City of North Pole is the municipal government of North Pole, a Fairbanks North Star Borough city on the Richardson Highway near Eielson Air Force Base. Its City Council sets employee pay, utility and tax policy, and the North Pole Police Department provides local law enforcement.
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North Pole police and fire chiefs propose 2027 budgets about $640,000 higher
North Pole's police and fire chiefs on Wednesday asked the City Council for 2027 budgets that together are about $640,000 larger than this year's, mostly because of wages.
Police Chief Heath Smith proposed a budget $508,031 above this year's. Fire Chief Chad Heineken proposed $4,037,051, up $132,451. The council took no vote at the work session.
Both budgets include the 3 percent raise and new pay scale the council approved earlier this month. Both chiefs also pointed to a higher dispatch contract, which Smith said will cost the police department about $90,000 more.
Police wages rise about $350,000, Smith said. That includes a part-time job he made full time after the department's HR clerk found the employee had been working enough hours all along for the city to owe contributions to PERS, the state retirement system.
"And so we had to go back and make that right," Smith said.
Smith also added $15,000 for fuel and $15,000 for repairs. Patrol cars sit idling for hours in the cold on calls, he said, so they wear out faster than their odometers show.
His old car had 85,000 miles on the odometer but about 227,000 miles of wear when its rack and pinion failed this year, leaving it undrivable.
Six vehicles are at or past retirement mileage, Smith said. He is asking for two new cars in 2027 and plans to ask for a third, paid from money already saved in the fleet fund. "Two cars a year keeps us where we need to be," he said.
Councilman Jordan Schuster called the police increase "a tough pill to swallow," though mostly out of the chief's control, and said residents keep asking for more patrols inside the city. Smith said officers patrol more than residents see because they try to reach every neighborhood.
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