Kenai's $9.4M school-cost risk may never actually come due

A gas-pipeline tax bill has raised alarm on the Kenai Peninsula, where one version could stick borough taxpayers with millions in added school-funding costs. But a closer look suggests the threat may be more theoretical than real.

At issue is how HB 381's new tax on the Alaska LNG pipeline feeds the formula that sets local school-funding obligations. The Senate Finance version pulls 13 percent of that revenue into the calculation — which, on paper, could raise the Kenai borough's contribution to about $9.4 million a year by 2040. The House version leaves it out entirely.

The catch is a sunset the Senate attached. Because the pipeline's tax revenue wouldn't start flowing until well into the next decade, and the funding formula runs on a two-year lag, the Legislature's own fiscal analyst concluded the charge would expire before any of it came due. "No RLC is ever paid before the section is repealed," analyst Alexei Painter wrote — meaning the Senate version would "effectively match the House version."

So the two sides may be fighting over a gap that, on Kenai's school bills, could amount to little or nothing. The conference committee hasn't resolved it.