The Matanuska Susitna Borough is no longer some sleepy frontier outpost. It is Alaska’s fastest growing region, now home to 118,773 people, more than the entire Fairbanks North Star Borough and rapidly closing in on Anchorage. Roughly 101,873 of those residents live outside Wasilla and Palmer. They rely 100% on the Alaska State Troopers for police protection, and they get the worst coverage in the state by a mile.
Here are the cold, hard 2025 numbers:
Mat Su has more people than Fairbanks yet fewer total officers with one trooper for every 4,568 residents in B Detachment. That’s almost three times the workload of any other detachment in Alaska. Why?
Even the national comparisons are brutal. The United States average is 2.4 sworn officers per 1,000 residents. Less crowded Western states average 1.6. If every single position in Mat Su were filled, we would still sit at 0.60 borough wide and a shocking 0.26 in the unincorporated areas where most of us live.
This problem is not new. Even the 2018 UAA Justice Center study said B Detachment needed a minimum of seventy-one troopers just to provide basic patrol coverage. Twice the staffing we have now, and that study was seven years and more than 25,000 new residents ago. Today, after a 15% statewide vacancy rate, we have about 30 troopers on the ground, or less than 37% of the expert minimum.
The results hit home every day.
• $40.1 million dollars in tangible crime costs every year or $364 dollars per resident
• 3,781 property crimes per 100,000 people; the second highest rate in Alaska
• Routine response times of 30-60 minutes or more in Knik Fairview, KGB, Big Lake, Houston, Willow, and Talkeetna
• Fentanyl overdoses, domestic violence, and burglaries climbing while troopers stretch themselves across an area the size of West Virginia
Alaska has no state income tax or sales tax. The money that pays every trooper comes almost entirely from North Slope oil revenue. And the majority of North Slope workers live right here in Mat Su. They generate billions for the state, fly home on their days off, and find the thinnest law enforcement coverage in Alaska waiting for them. Again, why?
Six troopers, funded by the very oil revenue Mat Su workers produce, were not worth even 0.002 percent of a $14 billion budget?
Governor Dunleavy recognized the crisis and put $2.4 million dollars in the FY2025 budget to reopen the long closed Talkeetna post and add six troopers. Six troopers is only a drop in the bucket, still leaving us 39 short of the UAA minimum.
Then the finance committees in the State Legislature, particularly the House Finance Committee, co-chaired by Rep. Andy Josephson, removed every dollar in the budget to fund re-opening that post. Instead, and despite assurances to me that the Talkeetna post would be funded, they opted to add $12 million for “mental health” in response to the Anchorage homeless crisis. What about the mental health of Mat Su residents who lack the law enforcement coverage needed to ensure their safety?
The full House Finance Committee must start listening to the lone Mat Su representative on that committee and fund public safety in the Valley fairly and equitably. Six troopers, funded by the very oil revenue Mat Su workers produce, were not worth even 0.002 percent of a $14 billion budget? That fact alone shows the contempt the committee has for the Mat-Su. And it shows how important it is to have a Mat Su representative on House Finance fighting for us, no matter the size of the budget.
The return on investment is obvious.
Fixing this, just to the bare minimum recommended in 2018, would cost $10-12 million each year, less than one tenth of one percent of the state budget. Less than 0.08 percent to stop treating Alaska’s fastest growing borough like an afterthought.
ALASKA WATCHMAN DIRECT TO YOUR INBOX
Mat-Su is a second class borough. We cannot form our own police department without voter approval of areawide powers. And despite the 2005 recommendation of the Mayor’s Blue Ribbon Task Force, voters have repeatedly said no, largely because all indications are that the troopers would reduce their coverage by the same number of sworn officers that a borough police force would add. No other borough is effectively forced into providing its own police force, and the substantial increase in property taxes required made a no vote entirely predictable.
That leaves exactly one agency responsible for public safety for more than 100,000 Alaskans, the Alaska State Troopers. Adding 45 troopers will not give us Anchorage’s layered coverage or Fairbanks’ municipal backup; however, it will end the disgrace of having a larger population than Fairbanks while enduring the weakest protection in the state. And it matters even more because the highest traveled corridor in Alaska runs straight through the Mat Su.
