The director of the Anchorage Office of Management and Budget has thrown up her hands and resigned, saying the Anchorage Assembly is undoing all hoped-for progress on the city’s balance sheet.
Sharon Lechner, who was confirmed as OMB director earlier this year, wrote in her resignation letter that during an April 30 special meeting on the budget revisions for the first quarter of the year, the Assembly passed a budget that unwound months of progress for the city. As a CPA, she lives by an ethical code, and the Assembly has been breaking the law.
“Worse, every amendment proposed by the Assembly that reversed important items [such] as additional staff for the Controller Division or parking parity for the employees in City Hall, was passed with unanimous approval,” Lechner wrote.
“Not once during the weeks leading up to the Assembly Meeting did any Assembly member reach out to OMB with questions, even though their budget analyst was brand new in his position,” she wrote to Mayor Dave Bronson.
“Not once did any Assembly member push back when Assembly Member Zaletel spoke about the (annual) labor scrub, saying that the labor scrub eliminates positions. It doesn’t. It never has,” Lechner added.
Lechner, who was Anchorage CFO under two previous mayors, continued in her letter that described the Assembly dysfunction, saying the city had the opportunity to correct a workers compensation problem that started 20 years ago, but the Assembly reversed that as well.
“We have the opportunity to fix the misappropriation of spending at the Golden Lion Hotel, but the Assembly reversed that. We had the opportunity to reduce our fund balance deficit, but the Assembly reversed that,” she said.
Lechner said she would be happy to serve Mayor Bronson in another capacity, but if nothing else is offered to her, she’ll make June 28 her last day.
This week, the Assembly passed an illegal first-quarter budget revision that violated the law by exceeding the tax cap. A special meeting was called on Friday to reverse the illegal actions.
Assembly Chairman Chris Constant, faced with the embarrassment of having passed an illegal budget, attacked the Bronson Administration, which had sent out a press release Thursday about the budget that said the mayor was willing to help solve the problem the Assembly had created.
“In what way did the mayor help?” Constant asked Lechner, who explained to him that it took her division about seven hours to calculate the Assembly’s budget and come to the determination that it had gone over the tax cap. Constant quickly cut her off, as seen in the video above.
