What you need to know:
- The Mat-Su Assembly voted 6-2 to remove a proposed salary increase from its agenda, effectively killing a plan that would have raised Assembly pay from $13,100 to $45,000 and the mayor’s salary from $65,000 to $75,000.
- Assembly member Dmitri Fonov proposed the increase to adjust pay for inflation and rising health care costs. Assembly salaries have not been updated since 2009, while health care costs have increased significantly.
- The borough’s salary commission opposed the raise, recommending a smaller increase of about $7,000.
- Short on time but need the local news scoop? Get free weekly news in your inbox for Mat-Su, from Mat-Su.
PALMER — A proposal to significantly raise Mat-Su Assembly members’ salaries will no longer come up for a vote after members opted to remove it from their agenda Tuesday, effectively killing the plan.
Matanuska-Susitna Borough Assembly and mayor salaries were last updated in 2009. The proposal would have boosted Assembly members’ annual salaries from $13,100 to $45,000 and raised the mayor’s salary from $65,000 to $75,000. It would have also updated the $15,100 salary paid to the Assembly member appointed as deputy mayor to fall in line with the pay received by the rest of the body.
The proposal was designed to update assembly and mayoral salaries to match the pace of inflation and increase pay rates well above members’ health care premiums, which have more than doubled since 2022, according to a fact sheet included with the measure. As currently set, the salary is about $5,000 more than the annual cost of the health plan, the fact sheet states…