Wasilla taxes to be decided

WASILLA — Got your eye on a big-screen TV with that PFD money? Wasilla voters will decide this fall whether you should pay less for it next year.

Voters will be asked to pass possible decreases in federal and state funding on to Valley consumers, many of whom use the big box retail, restaurants and grocery stores in the city, with a proposal to keep the city’s sales tax at 3 percent. The proposition is likely the most contentious in a slate of local ballot measures that could change the makeup of the school board, outlaw commercial marijuana in Palmer and Houston, move local election dates to coincide with state and federal election dates, and increase taxes in the city of Houston.

Wasilla’s sales tax extension also carries the biggest price tag among local ballot measures, potentially generating as much as $6 million in annual revenue per year.

The rate extension isn’t exactly an increase. If voters approve the rate change, sales tax rates in Wasilla will remain at 3 percent instead of automatically reducing to 2 percent in about February, when funds to cover the construction of the $15-million new public library have been collected. Voters approved the current rate in 2013 to fund library construction without incurring substantial public debt, and avoided about $1.8 million in interest payments.

Mayor Bert Cottle — one of the extension’s supporters — told a recent meeting of the Wasilla Chamber of Commerce that in the face of decreasing oil prices and political fights over taxes in Washington D.C., local consumers should step up to bridge the gap. The city is the only municipality in the Valley funded exclusively by sales tax, and Cottle has raised the specter of property taxes as another alternative to federal and state funding totaling $51 million over the last decade. The city has already lost about $500,000 out of use-it-or-lose-it grant funds, Cottle said.

“What’s going to happen in the next 15 years?” he said. “What we’re trying to do is forward fund, and also what we’re trying to do is say, look, ‘This is a reality check.’”

Funds collected for the tax would go into a separate fund, the balance of which would be reserved for operational costs for the new library, which aren’t covered by the previously adopted sales mechanism, as well as anticipated future construction projects involving regular maintenance and upkeep worth $85 million.

Some critics have suggested the rates be allowed to reduce before going back to the voters for another increase, including councilwoman Colleen Sullivan-Leonard, who has accused the Cottle administration of a lack of transparency, and suggested that to keep the rates at 3 percent would betray voters who approved the measure with the expectation rates would decrease.

Cottle said business owners don’t want the uncertainty that would come with lowering the tax.

“’Just leave it alone, quit messing with it,’” Cottle said business owners told him.

Sullivan-Leonard labeled the capital projects account a “slush fund,” and said using the list of capital projects would short-circuit the public process for those projects (officials have said any projects would still be subject to planning commission and city council approval before funding).

“We already have our five-year capital improvement project fund that we go through every year,” she said.

Concerns about an impending collapse in state and federal funding, and sudden changes in sales tax rates harming business were exaggerated, she said. Officials had already considered the library’s operating costs in the original proposal, and the library could operate within certain constraints, Sullivan Leonard said.

“Businesses reap the hardship of what the sales tax is,” she said. “If you increase taxes, that affects the bottom line.”

Consumers will vote with their feet, Sullivan-Leonard said.

“Businesses want less taxes. If you increase taxes, I guarantee you people will shop elsewhere,” she said.

Other ordinances

At the borough level, two ordinances could change the make up of the school board and shift the date of local elections to coincide with statewide votes.

Aaron Downing sponsored both measures. The school board measure would bring the board in line with the assembly, and tie school board members to set geographic districts. Board members are currently elected at-large.

That has concentrated representation in the borough’s core at the expense of outlying areas,

“In places like Butte, Sutton, and out KGB, where there is no local representation on the school board, the people who live in those areas, it’s a little more difficult to track down someone,” he said.

Tying school board members to set areas would also reduce campaign costs and allow more people to participate, Downing said.

Downing also sponsored a ballot measure to move local elections to coincide with state elections where possible. Downing pointed to local voter turnout figures of about 11 and 13 percent in off-cycle years, compared with turnout rates as high as 65 percent for federal and state years.

Assembly member Jim Sykes said moving the election hasn’t been well-covered in the media.

“What I’d like to see is an honest discussion of what the cost is and how it would happen and how it would change the election,” he said. “I haven’t seen anything to that effect. One letter to the editor and an op-ed piece I wrote. I guess I examine these things because I’ve been involved with the electoral process for so many years.”

Palmer and Houston voters will also get a chance to address marijuana commercialization (if not legalization). Organizers of a borough-wide commercial ban have also obtained enough signatures for that measure to go on ballots during the 2016 election. Votes in both cities could serve as a bell-weather for the borough vote.

Houston voters will also vote to potentially increase the sales tax to three percent from two percent. The city has faced increasingly dire budget projections over the increasing cost of government relative to population size, and struggled to increase the size of the tax base in the face of residents’ concerns about changes to the city’s character.

Talkeetna voters will also decide whether East Talkeetna, or the portion of Talkeetna east of the railroad tracks, will be included in the Talkeetna Flood and Erosion district. The measure is composed of two votes: one for voters in the flood service area and a second vote for property owners who could join it in the future. If voters in either area vote down the proposed annexation, the measure will fail. The district, like the Circle View Subidivision erosion control district, serves as a recipient for federal and state loans and other flood and erosion control measures.

Election day is Tuesday, October 6.

Contact Reporter Brian O’Connor at 352-2270, brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com, or on Twitter @reporterbriano.