The Mat-Su Borough Planning Department presented their proposed budget at the Assembly’s special budget meeting this week, including technology improvements completed to date with a focus for continuing those efforts in the next fiscal year.
With increased development applications, Borough Planning and Land Use Deputy Director Jason Ortiz says the technology will make operations more efficient. He highlights the online permit system that will allow residents to track progress on their own permits. The system also will enable anyone in the Borough to see projects that might be happening nearby.
In addition, Ortiz notes the effort to map utilities. The information is important for the Borough’s understanding of where critical infrastructure exists. However, he says utility companies do not want their data to be made public.
“That is the absolute biggest challenge is getting all of them to gain our trust, right, to give us this data. Working with Law to figure out how we make this so it’s not available to the public. It cannot be requested through a public records request because it’s vital, critical infrastructure that we don’t want publicized.”
The Planning and Land Use Department also handles code compliance issues. Four code compliance officers conducted more than 2,000 inspections over the year. Two right-of-way inspectors handled nearly 4,000 complaints. Ortiz also notes 89 junk and trash cases open with 124 cases closed.
District 6 Assemblymember Dmitri Fonov asks about adding a full-time clean-up program coordinator, which was not included in the proposed budget. Ortiz explains they attempted to keep the budget flat for the next year.
“The Manager’s request was a pretty flat budget. We were not doing many additions for personnel. So that’s really going to be up to the Assembly. If the Assembly chooses to grow our Community Cleanup, it’s going to need to be an amendment made by an Assembly member to add that regular, full-time Cleanup Coordinator.”
Borough Manager Mike Brown says they did add a seasonal on-call staff member this year and that they did request an additional 1,000-hour on-call staff member for the next year.
Ortiz notes the growing population in the Mat-Su Borough and that the technology upgrades will make for more efficient operations, alongside improved response to code compliance issues.
The Borough Assembly will hold a special budget meeting at the Willow Community Center on April 24 at 6pm.
