Assembly rejects city vote on property taxes

The Assembly also approved bond propositions for the ballot.

The property tax exemption measure lost by an 8-3 vote Tuesday night. The three Assembly members who supported an advisory vote on tax exemptions -- Harriet Drummond, Elvi Gray-Jackson and Mike Gutierrez -- wanted to increase the exemption residential property owners get.

Currently Anchorage homeowners are exempt from paying taxes on the first 10 percent of the value of a house, with a maximum exemption of $20,000, and it applies only to owner-occupied homes.

The three Assembly members proposed asking local voters if the exemption should be raised to $50,000.

It would take action by the Legislature to actually increase the exemption, even if the Assembly had passed the resolution.

If the exemption level were raised, the same amount of overall property taxes would be collected, but commercial enterprises would pay a bigger share and residential property owners less.

But it's not clear whether residential property owners at the low or high end of the economic scale would benefit most. That would depend on details of how the tax exemption was structured, and those details have not been worked out.

That's why several Assembly members said they didn't want to put it to a vote in this year's city election.

"The intentions in bringing this forward were really good," said Assembly member Sheila Selkregg. "But I'm not comfortable in voting for something with these problems around it. It becomes a very confusing document."

Mayor Dan Sullivan also opposed putting the measure on the ballot. "It really has unintended consequences," he said during a press briefing Wednesday.

Sullivan just returned from a trip to Juneau, where several bills that would increase allowable tax exemptions are pending. Sullivan said he doubts they'll make it through the Legislature this year, with the 90-day session limiting what can get done.

The Assembly did approve four bond propositions totaling less than $40 million for the April city election ballot. That's a significant drop from usual, as the Anchorage Assembly and city administration tempered their requests because of worries about the still-weak economy.

The Assembly approved these bond propositions:

• Road construction, $37.1 million, in the usual range.

• Anchorage Fire Department improvements, $1.2 million.

• Ambulance for the Sand Lake area, $250,000.

• Public transit, $932,000.

Last year, in the thick of the recession, the April city election ballot included $141 million worth of proposed projects, and voters turned down three-fourths of the debt. The money approved was mostly for road improvements. Two school bonds failed.

This year the school district decided not to propose any new school bonds.

Superintendent Carol Comeau said late last year that she felt there was still "so much negativity" after last year's failure that she thought 2010 was a good year to skip.

Find Rosemary Shinohara online at adn.com/contact/rshinohara or call her at 257-4340.