July 9, 2025 CBJ Assembly Finance Committee Meeting

Call the July 9th, 2025 Assembly Finance Committee meeting to order.

Miss Wendell, will you call or note the roll? Thank you, Chair Wall. We have all assembly members present in chambers besides Assemblymember Hughes-Scandies, who is absent.

That brings us to approval of the minutes. We have the May 14th and the May 21st Assembly Finance Committee meeting minutes in here. There's a lot of stuff in there. Um, any changes from the assembly?

Seeing none, those are so moved. That brings us to agenda topics. We will start with sales tax delinquencies and legal actions. Miss Flick, anything you want to say about this before I see if there's any questions? Uh, yes.

Madam Chair, this starts on page 28 of your packet because there's lots and lots of minutes. Um, if you don't mind, Chair Wohl, I'd like to let Attorney Wright kind of present some information about this. This is a good news story that we are happy to share with you this evening. Um, thank you, Chair Wohl. So, um, we are excited to bring you an update on sales tax— this is so nerdy to say that, um, but, um, for many, many years, the Assembly has, um, and the city has grappled with how to handle, um, businesses that fail to remit sales taxes.

So, as we all know, when we purchase something, we pay that sales tax. That money does not belong to the business. It is supposed to be immediately you know, kind of separated out, remitted to the city. We have a fairly, um, well, I think there's some numbers that Ms. Flick will give. Many, many lovely, wonderful, good business owners, the vast majority comply with this.

We've struggled with what to do with those who do not. Um, we were working with the Department of Law, was working with Mr. Rogers. On this, and then COVID hit, and we were put on a holding pattern by the Assembly, appropriately so. Things were going— people were going through a lot, and this just wasn't a priority, and we certainly didn't want to start pulling even more money from businesses that were struggling. So there was a holding pattern there, just probably about a year a year and a half ago.

We've—. Well, I guess it's a little bit longer than that. We really started picking this back up and looking at the process. We're trying to get information out there to business owners faster if they are failing to remit. So we're not getting huge numbers.

You will see on here there are some with huge numbers, but to respond much faster once we start seeing failure to remit, catch things early on, get people on payment plans, get people bringing themselves back into compliance. And then we are focusing, the legal department is focusing on taking people into court when we see repeat offenders, huge numbers, and just non-compliance. The newest piece that we've done in the last year, there is code provision allowing us to charge people criminally for failure to remit sales tax. Historically, we have done that. It's been many, many years since we did that, um, but we are utilizing the criminal prosecution option for, again, repeat offenders, people who are failing to engage with the sales tax office, people who, um, you know, are not showing up to court, we have no ability to get them into a civil court proceeding.

We have a few more tools in the criminal toolbox, and so we have started to file criminal charges. And I believe there's 4 or 5 businesses that we have successfully filed criminal charges against. And I say successfully because We don't actually, you know, in the grand scheme of things, it's not beneficial to have a criminal conviction for us. What we want is we want to get someone's attention and we want them to pay their sales tax. And so on these cases, we are seeing people paying attention, showing up to court, getting back in compliance, and then most times we have then dismissed the criminal charges against them.

So it's It's been very successful there. We do have some business owners who are not getting back into compliance, and we will pursue, you know, the full options for a criminal case.

And that can include criminal judgments, and it does actually include potential jail time for them. Again, that is not the goal. The goal is to get the funds. These cases allow us to garnish wages. They allow us to put liens on people's property.

They allow us to garnish their PFD. And so I also, I want to commend Mr. Mitchell in our office and all of the finance staff who are, have made this possible the last few years. I think that when I was assigned this caseload in 2017, it was, it was presented as not a priority. It was the last thing that I needed to do with my day, and that has shifted completely. Um, this is a priority.

We have a full attorney assigned to it, and the result is, um, huge amounts of money coming to the city that should have been remitted in the first place. So I think it's worthwhile to celebrate those successes of Finance, um, and all their work, and also our office, Mr. Mitchell. So hopefully that is a good summary, Ms. Flick.

Mayor Weldon. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, that is good news that we're having some success. However, I'm looking for a definition of two terms: default judgment and civil complaints. You talked about confessions of judgment in your memo, or Angie Susan Bisflit talked about in her memo about those two.

Didn't know. Sure. So a civil complaint is the initial document that we file to start a civil case. Criminal complaint is the initial document that we file to start a criminal case. And the other was confession or default.

So if someone doesn't show up to court repeatedly, if we have served them and done all of the things that we are supposed to do to to make sure they have notice that they are being sued. We can apply for a default judgment, which means the court will just enter a judgment in the amount that we are asking for, and then we can start those liens, you know, and all of that process.

Mr. Smith. Thank you, Madam Chair. How, how are these dollar figures determined?

I know, but how do you know how much they fit in for file the sales anyway? How are they determined? Thank you for the question, Mr. Smith. In some cases, we do have businesses who file and provide us all the data but never remit the sales tax. And so in that case, it's fairly easy to see because they've given us all the information.

Oftentimes we have businesses who have been compliant for a while And so we know their business load and then do some analysis with like businesses in the community to see, you know, is business in that particular industry fairly consistent? Is it changing? We have a process of estimating sales and then what the sales tax would be. And we provide that information to the business owner. They have an opportunity to say, that's— no, I'd rather file and give you my information.

So there is a back and forth process available, but we use several mechanisms to determine.

Mr. Bryson. Thank you, Madam Chair. Director Flick, if a business maybe already did a confession of judgment, they got behind on their sales tax and they fessed up and you gave them a payment plan, but they have a summer like the one that we're experiencing and they weren't able to make good on their confession of judgment, they're just having a hard time keeping caught up. Would the sales tax office work with them, allow them maybe to do another confession of judgment, get a refinanced outpay if a business was making a good faith effort to correct the problem that they had with sales tax but were struggling through it? Could you maybe describe a little bit how we work with those guys?

Sure, I can take that. So what— So what I would say is that Finance and if there's a confession of judgment, if law is specifically involved and Finance, let's say just Finance is involved, both entities will work with businesses. We do not pursue enforcement action if people are actively working and communicating and asking for help or doing, you know, if they're saying this is what's going on, I need this, we are working with them 100%.

I'd like to thank the finance department for having that understanding when working with the business community. So thank you for that.

Other questions? I've got one for Ms. Flick. Um, in terms of like budget forecasting, you know, these are big enough numbers and that they have an impact and our process has changed in that we used to probably not be successful and now we're being more successful. Does that play into how we approach, um, our budget at all? That's a great question.

Um, the answer is it depends. Um, so there are some very big numbers in Mr. Mitchell's memo, if we have somebody that says, okay, yep, you know what I owe, and they've got a large dollar amount they owe, they're probably going to pay it incrementally. So it's not really going to move the needle necessarily on— from a budget impact.

Thanks.

All right. Seeing no other questions, I believe there's no action needed. That's correct. There's no action needed. This is information only.

