PALMER -- The Matanuska-Susitna Borough Assembly has approved a 2017 budget that holds the borough property tax rate flat in the state's fastest-growing population area.
The roughly $400 million budget approved Thursday night by the Assembly included a 6 percent increase for schools, increased local taxing rates for two fire departments and money to help fund two new drug enforcement positions. A raise for the Assembly and the borough mayor failed to pass.
Beset by a port that's costing more than it earns and an unused, almost-sold passenger ferry deep in the red, the borough couldn't afford to create any new positions, not even a part-time addition to animal control.
But the Assembly did approve a $100,000 block grant sought by the mayors of Palmer and Wasilla and an Alaska State Trooper to help fund two police officer positions to combat the spread of heroin. The drug is leading to medical calls for overdose and OD deaths, as well as a wave of property crime in Mat-Su.
"Drug sales will affect you -- it doesn't matter where you live," Wasilla Mayor Bert Cottle told the Assembly Thursday night before the budget vote.
Cottle said the cities need a total of $260,000 to hire two new officers for the drug unit currently staffed by three Alaska State Troopers. Additional grant funding requests are in the works, he said.
Mat-Su, like the rest of the state, this year began seeing a rise in not only heroin use -- it's fast catching up with methamphetamine -- but in heroin cut with or substituted entirely by the synthetic opiate fentanyl, according to Capt. Jeff Laughlin, head of the troopers' statewide drug enforcement unit. Because it's stronger than heroin, fentanyl can lead to overdose.
Borough Mayor Vern Halter is not expected to issue any vetoes.