Mat-Su explores building the troopers a new home and leasing it back

Alaska State Troopers in the Mat-Su work out of six leased buildings that were never designed for law enforcement, at a cost to the state of $475,000 a year that builds no equity. The borough is looking at building them something better and renting it back.

The assembly approved a resolution Monday, on its consent agenda, directing Borough Manager Mike Brown to develop a proposal for trooper facilities near Tate Drive and Bogard Road. The memorandum is explicit that the purpose "is not to approve construction of a facility or commit Borough funds," and that approval costs nothing beyond staff time.

The numbers come from a non-binding term sheet Brown presented the same night. The borough would build, own and lease back a roughly 16,000-square-foot trooper building estimated at $8 million, plus a $5 million dispatch facility attached to a planned Central Mat-Su fire station. Brown said the borough could pay for it without borrowing, with lease payments over 20 years returning roughly what the investment would otherwise earn.

Dispatch is the piece that depends on someone else. MATCOM, run by the city of Wasilla under contract, handles the borough's emergency call-taking and fields more than 29,000 911 calls a year. Brown said the Wasilla City Council is expected to consider an agreement on the dispatch facility in mid-September, and that the borough will not move ahead in earnest without it.

The state's side of the argument is staffing and space. Deputy Public Safety Commissioner Austin McDaniel said the department has consolidated facilities on the Kenai Peninsula and in Fairbanks, while in Mat-Su it runs three patrol squad rooms, three investigative squad rooms and evidence storage spread across several buildings. Troopers have been told to vacate their current Palmer office. "We're not seeing additional funding from the legislature for our presence out here," McDaniel said. Statewide, 61 of 410 budgeted trooper positions are vacant, with 15 recruits in the Sitka academy.

The borough has grown by about 10,000 people since 2020, to roughly 117,000. In 2019 the assembly asked the state to staff the borough with 85 troopers within three years. As of September 2024, the Mat-Su detachment had 13 of 49 positions unfilled.

One assembly member asked whether consolidating six sites would thin coverage across a borough that large. A trooper who identified himself as a former detachment commander said the satellite offices are "largely outdated and extremely inefficient."

The state's current lease runs out in 2028, the same year the borough is targeting for occupancy. Funding would still have to survive the fiscal 2028 budget, and the assembly would vote separately on a lease and on design and construction contracts.