Rep. Carl Gatto, the city in February changed its state capital request to include $225,000 for a backup generator, bringing the total request for the MTA center to $725,000.


The city in March adopted a resolution revising its description of the MTA expansion: “As the City becomes more aware of what community assets are needed to address major disasters and emergencies, it has become apparent that the MTA Events Center could fulfill a specific need for the Palmer area as an Evacuation Staging Point, Logistical Supply Staging Area, or Mass Fatality Storage and Processing Facility.”

"Mass Fatality Storage and Processing Facility"??? Yikes. Let's hope that need doesn't arise any time soon.

Barring disaster, the city is working to diversity the uses of the arena. Coming this Friday, May 12: roller derby. The Denali Destroyer Dolls take on the Rage City Rollergirls, with doors opening at 6 p.m. In another upcoming, albeit much more tame event, the city will hold a "Capital Project Fair" from 4 p.m. until 7 p.m. on May 18 at the center.

The mayor said she's confident the arena will continue to serve the public. The loss of the Avs contract bothers her less, she said, than the loss of the "community-building" that accompanied the team's presence in Palmer.

"It bothers me more to lose the enthusiasm. People came in and were excited about having a home team," Johnson said.


-- Zaz Hollander

The message on the Web site of the Junior "A" hockey team
formerly known as the Alaska Avalanche. The new owner
has yet to pick a name for the Pennsylvania-bound team.

Tough budget passes

Ladies and gentlemen, Palmer has a 2012 budget -- $14,357,622.


But that number comes with a cost, which includes two layoffs and several vacant city positions going unfilled in the coming year. 

Basically, Mayor DeLena Johnson and city manager Doug Griffin told the Post today, the city juggled a couple of complications while still recovering from several years of pricey capital projects and little money in reserve. The city’s general fund is actually down from last year by more than 5 percent, the mayor said. 

The city council emerged just before midnight Tuesday after passing a budget made tricky by at least two factors. 

Number one, a state retirement fund policy could require the city to pay retirement costs even for eliminated employees, Johnson said. That left the city very mindful of eliminating employees and adding positions. 

“We were very careful to not add any kind of permanent additional positions and we didn’t increase our personnel as much,” she said. “We didn’t give step increases.”

Number two, the insurance carrier that covers city employees waited until just a few weeks before the budget was drafted to drop a bomb: health insurance costs are going up by 16 percent next year, according to city manager Doug Griffin. He’d figured on what he thought was a conservative 10 percent increase. The city’s employees are insured through the Alaska Public Utilities Insurance Trust, a fairly small pool of some municipalities and utility companies. Nobody is saying what steps the city will take to remedy the increase -- switch carriers, increase premiums?

But in the meantime, the surprise cost forced the council to take that extra 6 percent out of the rest of the budget. 

The city cut two positions - a grants coordinator and a quality assurance inspector - both related to a run of capital projects in the last few years, officials said. The city also didn’t fill one electrician/maintenance position and left an administrative assistant position at the Palmer Library at 15 hours per week rather than boosting it to full time. The last amendment of the night - there were more than 30 - cut all out-of-state travel, Johnson said. 

One bright spot, according to the mayor, is the fact that the council managed to build a more than two-month reserve into the general fund, despite this tough budget cycle. “We’re being careful and we’re coming back,” Johnson said. “It’ll allow us next year to be able to start to decide what to spend money on instead of looking at it and deciding what we have to cut out.”

-- Zaz Hollander