MASCOT changes may bring brighter future

MASCOT board members hired LaMarr Anderson in November as an interim executive director after previous director Louis Friend resigned at a Nov. 18 board meeting.

The change in leadership follows a September announcement of drastic cuts at the transit business, which runs scheduled and on-demand bus service between Houston and Palmer, and also carries commuters to and from Anchorage each day. Nine employees were laid off, most of them drivers. Prior to the layoffs the organization employed 19 full-time and one part-time employees. Several routes were reduced or combined.

Board president Charles Parker said the cuts were made because the organization didn't receive as much funding as it expected from grants and federal sources this year. Former director Friend in October said the organization was lacking $400,000 in matching funds, making it ineligible for $476,000 in federal money.

Federal grants MASCOT uses require match funding, generally provided by state or local governments.

The Mat-Su Borough Assembly in November agreed to give MASCOT $200,000 to help it qualify for additional grants. Parker estimated that money will likely leverage $300,000 more in federal funding.

But not all that money will go to transportation funding. The borough's grant agreement requires MASCOT to use up to $20,000 to conduct a management audit. The organization hasn't picked an auditor, Parker said, but they hope to complete the audit quickly.

Although the audit means slightly less funding spent directly on transportation, Parker said the board of directors welcomed the requirement.

"As we look to restore some of the services once we receive some funding, we want to make sure we're re-growing at a sustainable rate," Parker said. "It's something we agreed to readily."

Parker said after recent cuts to MASCOT staff, the board was considering ways to make the organization run more efficiently. It was during that discussion that Friend resigned.

"We were really moving toward an accounting manager," Parker said. "It was during that discussion that Louis made the decision to resign."

Friend said he believed the organization needed a new leader with new skills to move the organization ahead.

"I didn't feel I had what we needed to do that," he said. "When you add in the dynamic of borough funding and other funding, there needs to be someone with abilities in accounting. I don't have those. And someone who can write grants."

Parker said the board has not yet decided how the accounting, executive director and operations duties should be divided, or how many employees should hold those roles.

THE INTERIM BOSS

Friend had worked with MASCOT for nearly 10 years, starting as a driver when the business was in its infancy. He was later hired as its operations manager and promoted to deputy director. He was executive director for about two and a half years.

Anderson, the interim executive director, was hired after Friend's resignation. Parker said Anderson knew the ropes. He had worked six months as operations director for the nonprofit last year. Before that, Anderson worked as operations manager and store manager for Animal Food Warehouse. He is an Air Force retiree.

Anderson said he stepped down from MASCOT in September, a decision unrelated to the other cuts. He attributed it to "management burnout." But he agreed to come back because the MASCOT board "is a very involved board." Its members are helping look for additional funding, he said.

"From the board's perspective, we've got the financial foundation to maintain what we're doing now. My role is to help them," he said.

UNION EFFORTS

The changes at MASCOT happened while the organization was in the middle of another shift -- some employees there wanted to unionize.

Maintenance employees in July asked to join the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 302, said Jared Hamlin with that union. Drivers, schedulers and dispatchers petitioned to join Teamsters Union Local 959.

Hamlin said MASCOT and Local 302 have reached tentative agreement on a labor contract, but it must be ratified by MASCOT's board of directors and by the single employee who would be represented under the contract. It's unusual for a union to represent only one employee, Hamlin said. But when the process began, MASCOT employed three maintenance workers.

Derek Musto, an organizer with the Teamsters, said his union has filed an unfair labor practice charge against MASCOT over the layoffs that happened shortly after drivers and other employees petitioned to join the Teamsters. The charge states that MASCOT didn't give its employees "ample opportunity to bargain," Musto said.

Some of the employees who were in favor of going union were laid off, Musto said. Since the layoffs, another employee filed to decertify the petition -- or stop the unionizing effort.

Parker said MASCOT officials were not aware which employees had petitioned to join the union.

"We still to this day don't know who are the ones interested in forming a union," Parker said.

The charge is being investigated by National Labor Relations Board regional director Richard Ahearn in Seattle.

Ahearn said he could reach a decision in as little as two weeks, although it could take slightly longer.

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Find Rindi White online at adn.com/contact/rwhite or call 352-6709.