And one of the things we will start doing is these publications, so the one that's included in your packet today, are done quarterly. And so at the same— at the appropriate timing with how it's put in the newspaper, I will also be including it as an informational item in an AFC packet. At an appropriate meeting. Not that we necessarily need to talk about it, but so that you, um, consistently have the information as well. Mr.

Bryson, um, I know that we have to spend some city resources, all the labor that goes to investigate all this. As I was reading some of the way outstanding or no longer in compliance, there there were businesses that definitely weren't around anymore. There were some people that may not be alive anymore, some that don't live in the community anymore. How much resources does CBJ utilize once you recognize we may not get any money from that entity for that account for whatever reason? Is there something at the end or does it always stay on the list and We're gonna see that business name for eternity even though there's nothing that could be done about it.

That's a fantastic question, Assemblymember Bryson. At the end of this reporting period, we had about 500 businesses that are considered non-filers. And so that's the big list you see of, and we suspect, as you mentioned, that some aren't in business anymore. And we are just working that list As staff have time, we, you know, scour Facebook, scour websites, call last known phone numbers, reach out to last known addresses. And we do have, you know, we'll try a whole bunch of things and if we come back no evidence of existence, no evidence of existence, then we will administratively close accounts.

But really we don't close accounts typically unless the business owner says, I need my account closed. So we need to do our due diligence to ensure that the business really appears to no longer be in existence.

All right. I think that is all for this topic, which brings us to dockage fee usage and restrictions. Ms. Flick.

Thank you, Chair Wall. Seems like forever ago, but earlier on this calendar year, as part of a discussion in Assembly Finance Committee, there was a decision to increase dockage fees starting with the cruise ship season '26. And at that time, there was a request to come back and have a discussion regarding the allocation of those fees. And so what I have prepared for you as a memo is really just informational about The dockage fee belongs in the docks suite of fees, and that's an enterprise fund. And so the point of the memo was just to lay out kind of the parameters and the guidelines and the rules that we have in place to inform your discussion tonight.

And so there's, um, I'm not necessarily posing a question for you to answer, but there was a request to come back and talk about the usage of these fees. And so that's what we have for you to discuss.

Questions from the body? Ms. Atkinson. Thank you, Chair Wall. I just had a question about You mentioned a couple of reasons why we have these rules. One is code, obviously, which we can change.

The other one is the governmental accounting board standards. Is that just like, we really ought to be following this, or is that a, like, if you don't do this, we could get a bad thing on our audit, or we could like, I'm just kind of curious what the teeth there are. Great question. Yeah, so the teeth are really about following appropriate accounting standards, and yes, we would be found not in compliance with the way we should be doing our accounting, um, if we are, um, inappropriately classifying a revenue source or, um, putting it in a place that's not appropriate. And so the, the Governmental Accounting Standards Board, or GASB for short, um, is the rule setter for accounting for government.

And so when we get audited every year, it's based on those standards and those rules And they're intended for, you know, good transparency, good accounting, and consistency across a spectrum of governments for financial standards.

Mr. Bryson.

I figured it wouldn't be more than an anecdotal answer, but once we approve these dockage fees and they became like the new standard next year, what was the pushback from the cruise industry or what was their response when they heard that we were implementing dockage fees? Did they care?

I'll chime in and if the visitor industry director wants to add to that, you can call her up, Chair Wall. But I think that the industry had been expecting this increase for quite some time. We forecasted it to them. They requested that you delay implementation, which you did. So I think it's been relatively amicable.

I mean, no one wants to pay more, but it has been planned and well communicated. Ms. Pierce, you can use your head to indicate whether you would like to add anything.

Okay.

Assuming Mr. Bryson, your answer, your question was answered.

Anybody else? All right. We do have, um, you know, in our summary here, uh, options if the assembly wants to make a change. You know, we, we know in our budget what would happen naturally if we don't take any action, but we've got some suggestions on, you know, if we do want to think about, um, use of funds for broader, broader use than just coming back to docs. So maybe I'll see if we have a motion from the assembly.

Mr. Smith. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'd move that the Assembly Finance Committee direct staff to explore and determine appropriate funding opportunities for AFC consideration, direction regarding these dockage fees. Future dockage fees, or the increased dockage fees. Excuse me.

Any objections?

Seeing none, that is— oh, did Mr. Kelly, did you raise your hand? Uh, yes, um, just objection for the purposes of the question, and, um, Deputy Mayor Smith doesn't need to answer this since he is getting, um, this recommended motion from from the packet, but anybody who's able to answer, like, what is, what does staff basically interpret this direction to do? What will we do in response if this motion passes? Thank you, Assemblymember Kelly. What we would do is a combination of things, working with the port director to, validate needs and kind of usage of the dockage fees if they were to solely stay within the dock fund.

Also, similar to how the marine passenger fee analysis kind of goes, we could look at some other things that seem to have a relationship to what's happening at the dock through these big and are there implications and nexuses that make sense where we could say, because we have so many people coming in through the ships that come in, and we know the buses eat up our roads, um, faster than just regular cars, does it make sense to put X number of dollars maybe towards fixing streets? That, I mean, we would do some brainstorming internally to see what that might look like. But that's how I would interpret that motion, is to look at a wide spectrum of uses of that and bring that for your consideration. Thank you. I'll remove my objection.

All right. Seeing— oh, I'm going to object just for a quick comment on that. Thank you, Ms. Flick, and thank you, Mr. Kelly, for that question. I'll— I will— I hope that we take this up kind of well before the budget process. I do think that, you know, a less proactive approach to this could mean, you know, we transfer funds out at the end of every year.

I think that will kind of degrade the purpose of setting up a structure that allows, you know, these funds to be used more broadly. And so we'll just keep, keep this on the timeline. So, um, we can set up that process before we think about next year's budget. Right. I will remove my objection.

And that is so moved.

Um, I'm going to have us take it. I know we haven't been going super long, but, um, because we did have an executive session here, um, I'm going to have us take a break now, given that our next one could be lengthy. So let's take 10 minutes, which brings us back at 6:03.

Bring us back into session here.

I believe Ms. Hughes-Candies was going to try to join us sometime around now. So, If y'all could let me know if she shows up.

We are going to jump into seasonal sales tax. We have a related memo in here and we have some amendments from members. So before we talk about amendments, I'll see if folks have Questions on either the memo or seasonal sales tax more generally.

Mr. Smith. Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess I had heard something today that I think is critical for our decision, and that's just now that we know there are two citizen-led ballot initiatives that will be on the ballot. And then we have our proposal. I guess I was maybe hoping to hear from the attorney about what happens in situations where there would be two initiatives dealing with similar items on the ballot and how that— and maybe we use the example of our current draft of the seasonal sales tax proposal and then the removal of sales tax for food and utilities at your, you know, principal residence.

Anyway, the ballot measure that's been proposed by citizens and how that would go if they both went to the ballot and what, how that plays out depending on number of votes and things. Through the chair, thank you. So I'll start, I'll start at the beginning. So CBJ Charter 7.11 Uh, deals with what happens when we have 2 measures on a ballot and both of them receive a majority vote. So this is assuming a majority vote on both.

