Tuesday, June 18, 2013

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Anchorage Budget Passes
Several threatened items survive assembly vote
By Kate McPherson
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ANCHORAGE - A few months ago, the city faced a $30 million budget shortfall.

Tuesday night, the Anchorage Assembly passed a $475 million budget with fewer cuts than expected.

Mayor Dan Sullivan says people won't notice a disruption in city services and programs next year -- though department heads were faced with tough decisions in order to balance their budgets.

There was a little relief with an additional $7 million available from property taxes collected in the spring of this year.

That's on top of an additional $12 million that originally would've gone to the Anchorage School District, but due to recent changes in state law, can be spent elsewhere.

Fire Department

One of the big concerns was the potential closure of Fire Station 15 - which services the Southport Drive area. Station 15 will remain open and fully funded.

Truck 11 in Eagle River was also saved from the chopping block but the Anchorage Firefighters Union says Tender 9 -- a special truck that takes water to emergencies where there are no fire hydrants -- is not fully funded next year.

"It’s a single driver driving a water tender to an emergency, so not a particularly expensive apparatus to keep open, so it was discouraging that we weren't able to keep that open through the entire year,” said Nick Glorioso with the Anchorage Firefighters Union.

Tender 9 at Huffman will be taken offline on days when the AFD is short-staffed.

“There is not one single piece of equipment within the AFD or within the Anchorage area that is expendable,” said Glorioso.

Tasers

The Anchorage Assembly also dedicated $300,000 for the Anchorage Police Department to buy new tasers.

Chief Mark Mew says around 60 new tasers will be bought and old ones replaced.

When the purchases are made, two-thirds of officers on patrol will be carrying a taser. Mew says he wants to continue to be ‘conservative’ with the rollout of tasers so that proper training of officers is completed.

"So that's why we didn't just throw open the door and say “hey tasers for everybody” and just hand them all out,” said Chief Mew.

Mew is also being cautious about public perception of tasers.

"I'm not implying that there's anything wrong with them; what I'm saying is that it's been controversial technology around the country."

Youth Court

The Anchorage Youth Court was going to lose 40 percent of its operating budget under Mayor Sullivan’s budget proposal. But the assembly decided to reinstate the $205,000 for next year.

The funding is "one time only" -- and Wednesday, Mayor Sullivan announced he wants to transfer the financial responsibility from the municipality to the state under the Division of Juvenile Justice.

And there's good news for people who use the bus system on Sunday: People Mover will not be cutting Sunday service.