Juneau harbor board weighs charter passenger fee of $7.50, up from $2.05

Juneau's port director wants to raise the charter passenger-for-hire fee to $7.50 a head, up from $2.05, for boats working out of Statter Harbor.

The Docks and Harbors Board voted Aug. 27 to schedule a hearing on the increase. Board members took testimony Sept. 8 at the Mendenhall Valley library, following a Statter Harbor overview and a SEAWWA presentation on charter vessel operations. No outcome is known yet, and minutes were not available.

The fee is charged per passenger embarked. In 2026, an inspected charter vessel paid $711.45 for the season plus $2.05 a passenger. Most operators also pay Statter moorage, $430 a month for a 45-foot boat. The fee is normally adjusted each year to the Urban Alaska consumer price index. A 2022 Assembly packet described a regulation that raised charter vessel and passenger fees by 10%.

The port director set the $7.50 figure in an Aug. 21 memorandum, writing that services provided and future Statter Harbor expansion needs made the increase reasonably justified. The memo shows no supporting arithmetic. Two days earlier, board member Robert Horchover had put his own estimate at $5.

The Army Corps of Engineers will not finish its feasibility cost analysis on a replacement Statter breakwater until September 2027. The port director anticipates a $20 million local match, and after that, in the director's words, "we envision a $100 million project to expand moorage in Statter Harbor." Neither project is funded, the memorandum says, and the city and state are unlikely to be able to support them.

The Harbor Enterprise fund balance at the end of fiscal 2027 is projected at $1.2 million, which the port director calls perhaps the lowest level ever for the account. The 2027 budget also stops transferring the state raw fish tax to harbors, an unexpected loss of $450,000 a year. Other capital needs include the North Douglas launch ramp, the Aurora Harbor office building, Douglas Harbor uplands and Statter Phase IV.

The fee has produced $3,349,539 since it began and now brings in more than half a million dollars a year, a sharp rise since Statter Harbor Improvements Phase IIIB was finished in 2023. Set at $1.10 in 2006 for the 2007 season, worth $1.89 today, the fee has already outrun inflation at $2.05.

The charter passenger fee was not the main payer for the last big project at Statter. Phase III cost $16,157,823.26, split seven ways, with $9,866,000 of it coming from state marine passenger fees. Three memorandums in the packet give totals of about $13 million, $15 million and $16.16 million, measuring different scopes: the Docks and Harbors share and the whole project.

The board's rate policy, adopted Jan. 27, 2022, requires rates to be fair, reasonable, consistent and supported by data. On four of seven criteria, the department cannot yet say whether the fee meets that standard, and it is still hiring a firm to test whether base rates are appropriate. Staff said in August that cleaning and restroom costs are tracked on a spreadsheet but could not produce a figure. One board member said toilet paper alone would not justify a rate increase.

No current charter operator is quoted in the 17-page packet, and SEAWWA is never expanded or quoted. Jack Cadigan, Bob Janes and Louis Jergens are summarized from a 2006 hearing, accepting commercial fees but arguing for charging based on passengers actually carried, as Allen Marine's Jim Collins proposed in 2004. Then-port director John Stone said in 2006 that the purpose was to match costs incurred with revenue generated. The packet's 1998-2026 fee history is described as "the result of AI generated summary of the available meeting minutes."

The regulation that would have to change is 05 CBJAC 20.080. Whether an increase needs Assembly approval, as the 2006 regulation did, is not established, and the board has not set a rate. Its next committee meeting is Sept. 16, with the next regular meeting Sept. 24.