If both measures, if your measure and the citizens measure both receive a majority vote, we then look to see who has more votes. The measure with more votes wins in that scenario. So let's say, you know, 3,000 people vote, 2,000 vote for yours, you know, 2,000 vote for theirs. We're going to have a problem because it's a tie. But And the charter doesn't contemplate that, right?

I know, right? We don't do that one. Okay. So, I mean, this is what I was thinking about today, all day today. 2000 And then 2001.

The affordable Juneau petition would win because it has one more vote. It's, it's you, you've passed that majority mark and then you're looking for who has the most votes. The main consideration there and that I think you need to think about tonight is The question is, are they competing measures, right? And what does that mean? The way that you have, that we have currently presented the ballot initiative to you, it is a, it is a paired group of 3 things for the ballot initiative in Ordinance 2025-32, right?

So I'm a voter, I'm going to go look and I'm going to say the Assembly wants to know whether seasonal sales tax, food and utilities. I know that there's some, you know, but the way we have it now, food and utilities, and this is what we're doing with those other tax things. It's a group and none of those individual things are left out. It is directly competing with Juneau, Affordable Juneau's ballot measure, even though yours has more stuff. Because you've decided this is the best way potentially to, to handle the situation, it is directly competing with Affordable Juno.

So we are in that scenario where if they both go forward, both get a majority vote, we're looking at the top vote getter. If you want to modify and make it so it's not competing, perhaps, or, and there are many, many strategies, thoughts, you know, how are voters going to understand or not understand what's happening? You could separate yours out into 3 questions, which would put 4 questions on the ballot, right? Nobody likes that, right? That I can tell.

You could pass something substantially similar now to negate their, their petition. You have that ability always, and then only put the sales tax on. You could craft it in many, many ways. There are some amendments tonight that play around with that. Does that help?

I don't think it helps because there are hard decisions to be made, but does that give you the framework of what the charter requires?

Yes, and that, again, I mean, the boil down is, as they're currently drafted, they are competing, and therefore the top vote would Would Trump and, for instance, if the affordable Juno measure happened, even if they're both affirmatively supported by a majority of the voters, the seasonal sales tax piece would even fall away, even though that's not a competing. That's correct, because we've drafted it as a package. Thank you.

I just got a message from Ms. Hughes-Canady that she is Online, Miss Atkinson. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm pretty sure I know the answer to this question, but just to clarify, the state, when there's an initiative that passes, they can make certain, like, technical amendments to it to make it functional. We can't do that at the city level. That's right.

So, through the chair, we just accept it as presented. We can— sometimes we have to add some definitions to code. I would anticipate with Affordable Juno, there might be some, some policy decisions that have to be made, but you cannot play with their language. Um, and you're limited to when you can react to their language. Uh, so further, I think it's a year.

Um, I would have to double check.

I've got a related question. Um, Not suggesting this is what I'm thinking about, but if, if you did have, um, you know, something similar to what we've got in front of us and the affordable Juno proposal as well, both passed by a majority. Let's say affordable Junos gets more votes. Um, Could we hold a special election on seasonal sales? Like, I wouldn't do this unless seasonal sales tax had also gotten a majority of votes, but could you hold a special election to vote on a seasonal sales tax sometime soon afterwards?

Madam Chair, yes, you could. The Assembly can always ask the voters to look at a ballot measure. And so you could hold a special election to separate that out. Then if it was similar to what we had put before them already? That's fine.

That does work. I mean, there is, the hope, as you said, would be that it got a decent amount of votes. There is history of us asking repeat questions to the electorate. And sometimes they critique for that. But yes, you can ask those questions again.

Any other questions on this particular topic or seasonal sales tax more generally? Miss Atkinson. Thank you, Madam Chair. This one's probably for Miss Flick. Uh, just trying to recall the petition, and I haven't read it anytime recently, but When we were talking about exemptions and utilities for our measure, we said it wasn't possible to do commercial versus residential.

I believe that the initiative only has residential. Does that make the whole thing entirely unworkable, or is that just something we would have to figure out? I guess I'm wondering what you— what the city would do if we were handed that when we've kind of been told that isn't really possible. Thank you for that question.

The way that the initiative is written and the way that we currently collect data from businesses, it is basically unenforceable. We don't ask for AELMP. When you remit your sales and sales information and your sales tax, break out this kind of customer from this kind of customer. We say, what were your sales and what's your sales, what did you collect and remit for sales tax? And so it would introduce some complications from an enforcement perspective.

We could, and we would definitely work with LA to figure out if there's changes that we need to make in how reporting happens for that particular segment of industry. But as we currently operate, we don't distinguish between types of sales within an organization.

Ms. Hall. Thank you, Chairman. A question for Director Flick. Do you have the breakdown, not going into the specifics of the 3 amendments, of how that would pencil out with revenue brought in?

I did not have a chance to run the numbers, although I have my laptop with me, so I can, I can look at that while perhaps you have some other discussion if you want me to pull those out. And there's nodding of heads, so let me whip out some numbers for you. Other questions? Mr. Smith, and if you're not able to answer, just due to the kind of the nature and that I have questions on the language of the citizens initiative and it's, you know, maybe specifically to water and wastewater. It says for service at a city and borough, Juneau residents, principal place of abode.

I guess I'm wondering, how does that work at the Mendenhall Towers or something like, would anyway? 1 Issue I see with this is that I believe certain properties are considered actually commercial, like a multifamily housing, and those would not be exempted from some of these utilities, electricity or wastewater and water, maybe, because that's our wheelhouse. So, I'll speak to it just a little bit as the utility. So, probably more of the, like, business, since we do have a utility business. And what our, our process would be.

You are correct. We have commercial accounts that probably have residences. We don't distinguish between principal, principal place of residence.

For example, I have a commercial account because my home used to have an apartment that we now live in, right? So like, like we call it commercial and bill it differently. So what we would have to do as the City and Borough of Juneau Utility is we would have to individually audit all all of our accounts to, you know, figure out if they're a home or if they're a business, and we'd have to come up with procedure and code and process to do that. And then, you know, like Director Flick said, some enforcement procedures as well. So I don't think that for the City and Borough of Juneau as a business, it would be impossible.

It would just be very labor-intensive, and inevitably there would be things that fell through the cracks, right? Unintended consequences of someone who's principally residential but charged commercial and, and, you know, just a lot of work to sort through all of those details.

If I could add something to that, so I'll just add, I'm not going to speak for Affordable Juneau, but they did come to me when they were drafting to check on some things. This language is exact to the senior tax exemption. So one of the things that's, that's not new language in code, that is code language. Senior tax exemption, though, it's much easier. There are less people.

