First, a sales tax, now comes a school bond issue

Sure enough, the borough assembly overrode Mayor Colberg’s veto of a sales tax proposal.

This sales tax has a lot of people enraged, and the assembly members are going to find out just how far out of touch they are come October.

It seems as if they only visit with people who own property here, but don’t live here. Because those are the only people who will benefit. They fill up the pickup and boat engines with fuel in Anchorage and drive out here. They probably buy their sodas, beer, sandwiches and ice in town, too. Lowering their property tax is the best thing we can do for them.

But that veto-eraser wasn’t enough work for the assembly Tuesday night. The members also passed a motion to put $31.7 million in school bonds on the ballot.

The bond, according to assembly members, would add .109 mills to the taxes. Not a big hit, about $10.09 per year on a $100,000 piece of property, according to the borough.

The millions would go toward fixing roofs around the district, a floor or two and for safety measures. Nobody wants students to go to school with leaky roofs and unsafe buildings.

Many times, people approve bond issues for those very reasons.

However, they are not usually hit with a new tax at the same time. Just how generous does the assembly think the electorate is going to be this fall?

Here’s the skinny on how that 7.3 mill rate cap goes with the sales tax. If the voters approve a bond every couple of years, like the one in October, the cap remains. Now, if the .109 mills can’t be covered within that cap, then the bonds are paid by the sales tax.

We need roads too. So when we approve a road bond, does that add to the 7.3 cap? Probably not. Sales taxes pay.

So, in the not-so-distant future we could be right where we are now with a 9.98 mill rate, it’ll just read 7.3 and the other 2.68 mills will come out of the sales tax. That’s why distant landowners love the proposed tax measure. What they pay never changes. What locals pay just goes up.

This is the kind of math people in the Valley are concerned about.

That’s why the sales tax has no chance of passing. Unfortunately, there may be needed repairs to schools that go undone because the tax measure has created a negative attitude about government’s insatiable demand for more from the citizenry.