Anchorage's 2027 budget leaves out money for downtown police foot patrols

Anchorage's proposed 2027 budget leaves out the one-time money that paid for downtown police foot patrols this year, Office of Management and Budget Director Ona Brause told the Assembly Budget and Finance Committee-of-the-Whole on Thursday.

This year's patrols put two officers downtown from 8 am to 10 pm, seven days a week, as an overtime detail paid for with hotel bed tax money, Mayor Suzanne LaFrance's administration said in April. The Assembly's 2026 Tourism-Improvement Projects package set aside $650,000 for police overtime for foot patrols in high tourism areas.

The patrols run on overtime because the Anchorage Police Department doesn't have enough sworn officers to staff them on regular time, Brause said. "That additional appropriation doesn't exist in 2027. So we either need to find some other revenue source to fund the OT cost associated with that operation."

An Assembly member who called the patrols valuable to the downtown business community asked what the plan was. Asked whether a special levy could pay for them, Brause said that would follow the service area model. "If there's a service you would like, then you sort of have to pay into the kitty for the service you want," she said. She said she didn't know how the legal structure would work, including whether it could fall under the Downtown Improvement District, "but that's an option."

Downtown property owners already pay about $1.15 million a year in district assessments for snow removal, cleaning, beautification and security that stops short of law enforcement, Alaska News reported in August.

Finding other money won't be easy. The mayor's $692.5 million proposal already uses $12.1 million in one-time money to help close a roughly $15 million gap, and it would collect property taxes within about $34,000 of the city's tax cap, Alaska News reported when it was released.

Police overtime topped $10 million in 2025, against a 2026 overtime budget of $4.9 million, Alaska News reported Aug. 21. Brause said the administration will go through overtime at police, fire and transit at the Assembly's budget work session Friday, including whether position changes or operational adjustments could cut it.

Public hearings on the budget are set for the Assembly's regular meetings Oct. 20 and Nov. 4. The Assembly is scheduled to vote Nov. 17.