Anchorage budget trade-off: schools OR general government, not both, may be coming

The Anchorage Assembly is asking the city to figure out whether it can pay for schools and other city services next year — or whether it might have to choose.

On Thursday, the Assembly's Budget and Finance Committee took up a draft resolution that asks the administration to run two scenarios. The first: what happens if Anchorage fully funds schools, and what would have to be cut from other city services to do it? The second: what happens if Anchorage fully funds everything else (police, fire, roads, parks, libraries, snow plowing — all of it), and what would have to be cut from schools?

One committee member called the situation "a potential fiscal cliff." The reason: Anchorage's property tax cap only lets the city's budget grow a little each year, based on inflation, population growth, new construction, and added services. Costs are rising faster than that limit, and next year's budget cycle is showing the squeeze.

Committee Chair Anna Brawley co-wrote the resolution with Assembly Members Daniel Voland and Erin Baldwin Day. "The goal is not that this coming from three of us, it's from all of us," Brawley said.

"What would it look like if we fully funded schools within the cap at our optional local contribution? How much would that require of cuts to other services? And the reverse situation, if we fully funded general government, what would that look like in terms of a reduction?" Brawley asked.

The committee also wants the administration to factor in costs that are still being calculated: more military personnel at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson (which means more demand on city services but no extra city revenue), gas line developments, and a Wildland Fire Division that costs more each year as fire seasons get longer.

Ona Brouse, the city's budget director, said timing matters. "If it is about reimagining the funding of a specific program or of cutting a specific program, we would need to know that by August at the latest," Brouse said.

The Assembly wants the report by around September 1, with the goal of giving residents until November to weigh in. The resolution comes back to committee on July 21.