It's not citywide, you know, and some of these same problems do come up in the senior tax exemption. It's just much more manageable. So, so I wanted to point that out. And if I could add one other piece, oftentimes, um, so we've been living in a condo and so the water comes into the condominium complex. I would assume it's probably similar for apartment complexes.

And so part of our homeowners association fees cover the water that comes to the entire complex. So I don't necessarily pay a water bill with, or sewer, I pay a homeowners association bill that covers that, and that would be all commercial.

Other questions?

Miss Flick, do you have— did I give you enough time to— it's okay if you didn't. You're answering questions and finding information. I can—. Well, now if I can just track my papers, Miss Ware. Um, so we start with the easy one.

Mr. Kelly's amendment is essentially the same as from, from percentages and dollars as your ordinance as it was introduced, adding the curbside compost removal. Um, we don't think it's really going to move the needle on the sales tax. Um, so I, I think from a financial perspective, um, Mr. Kelly's amendment doesn't really change, um, the context of what we're looking at. Um, Mr. Steingart's amendment would change the the permanent percent from 2.5 to 3, and in the winter, and then from 6.5 down to 5.5. And as we've been talking about these all along, we've added that 1% temporary, so we were comparing it to 5% because that's what we're used to, correct?

So in that scenario, we would be able to cover the food exemption because his also removes utilities, correct? Yes. So it, um, the revenue generated would cover the food exemption, and it would bring in about $2 million additional revenue, um, which in, uh, the ordinance as introduced, um, intended to bring forth some additional revenue. So I do need to look at Mr. Bryson's real quick.

So if I could have just a moment of at ease to do that.

Yeah, and thank you for giving us the full context before we dive into the discussion about these amendments, which we will get some time to talk about them each more specifically.

Madam Chair, Mayor Walden, while Director Flick is doing that, can she also give us the numbers for the 2.5 and 6.5 that was on the original? Okay.

As I understand Mr. Bryson's amendment, it removes all of the exemptions.

So we're not exempting food, we're not exempting utilities. We are keeping the base rate at 2.5 in the winter, 6.5 in the summer. So I'm going to add that 1% temporary tax on top of that. So, whereas today we bring in about $65 million in sales tax, this amendment would bring in close to $79 million in revenue. Um, but it doesn't have any of the exemptions included in it.

So, um, that's the difference in that. And then our current one.

I just need to add the exemptions back. Um, the current one will bring in about $73 million of sales tax revenue, and it would leave— it would take care of the exemption of food, take care of the exemption of utilities, and that was all utilities. So not a distinction between residential or commercial, and it would increase the overall sales tax by about $2.5 million.

Questions? Mr. Smith. Thanks for that. I guess I was almost seeing— oh, okay, I think I'm seeing the difference now. Okay, I was kind of seeing Mr. Bryson's— should Mr. Bryson's amendment pass and the ballot measures proposed by the voters go, but the proposal that the current draft ordinance exempts more utilities, so therefore has a less of a Yeah, has less revenue.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay, I'm going to move us into talking about these amendments, if that's okay. Um, Mayor Weldon, will you start us with a base motion to make amendments on top of? Um, yes, Madam Chair. Uh, let's see here. Sorry, I would move.

Ordinance 2025-32 to the full assembly. And we are going to start with Mr. Bryson's amendment here, um, because it, you know, depending on how it goes, it could nullify the rest of our conversation potentially. Um, I will— this came to us late. I should have mentioned during the break to make sure people had a chance to look at it. Does anyone need a few minutes to read over the amendment before we talk about it?

Seeing none, Mr. Bryson, I will let you go ahead and make your amendment and then Please explain your reasoning.

My amendment would be to remove all language that included the sales tax exemption and— or the sales tax exemption on food and utilities. And the purpose— so that's my amendment, to remove the exemption on food and utilities. So that way, this question that we ask is strictly the seasonal sales tax question. Right now, if you read it, we have one ballot initiative that says, do you want us to take sales tax off of food and utilities, yes or no? And then ours asks three major questions.

Would you like food or the sales tax removed from food and utilities? Would you like to reframe how we collect sales tax in Juneau?

And there was one other thing that— and we're explaining it with trying to explain the 1% at the same time. Just explaining it to a group to say that, hey, when this comes up, you better vote against it or there won't be any money for you next year. They can't even understand what I'm explaining here. We're putting too many questions into one. So they'll be at the— The citizens on a ballot will be asked, do you want to remove sales tax from food and utilities, or do you want this very complicated way to do that?

The likelihood that Attorney Wright just explained, theirs getting a few more votes, and it would only take one, and then ours would be completely removed. I say that that group did half of our work for us. Let's just go with their sales tax removed from food and residential utilities. Little bit more of a pain, but I think if we took their work and said, yeah, we're going to support that, here's how we're going to pay for it, and then we ask a very clear-cut, this is what we would like your sales tax to look like, and it makes enough revenue to pay for that complete exemption in two separate questions, and we're not adding anything to this already full ballot that has other questions on it as well as, as well as other people up for assembly.

It's the same question. So we want that to happen. And so instead of having to advocate, vote for our sales tax exemption and our sales tax game that we're playing. Don't vote for theirs. Instead, our message could be, vote for the sales tax exemption and vote for the seasonal sales tax.

We're yes on both. That is the most positive message that we could be sending the voters in years. And the group that is the most upset with our spending, we're now going to be able to say, hey, thank you, you did half the work for us. And now here's the funding mechanism for what the community has asked us for.

Let's play it out. They— that wins, sales tax gets removed from food and utilities, and our question of seasonal sales tax fails, we're in the same boat that we're in right now anyways. They both pass and we get the outcome that we were looking for. Theirs fails and our seasonal sales tax happens, well, the community will be upset with how much money we have left over at the end of the year if that happens.

We would be able to do exemptions in our own way. This gets us out of the pickle. It keeps us from fighting with an organized group in the community because we say, hey, we want that too. Here's our supporting ordinance that funds it so that way no community services have to be cut, like Eagle Crest or a pool or Treadwell Arena or anything like that. My simple correction here, we just remove the exemption and we leave our— and we just make it a seasonal sales tax question because the private group already asked the question to the community, do we want sales tax off of food and utilities?

I see a way for us to simplify it and get 2 yeses instead of theirs passes and ours doesn't, and we're in so much pain. Okay, thank you for the time, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Bryson. Thoughts? I saw Ms. Hagginson, Mr. Smith, Mr. Kelly, Ms. Youskandies.

Thank you, Chair Wall. This is a question for the attorney, I think. I know we're only talking about one at a time, time, but just for clarification, if our ballot question has anything at all similar with the other, with the, their current exemption ballot question, they are competing. Like if we have food but not utilities, still competing. I just want to be clear.

That's right. Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Smith. Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate Mr. Bryson's way forward here. In my mind, I've kind of mapped out— it's complicated, and with this kind of realization we had, or I had today, anyway. So I've kind of matched out a couple different options, I guess, on how I see to proceed, assuming people, or an agreement on removing sales tax on food and some utilities.

