The Municipality faced serious budget challenges when Mayor Sullivan took office in July of 2009. Declining revenues due to the recession, combined with increasing expenses, foremost of which were the inappropriate labor contracts pushed through at the end of 2008, meant that decisive action had to be taken immediately.
Over the last three years, Mayor Sullivan has kept property taxes millions of dollars under the tax cap and has implemented the following strategies to deal with the ongoing budget challenge:
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Immediate reductions in the 2009 budget in order to make the budget balance as required by law.
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Formation of a cost containment committee to review all department requests for travel, hiring, and non-essential expenses.
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Development of online procedures in multiple departments to achieve better customer service and budget efficiencies.
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Development of performance measures in each department to establish specific performance goals, and to measure whether those goals are being achieved.
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Efficiency studies in the police and public works departments to make sure we are deploying our resources (and spending your money!) as efficiently as possible.
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Implementation of new computer systems for timekeeping, accounting and appraisals to eliminate manual processes that are costly and inefficient.
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Restoring the integrity of the tax cap by supporting the Taxpayer Protection Act, which states that the next year’s taxes start with the amount actually collected the year before, not how much could have been collected.
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Implementation of a municipal wide culture of thrift that has resulted in departments not spending every dime in their budget for three consecutive years.
Those savings have allowed us to:
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Restore our fund balances to the levels required by the bond rating agencies. This has resulted in our bond rating being upgraded to AA+, which saves Anchorage millions of dollars in interest on our bond sales over the long term.
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Pay off millions of dollars in liabilities such as the environmental cleanups at Kincaid Park and Reeve Boulevard, as well as various legal liabilities.
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Repay Municipal Light and Power for a $3.5 million loan they made to the previous administration for a parkland purchase.
Mayor Sullivan has kept city spending under control and dramatically slowed the growth of your property taxes.
Budget challenges will continue in the years ahead, as it is anticipated that expenses will still exceed estimated revenues. Mayor Sullivan will continue to look at all opportunities to save the taxpayer money while delivering essential services at a high level.
