Anchorage's alcohol tax can't fund everything it was promised to fund — and a board meeting Tuesday made the tradeoff explicit

The Anchorage Community and Economic Empowerment Fund Board faces a budget drop from about $6 million to $5.2 million for 2027, and the question Tuesday was how to weigh early childhood education against emergency homelessness response when alcohol tax revenue can no longer fund both.

Mayor Suzanne LaFrance asked the board to evaluate whether the $2 million annual allocation to Anchorage School District preschool still fits the fund's mission, as alcohol tax revenue has increasingly been redirected to homelessness response. Anchorage's unsheltered homelessness rose roughly 300% during the COVID period and has remained elevated.

The ASD piece sits inside its own funding crisis. The eight Title I preschool classrooms serve students selected by lottery based on risk factors including homelessness, family income, and developmental concerns. The district separately faces a $90 million structural budget gap heading into the next fiscal cycle, limiting its ability to backfill ACE cuts internally.

Board member Trevor Storrs argued the preschool funding is itself prevention. "The homeless work is not prevention, it's tertiary. And the work that ASD and what we're doing actually hopefully will lessen the individuals that will find themselves in mental health distress, physical distress that then leads to homelessness and other issues," Storrs said.

LaFrance acknowledged the tension but did not commit to restoring the preschool allocation. The administration's framing: emergency homelessness response needs the funding now to manage a crisis the city is actively trying to bring under control.

The board directed staff to prepare scenarios at reduced ASD funding levels. During public comment, Dr. Jessica Parker of Little Mountain Movers, the largest childcare center in Anchorage, urged the board to prioritize infant and toddler care — noting her center has 80 infants on its waitlist with families waiting a year and a half for placement, adding a third demand on the same fund.