The Juneau Assembly met for a regular meeting on Monday night to finalize the city’s budget for next year and vote on an important glacial outburst flood funding decision.
Here are some of the highlights from the meeting:
• The Juneau Assembly approved the city’s budget for the next fiscal year after months of deliberation on how to fill a multimillion-dollar budget hole. The decisions Monday night included finalizing proposed service reductions and facility closures, approving new revenue opportunities and setting a property tax rate.
The approved budget keeps open Juneau’s pools, Dimond Park Field House, the Douglas Fire Station, and maintains social service grants.
It does, however, reduce funding to the Juneau-Douglas City Museum, resulting in the layoff of two staff members and drastically reducing the museum’s hours. The decision came despite more than a dozen people who testified in support of fully funding the museum.
The budget also includes the closure and sale of the Mount Jumbo Gym, and reduces funding to Travel Juneau, the city’s landscaping budget, the Juneau Economic Development Council, the Jensen-Olson Arboretum and eliminates an administrative support position in the city’s administration department.
• The Assembly voted to raise the city’s sales tax cap on single-item goods from $15,000 to $50,000, with a caveat for vehicle purchases under $50,000. The approval came despite opposition during public testimony from representatives from Kensington Mine and Juneau Auto Mall. They cast concerns about how the increased cap would impact large industrial operations and people purchasing vehicles in Juneau.
That change, paired with two other changes to taxation, are expected to bring in more revenue to offset the city’s recurring revenue shortfall – but how much is still unclear.
• The Assembly unanimously approved a property tax rate, also called a mill rate, at 9.92 mills for the next fiscal year. The rate is lower than last year’s rate and abides by the new property tax rate cap voters approved last election, excluding debt service.
• The Assembly unanimously approved an ordinance to undo a controversial funding decision that helped pay for the initial stretch of the Mendenhall River flood wall.
Last year, the Assembly controversially passed a funding scheme called a local improvement district, or LID, to split the original cost of building the HESCO barriers by a 60-40 ratio with around 400 landowners in the Mendenhall Valley flood zone. Most households would have to pay $6,300. But after the flood wall sustained damage during the most recent glacial outburst flood in August, city staff said the LID isn’t made to care for ongoing costs, which have ballooned.
Assembly members supported doing away with the LID. It would resolve issues of fairness, since many landowners who aren’t required to pay were likely protected from the record-breaking flood last year. It could also end a lawsuit brought by two riverfront property owners hosting the barriers, who took issue with paying to lose some of their land.
And…
• Several residents testified before the meeting on non-agenda topics, including objection to the city’s Telephone Hill redevelopment project, and support for a proposed ballot proposition that seeks to implement a 1% seasonal sales tax during the summer tourism season to support recreational facilities.
Check back in to KTOO.org to see more in-depth coverage of Assembly issues.
