Brawley proposes cutting $1 million in alcohol tax grants to pay for Anchorage pre-K

Assembly Chair Anna Brawley proposed Friday cutting $1 million in alcohol tax grants to help pay for pre-K classrooms in Anchorage School District Title I schools. The largest cuts would hit three groups that serve crime victims: Abused Women's Aid in Crisis, Standing Together Against Rape and Victims for Justice would each lose $225,000.

Her amendment to the 2027 operating budget would also trim four other grants: $50,000 from the Anchorage Coalition to End Homelessness, $100,000 each from Catholic Social Services' complex care program and Christian Health Associates, and $75,000 from Covenant House. "So essentially the gist of this amendment is it is net zero," Brawley said at an Assembly budget worksession.

The pre-K program costs about $2 million a year. The alcohol tax paid for it in the 2021 through 2024 budgets, according to the amendment. The city moved it to the marijuana tax in 2025, kept it there in 2026 and proposes the same for 2027. The marijuana tax pays for the ACCEE Fund, which voters created in 2023 for child care and early education. The fund's board has recommended against the shift for several years and asked Mayor Suzanne LaFrance in October to move pre-K back to the alcohol tax, so it could put more of its roughly $5 million into child care providers.

Under Brawley's plan, each tax would cover about half the cost, leaving about $1 million in marijuana tax money unallocated. Brawley writes that voters likely meant the ACCEE Fund to add new investments, not replace existing ones.

The amendment states the sponsor does not intend "to minimize the work of these organizations" but does "call into question the continued prioritization of emergency response over upstream prevention."

Vice Chair Daniel Volland asked at the worksession whether Brawley had considered eliminating the pre-K funding "entirely rather than the decreases to the other alcohol tax appropriations."

Assembly Member Janice Park filed a smaller amendment cutting $25,000 each from the same three victim-service groups. That $75,000 would go to the Alaska Children's Trust for a youth violence-prevention campaign with the school district, which could include public service announcements and gun locks. A second version in the worksession packet describes a $75,000 grant to Recover Alaska for an alcohol harm prevention plan, though its funding details still list the Alaska Children's Trust as the recipient.

At the Assembly's Wednesday meeting, Recover Alaska asked members to return pre-K funding to the alcohol tax and direct more money toward prevention.

Both amendments are proposals and would need Assembly approval.