MORE SAVINGS INITIATIVES

In our quest to make government more efficient, we recently provided a report on travel costs to the Assembly looking at travel between 2008 and 2009, when this administration took office.  The results are significant and represent our ongoing commitment to spending your tax dollars more wisely.

In 2008, the last full year of the previous administration, travel costs totaled $1,083,270.  The 2009 total is $413,022, a savings of $670,248.  We ant

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Heidi Gantwerk of Viewpoint Learning returned to Anchorage last week to present the aggregate findings from the four community budget sessions held in August.  She presented at a worksession with the Assembly and to a group of citizens who had participated in the sessions.

The highlights of her presentation were that people love living in Anchorage and want to maintain the level of service they have now.  However, they do not want to pay more taxes until they are convinced that g

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THE PERF REPORT

The Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) just completed their audit of how our police department is organized, including their recommendations on how to better deploy our officers.  The goal is to get to more of a community policing model that has proved successful in many other cities.

The report recognized that given our budget challenges, we are not going to be able to add the personnel in the short term that would allow us to fully implement a commu

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We are working hard to prepare the 2011 budget, which has to be introduced to the Assembly by October 1.  Each municipal department director has presented scenarios that show what their priorities would be if they had to find 7.5 percent savings in their departments, as well as what potential revenue increases might be available.

The 2011 budget, with no increase in property taxes, has a gap of nearly $25 million.  Quite frankly, expenditures are increasing at a much greater rate

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Like many of you, I was surprised at some of the results in the recent primary election.  Mead Treadwell’s very strong showing in the GOP Lt. Governors race had pundits wondering, as every one predicted a close race with Jay Ramras.  Locally, I was equally surprised in the hillside race for Con Bunde’s state senate seat, as Cathy Giessel won handily over Dr. Mark Moronell and Assemblywoman Jennifer Johnston, who retains her seat on the Assembly.  Jennifer has been a good common sense mem

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