The numbers do not lie. Yet the UAA Justice Center study is seven years old, the population keeps rising, and the oil workers who fund Alaska continue to move here and live in the Mat-Su. They deserve law enforcement protection equal to the rest of the state. They deserve to know that their families and their property are safe while they are on the slope.
It is time for the Legislature to stop ignoring the Mat Su and fund the troopers needed to staff B Detachment at the level a major population center deserves.
The views expressed here are those of the author.
23 Comments
I’d venture to guess this problem is a direct result of not taxing yourselves in order to have a dedicated police force for your communities. You’re relying on the State of Alaska to fund the community’s public safety. At the same time, you criticize coastal Alaska for needing a Marine Highway System and relying on state funding to keep it going, while every single coastal community of any size taxes themselves and pays for their own police force.
I’m guessing that you didn’t read the part where he said that if we were to tax ourselves for a police force, the state would just reduce our trooper coverage even more.
Even IF we were to do that, the state is STILL in dereliction of providing the proper and equitable trooper presence the other boroughs are getting.
I’d venture you missed the part where the millions to pay for the troopers is generated by those that live here. But then I forgot that those that make the money to pay for services that are enjoyed by the entire state usually get the short end of the stick. Isn’t that how ACA and SNAP works…? Workers pay for it and get very little benefit from it…? Joey biden is looking for his auto-pen, why don’t you go help him find it…? /s
Other thoughts.. Why did APD sign for and possession of 1,700 M4 carbines from the U.S. Government, when they only have 356 officers…? Why is that…? /s
That might be fue to no state or borough sales tax nor state income tax. These services cost dollars. As you well know the lion’s share of state government revenue comes from the oil companies and our sovereign wealth fund. So, my answer to you is stop the dividend or collect taxes. Many small communities like us in Nome do so and have City Police and AK State Troopers.
Happy with the service provided, my family doesn’t need “protection” we need them just to report things to.
Speaking of Troopers, Anchorage has .17 per thousand, the Mat-Su has .21 per thousand. Seems that Mat-Su has about 24% more trooper coverage per resident than Anchorage.
AST in Anchorage is almost entirely administrative or investigative and next to nothing is dedicated to Anchorage.
maccabe with nothing to do
Clearly you don’t either. Always sniveling and b#tchin at everybody for the least little thing, or major one. Get off the couch and go pick up some trash, volunteer, or come up with alternatives. Anything at all will do.
Well, everyone should go get your pistol and train at the ranges provided. Cabela’s can provide pistols and list or cards of safety trainers. It helps to protect what is yours and against home invasions which are very much a present and real danger where homes are in dense forest or wooded areas. Don’t wait for someone to take charge of your home safety, do something about it! Quit leaving everything up to the politicians.
you’re making a mountain out of a molehill. Statistics are deceiving. Criminal activity wouldn’t be impacted at all by more troopers. It would continue to happen as always. Furthermore I live outside the cities of Palmer and Wasilla, and never have experienced a delay in state trooper response to a call.
The majority of the crime in the upper Susitna Valley goes unreported or uninvestigated, because the fee troopers we have don’t have the time to deal with the smaller stuff.
I have dealt with this.
They’re understaffed. Partly because nobody wants to be a cop in the current atmosphere, and partly because they’re very (maybe too) particular. I applied with them and was rejected because I once grew and sold a single ounce of weed after my 18th birthday.
Shortly after I moved into my new home, I had three attempted break-ins, WHILE I WAS HOME! The first two times I was told to just file a report online. The third time, a trooper called me and said he was 45 minutes away and to just file a report online, and in future, don’t even bother calling unless someone actually managed to get in and/or there was a body involved. I said alrighty then and armed myself.
Get a Byrna.
MACCABE, ITS UNDERWARE CHANGE DAY!
If Mat-Su Borough residents outside the cities are going to tax themselves for police protection, I hope it’s the sheriff model who is elected by the people and not a police chief appointed and beholden to the borough mayor.
Eventually, the borough will be forced to tax themselves by the state. We’ve seen this more times than can even be listed. Examples include Girdwood (contracted with Whittier Police instead of accepting Anchorage Police), Wasilla in the 1980’s (Bumpus administration passed a sales tax and stood up the Wasilla Police), Anchorage Hillside (forced into APD coverage), the Knik River crime crisis (the worse case where power was actually handed over to DNR and a couple “rangers” to stop the stolen car burnings and drunken teenager shooting and drinking parties), etc. This is accomplished by drawing down Trooper coverage with a corresponding announcement that they will simply not respond. This is what you get when mayors/governors have 100% power. Let’s elect our own sheriff.