There's this option where we let that ballot option go and we provide a sale, we put forward a seasonal sales tax free of any sales tax exemptions. We do a head to, I'll call it a head to head where we're saying, hey, we even like ours better because it applies to all utilities, it applies to, commercial utilities, which when I've talked to some people, they have said that could be a way to defray some of the impacts of, you know, the increased sales tax in the summer. They're paying 5% less on their electricity and heating oil and that type of thing. Um, you could let theirs go and not do a sales tax and then see what happens. Um, and then the other option I see is we implement the initiative and then we put forward a seasonal sales tax vote on our own.

Those are the 4 different kind of options I'm seeing for it. And anyway, I'm not 100% sure. I mean, I see the clarity in this. Again, there are some issues that I see with the citizen initiative, but whatever. Anyway, those are the 4 options I see and I'm Still trying to figure out which one I like more.

So, thank you, Mr. Smith. Um, Mr. Kelly, um, thank you. I am— I've been thinking about this strategically as well, and I've also been thinking about it from the perspective of what makes good policy. I think with our proposal straight up, I think, um, as it is unamended, I think the residents of Juneau are going to come out ahead.

There was a constituent a while ago who emailed us not realizing that the exemptions were included in our package, and straight from the numbers was saying, if my spending is the same all year round, I'm going to end up paying more with the seasonal sales tax as it is. What moves the needle on that is that the utility— with the utilities exempted, our citizens do come out ahead. And so I kind of feel better about this as a package deal. And I'm also thinking about what Mr. Smith said about how this kind of simplifies things as far as both residential and commercial. And I'm hoping later to be able to move my amendment on compost.

Removal. But, um, so I think at the moment I, um, I am a no vote, but I could be persuaded depending on the rest of the debate.

Thank you, Mr. Kelly. Ms. Youskandee, then Mayor Weldon.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Can you all hear me? We can. Okay, great. Put this back on mute then.

Um, I would like to speak in favor of this amendment. I think it is a fantastic amendment and had been thinking much along the same lines myself. You know, I'm sure we all have been spending a lot of time gaming things out and trying to think strategically as we were running up to seeing if these were gonna be on the ballot or not. And then it's just the position is like, well, here you are. So we had lots of time to think about that, oh, that wouldn't be good.

And if that happened, what would we do? And I think where I've gotten to myself, where I'd like to try to convince you guys to get to as well, is that there are still permutations of where we could go if we adopt this amendment, and I hope we do. But this make— simplifying ours into being solely about seasonal sales tax is the sort of best first step because you can talk about, you know, a secondary step, and I'll just preview by saying we could, you know, accept their— the way they have it on theirs and make that law, and then that's another initiative that's off. So now we just have a really clean, simple one that we're putting forward that's just about seasonal sales tax after having put, you know— for some reason I thought $12 million was a number, but I haven't heard that number tonight, so maybe I'm making that up.

But sorry, I'm I'm starting to digress and make things a little bit more convoluted, so I will just say that by— if we pass this amendment tonight, it really is an elegant way to start simplifying what is a complicated situation we've landed in. So the best sort of step forward, I think, is to think about it from the perspective of a voter who is faced with a complicated ballot, and I think that this is going to allow them to make their choices based on, you know, fully understanding and not having competing proposals. And, you know, I love getting into the weeds on policy. I liked ours better too, if someone said they liked ours better, but that's just the situation we're in now. So I think this is the best making the best of the situation we're in.

So I appreciate you bringing that, uh, that amendment, Mr. Bryson, and I will vote in support of it.

Madam Mayor, um, Ms. Yuskany said most of it, but I applaud Mr. Bryson for bringing this forward because it solves the problem of having two competing ballot questions, and I'm with issue scanning is you have to think of the voter, trying to make it as simple for the voter as possible is typically the best way to do it so it's not confusing. So kudos to Mr. Bryson. I do have a question for the attorney though. We have to make a decision fairly soon on this, right? It might even be tonight to get it to assembly, correct?

You do need to make a decision fairly soon. Um, you really need to make a decision on the 28th. Um, if you want anything drafted, you should project that tonight, but the 28th is your drop-dead date.

Um, I've got some people who've already spoken on my list, so I'm going to go to Ms. Hall first. I'm also in favor of this amendment, and I like it because it is collaborative, and I I think we certainly need that at this point in time. So, thank you, Mr. Bryson.

I'm going to go ahead and speak. I think I'm with Mr.— well, I'm really with Mr. Smith that there's lots of different options here and it's hard to choose and we don't really know, but I'm glad we're kind of all on the same page about what we generally want. We're just trying to guess how the voters are going to respond. So happy to be on this team trying to figure that out. I think, you know, I lean to where Mr. Kelly was that, you know, we are providing a package, you know, kind of a bold package for what this could look like.

I worry that there's not a lot of good reason to vote for this if you are a voter and it does not include excluding food and utilities. Mr. Kelly brought up the same email that I was thinking, that people, all they're going to see is increasing taxes and they're going to vote no. I will say that if this passes, I am amenable to what Ms. Hughes-Gandy has brought forward, that we do make this a clean proposal, but we move forward on exempting food and utilities as an action of this body so that that proposal is not going before voters. And then we work on putting forward our seasonal sales tax to pay for it. That is a risky move.

It makes me nervous. Um, but I think that that is what I would prefer. Than just hoping the voters vote for a tax. Um, okay, I had Mr. Smith next, unless Mr. Steininger, you have not spoken yet on this amendment. So just want to give you a chance if you want to jump the line.

I suppose I'll jump the line. I don't really have much to add. I think Miss Huskandy's really covered the meat of my feelings here. I'm gonna vote in support just to simplify the question. Also, you know, the, the pieces that, that Attorney Wright brought up, like that risk of having both pass, but, you know, only one truly pass, is that I'm concerned about that having similar ballot initiatives, understanding that risk more.

Um, is a bit of a concern because I could see how people that are in support of having the exemption on food and in support of the seasonal sales tax might vote for both. And that could really easily create a situation where we have a majority in both, but one receives slightly more. Um, so I'll be voting in support. I—. The way we initially drafted, I am much more comfortable with this proposal when they go hand in hand, but understanding the risks of putting them both on the ballot is a bit of a concern.

Um, Mr. Smith, Mr. Smith, Mr. Kelly, Miss Atkinson. Thank you, Madam Chair. I, I guess I hear— I guess my— the thing I was going to bring up that I wish I'd said before was we actually— we don't have to deal with it. We don't have to decide this tonight. I mean, maybe I don't know, maybe people are dead certain.

And I mean, I see the benefits of proposing these questions in this way. I guess I'm still kind of like, and I guess we could try to change it on the 28th too. But I mean, we can't amend this on the 28th when we decide to send it to the ballot at the full assembly meeting. I guess I'm still working through, I realize I don't believe some of these options that I've outlined are, necessarily good, but maybe— and maybe I'm overanalyzing, but sometimes I'm kind of like, are there other ones we should consider or think on for a couple of weeks and talk to people and think more deeply about the possible strategy? So that's my kind of— that'd be my preferred way forward.

