Mayor seeks $1.5 million from APD's technology levy without naming what it would buy

Mayor Suzanne LaFrance is asking the Anchorage Assembly to approve up to $1.5 million from the city's police technology tax levy fund for Anchorage Police Department "technology implementation and maintenance." The Assembly is set to introduce the resolution Tuesday, Nov. 17, and hold a public hearing Dec. 1.

The money would come from the fund's existing balance. The companion memorandum, submitted by LaFrance and approved by Police Chief Sean Case, puts the full amount in an account labeled "Contractual Svcs Other." Neither document names a vendor or a specific system.

The Assembly took up a nearly identical request in September 2025, the same month it approved a five-year, roughly $11.8 million contract with Axon Enterprise that gave police the Real-Time Crime Center, license plate readers and drones. That resolution sought up to $1,997,530 from the same fund's balance, used the same wording and account, and also named no vendor or system.

The fund holds a voter-approved special tax levy. The 2026 municipal budget describes it as dedicated to lease costs for police body-worn cameras, in-car cameras, digital evidence management, computer-aided dispatch, records-management systems and "related technologies and systems." The budget lists $1.84 million in spending from the fund in both 2025 and 2026.

The request comes after the Assembly on Nov. 4 passed rules for police license plate readers and the crime center. Under them, any contract that would materially expand surveillance capability needs Assembly approval. This request is an appropriation, not a contract.