AST has been asking the borough to step up too the plate. The Borough has been designated a metropolitan area in the Area around Wasilla and Palmer. There are now more people in the Matsu Borough than the rest of the Unincorporated area of the state. What we should be doing is looking at these unincorporated areas of the valley that are now classified as urban areas and Create PSA similar to RSA to collect taxes to pay for police services. The Borough could then send this money to the Troopers so they can hire more troopers dedicated to this urban area, or make contracts with Wasilla and Palmer pd to expand their police to cover these areas. The goal is to expand the police officer count weather trooper or local cop shop to cover these urban areas in the valley, so other troopers could then be freed up to patrol the more rural areas of the borough. The state recently declined the Govs request for more funding for the More troopers in the Valley. The state just does not have the money either. Time for the Borough (especially the unincorporated area of the borough) to pay for their police service like every other urban area does. BTW I live in that area of the Borough
How do you know the state doesn’t have the money?
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For example, the Alaska Municipal lLague Investment Pool has $929,354,979.99 of taxpayers’ money stashed out of taxpayers’ reach.
(https://amlip.org/)
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Kevin uses University of Alaska data. UA’s total FY25 operating budget is around $934.5 Million.
(https://www.alaska.edu/news/system/2024-Dunleavy-signs-UA-F25-budget.php)
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Can’t find cops, but the FY 2025 Governor’s Proposed Budget proposes funding for 30 non-permanent, full-time Eligibility Technician positions in the Department of Health to process SNAP applications.
(https://gov.alaska.gov/fy25-proposed-budget/)
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Looks like the state has plenty of money, so it might be interesting to find out why Mat-Su legislators can’t seem to get any of it for more cops.
Reading this is kinda like reading the rant of someone who bought a house at the end of an airport runway and then complains about airplane noise. Many of us live where we do by choice which means we chose to live in an area without big city characteristics such as fire stations and police forces, animal control, zoning, building permits and inspection etc etc. Then along comes the “tax Everyine to pay for devices I demand” crowd. Socialism creeps.
This well-written article may be classified as “opinion”; but, in actuality, — the points made ARE factual. Our state legislature politicians clearly need to work harder at finding new ways to increase funding that will support AST coverage for unincorporated areas, — such as most of the Mat-Su Borough. Obviously, trooper number requirements for adequate law enforcement coverage requires adjustments to be made, that’ll keep up with the increased rural population needs. Only makes sense!
Mat Su has the lowest law enforcement coverage in Alaska because it has the population density to support the need and funding of a larger local law enforcement force but is too antitax and stubborn to fund one. State Troopers should be used where the local population density could not support a local law enforcement force not in areas where residents just don’t want to pay taxes.
The argument of slope workers residing in Mat Su is a poor argument. Many slope workers live in Anchorage, Eagle River, Chugiak, Indian, etcetera. More oil and gas related workers (slope and other) are not in the Mat Su as compared to those that are in the Mat Su.
I also found your calculation of Officers per 1,000 to be poor form. To show that Anchorage has 1.41 officers/1000 and Mat Su has only 0.60 officers/1,000 looks horrible for Mat Su. But when you consider that Anchorage hires 87% of its own police force and Mat Su only hires 63% of its own police force. No wonder those per 1,000 figures are so different.
On another point, you are taking the Mat Su equating it to B Detachment, which is understandable because the territories of the two are largely the same. But equating D Detachment to the FNSB is poor because D Detachment covers far more territory then just the FNSB. The two territories very greatly in size.
Your numbers are stating that 86% of Mat Su residents live in unincorporated/rural areas and that only 60% of D Detachment residents live in unincorporated/rural areas. That’s bunk. I don’t have the numbers and I’ve spent more time on this than I should have… I’d guess the population density of the two and the rural versus nonrural areas are nearly the same.
No surprise the grifter McCabe would try to make a case that non-matsu residents continue to fund his law enforcement. Someone with his history of cheating on property taxes isn’t likely to call for matsu people to do the right thing and pay for their own services.