We can do this amendment in 10 seconds on Monday, you know, July 28th, and move it.

So that's my preferred way forward, but we'll see how people feel. Mr. Kelly, I know it was a while since you raised your hand. Do you still— do you have something to say? Actually, I had a question for the attorney. So if this amendment passes, um, and we were to bring forward a separate ordinance that would address these exemptions, and it would include the exemptions for both residential and commercial and potentially compost, um, would that be close enough to the language that has been proposed proposed by Affordable Juno to even further simplify the ballot for our voters?

Um, so through the chair, yes, it would, um, be substantially similar. So you have 45 days from June 30th when the clerk's office certified the petition to—. Am I missing something?

No, I'm sorry, the, um, ballot does need to be printed. So the last day, I think there would be a conflict with the ballot being printed. We send it to print, you know, days after the July 28th meeting. So I just wanted to clarify that point. You have less than 45 days.

So whatever— thank you— whatever happens, you can pass something substantially similar. It knocks it off the ballot. What you are proposing, if you did If you did food, a blanket utilities, and you didn't say commercial or residential, and you did comp-out post, or even if you did food and then struck utilities as Mr. Sanninger, it's still— I would agree that those are substantially similar enough to remove it from the ballot. In the utilities one, would Affordable Juneau Um, are you? Probably.

Um, you know, the cleanest one would probably be you've got both food and utilities there. That is absolutely substantially similar. It would knock that off the ballot. But as Chair Wall said, that's risky. That's a strategy you guys have to think about because then you've passed that sales and utility or food and utility.

Exemption with no guarantee of the seasonal sales tax. And don't forget, you've got the 9 mil petition out there as well. But absolutely, it's substantially similar. It would very much simplify for the voters. Thank you.

I'll maintain my objection. Ms. Atkinson. Thank you, Chair Wall. When I first saw this amendment, I think my knee-jerk was I didn't like it because I had similar concerns to Ms. Wall of, you know, without the full context of the exemption, does this, like, does this make any sense, right? Does a voter see this for what the full context of it is?

But as I've been thinking about it going back and forth, I do think that the message of vote for both or none is simpler than vote for this one specifically and not this one, even though they feel the same to you. So, and I have thought for a while that this ballot is getting really crowded. So going back and forth on it, I do think I end up supporting Mr. Raisin's amendment. I will say I do not support passing our own version of an exemption in advance of the election. I just think that's a little too risky and we don't yet know where Junoites are going to come down on it.

So, just want to put that out there. Ms. Hughes-Candies, then Mayor Walden.

Oops. Uh, thank you, Madam Chair. I, I think Ms. Atkinson's comments in combination with whoever was prior, or a couple people prior, perfectly tee up that, you know, that is the beauty of this amendment is that choose whether you want to do the risky move or don't, but in either case this is, uh, still a good first step. So I won't belabor that point because I already have. I just wanted to add one thing I forgot to say because, uh, I think someone had said something along the lines of, um, I was also really excited that we had like this bold package and like this goes with this and here's our reasoning But someone said something kind of like, well, without that, like, why would I just vote for these taxes?

And, and I think a whole other piece of the puzzle that I didn't even bring up, but I do think will connect with certain voters in our community, is that in what is an increasingly seasonal economy, um, it makes sense to capture maximum yield, uh, when you have all these folks in town. And so we looked at, at the outset, you know, our Southeast neighbors who also have seasonal sales taxes. So I just, just throwing that out there to say there's lots of ways also to pitch this. There's lots of good reasons to vote for it, even aside from somebody's personal kickback in the form of an exemption. So just wanted to cheerlead it a little bit because I'm excited about it.

Thanks, Madam Mayor, and then Mr. Bryson. Thank you for that. Put me on the cheerleading squad because the more I think about it, it's a package. And Mr. Bryson said it well, it's collaboration. Vote yes on both.

If you don't want to take sales tax off food, then don't vote for the other one. But we would hope that they would still vote for both of them because it's gonna— if you just take sales tax off food, it leaves a big hole in our budget. So I'm not in favor of taking exemptions before the election. I think that's way too risky and that sends a very weird message to me. And— but I am not that opposed to after the election, depending on how it turns out, to looking at further taking some exemptions that have worked taken from, um, the ballot measure.

So again, good job, Mr. Mr. Bryson. Thank you. I had, uh, just one more point to maybe emphasize this even more. The $9 mil rate, if it gets capped there, doesn't have an impact this year, but it could have impacts in years to come. I kind of think that most Junoites know well enough to not cap the 9 mil rate.

That's just what my gut reaction is telling us. If we do the yes on both, which is kind of what my amendment would allow us to do, we could ignore and not have to advocate against the 9 mil because we've got such positive talk about yes, do these things, and not bringing attention to the 9 mil rate. Could be to its detriment, and that would be just one less issue that we would have to face, because that's when we have to, like, bond for everything that we'd ever want to do going forward. Um, that was my last thing. I thought my strategy— and I hadn't mentioned that before— helped with kind of side or, uh, back burner the $9 mil cap and could potentially be to our advantage.

Thank you for allowing me the extra time.

All right, are we ready to call the question, Mr. Kelly? Thank you. I can both count votes and also, while my instinct is to do a package, I don't believe in so strongly as to be on the wrong side of an 8 to 1. So, I'll remove my objection. Sir Kelly, you love counting votes before people have told you how they're going to vote.

So I'll just say that out loud.

I think we had other objections, but maybe just to make sure we— is anyone objecting?

I would object, but I will— now I have counted the votes and I see that I am one of two. All right. So that is so moved.

Um, that brings us back to the original motion. Um, I believe our two other amendments are not worth discussing. Oh, Neil's— okay, we, uh, go ahead. Well, Mr. Steiner here said he's going to remove his offer his amendment.

Yeah, he does not want to offer it. Mr. Kelly, I assume you don't want to offer yours? Correct. Mr. Smith, I saw your hand raised.

I guess I just had a question on proposition language. And so now we have proposition language, it's just essentially saying I know it's very strict on what we can say, but like, just curious, is there language that can be included on the sales tax to say, should this be approved, it will generate this much? Anyway, is there any way to link it in the language to the sales tax exemption initiative?

Through the chair, to link it to Affordable Junos? Or just, yeah, into some way, just present some type of financial impact or whatever. So that—. I feel that connects to your advocacy discussion. So your voter pamphlet, I can absolutely look at old, older propositions.

There are scenarios where propositions identify monetary impacts. We didn't do that here, mostly because it was getting quite complicated. Um, so I'm absolutely willing to look at how we could do that, but I do think the voter guide and some of the advocacy will also do that. Thank you.

Well, then, then Mr. Kelly. Uh, thank you. I'm going to object for the purposes of amendment. I'm going to move—. Go ahead— because I'd like to have that discussion.

