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Mat-Su community development seeks grants, proposes modest fee increases to boost recreation cost recovery
Summary
Community Development presented accomplishments (new campgrounds, trail grooming, Jonesville park schematic) and outlined a strategy to improve cost recovery through grants, partnerships and a 3% user-fee increase to keep services affordable while covering rising costs.
Jillian Morse, community development director, told the Matanuska-Susitna Borough Assembly that her department is pursuing grants, sponsorships and public–private partnerships to increase the return on investment at borough parks and recreation facilities.
Morse highlighted recent accomplishments including the Jonesville shooting-park schematic, a soon-to-be-published Government Peak Recreation Area draft management plan, the Ski Talk bus road construction funded by an assembly appropriation, and online tax-foreclosure sales that helped recover delinquent properties. She said trail grooming partners and volunteers now maintain more than 1,000 miles of winter trail grooming and the borough opened Sunshine Creek Campground last summer and recorded a record year at Mat‑Su River Campground.
On revenue strategy Morse said the department is diversifying income. She held up the Brett Ice Arena as a model of near 100% cost recovery under the leadership of its manager and said the department is piloting measures to replicate that performance elsewhere.
Morse told the assembly the department is implementing a modest 3% increase in user fees approved in December: open swim up about $2, hourly rental up about $10 and swim lessons up about $5, keeping family-friendly pricing while improving cost recovery as operational costs rise.
She also said the department has $7.2 million in grant proposals in process, noted one unsuccessful Federal Highway Administration application, and flagged awarded funding for West Butte trail rehabilitation. Morse said $500,000 appropriated in the proposed budget will allow the borough to include an additive alternate in a Station 52 RFP to evaluate a second-floor dispatch option rather than building an entirely separate dispatch facility.
Morse closed by previewing near-term capital priorities: operating the GPRA chalet for rentals beginning Jan. 1, 2027; completing a GPRA traverses survey; continuing West Butte and Mat‑Su River Park infrastructure improvements; and expanding the borough’s problem-reporter system to trails and trailheads to speed maintenance responses.
The assembly asked several follow-up questions about the grant pipeline, how fee increases would translate to resident costs and program metrics such as swim-lesson enrollment and campground visitation. Morse said staff will return with clarifying details and noted the department will keep pursuing federal funding sources used by other Alaska communities.