So, um, the 3% and the 5.5% is intriguing. Um, the— for the wintertime, the 3% doesn't seem as good a deal as the 2.5%, but the summer one at 5.5% instead of 6.5% is interesting. So I would move that. All right, so we have an amendment. I saw Miss Atkinson, then Mr. Steiner.

I'll let Mr. Steinecker go first.

Um, I guess I'll say the reason that I didn't put it forward is in order to make that shift in the amount. So my original logic behind the amendment was try to tighten the gap between winter and summer to address some concerns about kind of consumer behavior from a 4% increase in sales tax that could suddenly come on. That was kind of significant feedback that I had received in talking to folks about this proposition. In order to afford that tighter gap, you kind of have to drop off, you know, some of those exemptions without having— unless you want to have a, you know, a summer or winter sales tax that stays roughly the same as we have now. So in order to afford afford a reduction in sales tax in the winter.

When we have year-round residents here, you have to remove some of the exemptions. And so now that we've gone in a direction where we're going to be supporting the current ballot initiative, I would have to go back to the drawing board with Director Flick to figure out what numbers are. I can't do it on the fly in my head to figure out where those percentages would need to be. I appreciate that. Sorry.

Madam Chair, through you, I appreciate that, Mr. Steingart. I failed to see that you exempted utilities. So keep working with Director Flick, and I will remove my motion. All right. Um, Miss Hughes-Genesee, I see your hand.

Was it in response to that amendment? It is. It was, Madam Mayor, or Madam Chair, but if you would, can I just chime in really quickly? Yes, most unorthodox. Can I just chime in?

Um, I would just say that one thing that I really appreciated about this process thus far, because Mr. Smith puts timelines into my head, is that I thought it was really great working as a team of three and getting to work with staff and bring forward something that was kind of— we had done some comprehensive work on it and just decisively say like here's what we think the numbers should be. And I only mentioned that to say, given this late date in the month, what I am hoping is that having cleaned up our issues a little bit, I'm hoping that we will have a majority, hopefully a large majority on the Assembly, who is going to be able to just get behind the numbers that we have now. Because I do think, um, And of course, I'm always, I'm always eager to hear what other ideas you guys have, or if you, you get new information that makes you think of other, other numbers or better. But I say that only having been burned in the past of like having, having good ideas that didn't make it over the finish line. And because there's so many other balls juggling in the air right now that I'm hoping that— I think what we have is good, and I hope we can just Um, support that, but those are just my 2 cents.

Thank you for letting me offer them.

Mr. Kelly, thank you. And this, uh, I think it's just a question for, for the attorney. Um, for me, I understand that whenever I look at the numbers that are in this ordinance, I'm basically until 2028 adding 1%, and I was just kind of thinking of making things a little bit simpler for voters. Is there any way that we would be able to rephrase the language that might make it a little simpler for voters and say, in the language on the ballot, that until 2028 we're at this, we're at this amount, and then after that it depends on I'm not trying to create the language on the fly, but is there any way that we can possibly simplify the language that goes before the voters so that way they can see what they're getting for the— until the seasonal temporary tax expires? Through the chair, I can work on it and I can work with Ms. Flick on how we're phrasing.

I will admit that we struggled, that I struggled bit with, with all of the interacting pieces. And so now there is a little bit more of a simplification. I will, I will work with greater minds than mine in the finance realm to try and simplify, because I think that is very worthwhile. And I can, I can bring a proposed change to the proposition language, and maybe with a better explanation of how it interacts at the next Thank you. I'll remove my objection.

All right, bring us back to the main motion as amended. Any objections? Seeing none, that is so moved.

Do we have any related, um, motions that people would want to make?

I mean, I'm not ready to give up this option, so I will make a motion just to move things forward. You all can decide whether we want to keep the discussion going, but I'm giving the gavel to Ms. Atkinson. Um, I move that we direct staff to prepare an ordinance for introduction at our next council that would exempt food and utilities from sales tax as described in our previous version of this.

And I ask for unanimous consent. I will speak quickly that this is just— I think we have to do this tonight if we're going to do that. If people are really not into it, won't even consider it, then you can vote it down right now. But if you want to leave it on the table, that's what this would allow us to do, I believe. Objections?

Mr. Bryson. I might need the maker of the motion to clarify.

You're trying to have it where we can vote, where we'll have the option of the seasonal sales tax ordinance as it was originally put into our packet. You want that in our next packet even though we just voted to bring a different packet forward? I'm sorry, I'm doing this on the fly a little bit. I realize That was not clear. Um, what I'm trying to do is to leave us the option to exempt food and utilities from sales tax before the deadline, which would allow us to, um, uh, pass something substantially similar to the ballot measure.

From Affordable Juneau, um, which would then, um, you know, it would exempt sales, food, and utilities, and it would take it off the ballot because we had passed something similar. We would, we would do what they're asking us to do without a vote of the people.

I'm going to maintain an objection. Thank you, Mr. Bryson. Mayor Weldon. Thank you for that. And thank you, Ms. Wall.

I understand what you're trying to do, but again, I don't feel comfortable putting a hole in our budget without seeing what's happening at the election. I think we need this public vote on sales tax on food exemption to see if that's the way the public does want to go after all, and we have never yet had that public vote. So, um, again, I'd rather see the public weigh in on this than try and pass something that leaves us with a big hole in our budget. So I object. Thank you, Mayor Walden.

Miss Youskandis. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm going to restate what I think this is doing, and I'll look to Ms. Wall's, uh, head to shake vigorously if I get it wrong. The idea is to keep alive the possibility of accepting something substantially similar so that theirs is removed from the ballot, correct? I just want to make sure I'm crystal on that.

Correct. And my, my language was meant to say for staff, they could draft something using what we originally had in here in terms of utilities, what those exemptions look like. Got it. Okay, in that case, I would like to speak in support of this. I think this is a great idea in terms of just leaving the option open for now.

Like, even if you are feeling that perhaps this is too risky, I think it would be worth seeing what staff comes back with. And I say this for two reasons. One, I do think Well, 3 reasons. One, from a voting perspective, I think it's nice to knock another one off the ballot for clarity of messaging when we get to the election.

Two, because I think that gives people a good reason to vote for the seasonal sales tax when you say We did this thing you wanted and now we need you to do this to pay for it. Otherwise we just cut a giant hole in the budget. So that adds more reasoning to vote for the seasonal sales tax. So I like it for that reason. And then thirdly, really stretching my brain here to think this way.

I will just say the other reason I like that, or I guess I'll just say when it comes down to public votes versus us making decisions to do things. We know that it got enough signatures that people are into the idea. We know this is a perennial idea that has come up and people care about and they tell us so. And if you are casting your mind back to some survey we did where you say, "Oh, I don't even think people want seasonal or even really want tax off their food." I would say that it also matters. You know, some things you might feel like you need a vote of the public to determine, every person I'm looking at on my screen sitting on the dais is there because the voters put them there, because they trusted them to make good decisions.

And if I had a magic wand, I think it is just a good decision to remove sales tax from those things because those are things people need to live. I think that makes for a better Juneau. So that's not me saying I'm 100% sure I would, say that let's take that risk, but I would say I'm leaning a lot closer towards let's take that risk than let's not. And thanks for your indulgence there. I'm done.

Thank you, Ms. Yuskandies. Mr. Kelly, and then Ms. Hall.

Thank you. I think I'm not sure how I would vote on the final proposal, but I think I am open to keeping this alive for now, especially as the— yeah, I think I'll just leave it there. I'm open to keeping this alive for now. Thank you, Mr. Kelly. Ms. Hall.

I'm going to speak in opposition. I think it's A, too risky, and B, by keeping them together, you know, the voter, are they going to know what we've done? Are people paying attention to our meetings to know that this is what we— an action we took at an earlier time. But when it's— when both of them are in front of them in the voting booth and they've had the opportunity to read the information at the same time, you know, I, I just think that's a much cleaner way to do it. And, um, then separating them, I think our chances of getting the seasonal sales tax passed is going to be much higher if, if it's all right there in front of them, how they'll gain and how they'll pay for it.

So I'm going to object. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Hall. Mr. Steingraber. So I'm also going to speak in objection to this.

I, I think it's important that we get the voice of the people here because thinking forward to next year's budget, should we have, you know, the exemptions on food and utilities but not the seasonal sales tax, if that comes as direction from the voters, then as we're having to make those really difficult service-level decisions that that would necessitate to balance the budget with the $12 million hole, it's very different if the voters told us to dig that hole in the budget than if we chose to dig that hole ourselves. And so I think it's really important that we, we do it this way, that we put it to the voters, and that we don't dig the hole and ask the voters to dig us out of it. Thank you, Mr. Steninger. Uh, Mr. Smith. Thank you.

Um, I think overall I would have preferred leaving our options open, deliberating and deciding on the 28th, but I think we've already kind of decided a path, um, and I think we've closed off other options. And I'm not saying we're choosing the wrong one, and the more I'm, I'm just sitting here thinking about different options and clarity to voters and that type of thing. I think we also should give our voters a lot of credit. They can decide and kind of dice through things. But, um, I, I think since we've closed off some of the paths I'm just going to close.

I'm going to vote to close off this one too. I appreciate where Ms. Wall is going, but I think maybe it is just as I'm thinking out more, you know, the path we chose might make the most sense and happy to just keep moving ahead with that. So I'll vote against as well. Thank you, Mr. Smith. Ms. Wall.

Just a clarifying question for staff. Again, I'm working off the fly a little bit here, so apologies. I kind of assumed what I— what we could do if this was to pass was to introduce it as a, you know, hold a special meeting at our next council, introduce it, which would allow it to be on the 28th regular meeting, which would allow us to be within the deadline. Am I correct about that assumption, or would we have to add meetings or?

Madam Chair, so counting days, I think that is enough time. So this is understanding what you're trying to do. I could get it done tomorrow and we could get it out very quickly to give— am I counting days wrong?

Do we need an at ease to be sure? Okay. Brief at ease. 2 Minutes or 30 seconds.

I'm going to call the Assembly Finance Committee back to order. People have more comments or? I think I'm answering the question. Oh, yes, you're answering the question. I am answering.

So per charter, just so everyone knows for future reference, per charter, Section 5.3, we need 7 days for publication, so we would not have time to make the 14th. We would have to hold a special meeting, but for the 28th, we can notice it on the 28th pending referral.

So, we just follow up. Yeah, go for it. So, we would have time to do it before the 28th. We would just have to hold a special meeting to do that. That's right, to introduce.

Okay, thank you. All right, any further objections? All right, we have a motion, we have objection. Miss Swindle, will you call the roll?

Thank you, Chair Atkinson. On the motion to direct staff to prepare an ordinance for introduction at our next Committee of the Whole meeting that would exempt food and utilities from sales tax as the as described in the previous version of Ordinance 2025-32.

Assemblymember Wall? Yes. Assemblymember Bryson?

Assemblymember Smith? No. Assemblymember Kelly? Yes.

Assemblymember Hall? Nope. Mayor Walden? No. Assemblymember Hughes-Scandies?

Yes.

Assemblymember Steininger? No.

Chair Atkinson? No.

Motion fails, 3 ayes, 6 nays.

Thank you, Miss Atkinson. All right, um, only one more substantive thing here, biennial budgeting. Do people need a break or do you want to keep going? I see keep going. All right, me too.

Um, Ms. Flick. Thank you, Chair Wall. Um, it was suggested that the subject of this memo be changed to cost a duck a duck. And so the question that's here before you is, we practice annual budgeting. That's what we do.

We spend a lot of time in April and May working through the budget, looking at it annually. We label it a biennial budget, but it's not really what we do. And so we can continue doing what we do And that's fantastic. There's lots of great reasons to do that. If that's what the body decides it wants to do, we're just going to start calling it an annual budget because that's what we're doing.

We can also choose to do a biennial budget, which means you really do plan for 2 years. You adopt a 2-year budget. And as we do regularly now, amendments to the budget come before the body as they things change over the 2 years. We would plan to do kind of a, a more major update and budget adjustment, maybe in the spring when you would normally be doing an annual budget process. But essentially, you would be planning for 2 years.

Lots of great reasons to do biennial budgeting. It frees up every other year your springtime. You can tackle other things. So there's not a right or a wrong answer to how we go about doing budgeting. The question is, we're— we say we're doing something, but we're doing something else.

And so what would we like to do? And that is the question before you.

We will start with questions before we jump into our opinions on this. I saw Mr. Kelly, Mr. Bryson, Ms. Youskandis, Ms. Eggenson, Mayor Welton. Uh, thank you. So, um, it's not just our budget that we usually pass every year. It's also, um, the school district's portion of the budget.

I assume when you say that we would have like a small adjustment at the start of every year, that the— whatever the school district had submitted to us by their deadline, um, that would be included in that adjustment, since we're not going to know their numbers, um, until that point, unless they also decide to adopt a biannual budget. Thank you, Mr. Kelly. There are certainly things that, um, have annual dates that require us to act by certain times. And so certainly, you know, adjusting to the school district's needs and requests would be part of that process of, you know, making sure we follow the dates that are required from the state that are within our, our code and our charter. And so, yeah, accommodating the school district would be part of that process, whether we do it biannually and adjust for it, or whether we continue to do what we do today.

Mr. Bracey. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, I have a simple question, then I'll need a follow-up. Um, this budget that we just passed, was that an annual budget, or was it the, the second part of a budget? What one did we just do?

Mr. Grayson, we call this the year 2 of the biennial budget. Year 2, okay. So if we did go to a biennial budget, we would not have done a budget. We wouldn't have gone through a budget session in the traditional April and May. So if an assembly member got— the assembly members that got elected this year, and they are responsible for the operations of the city and the policies that we make.

But we come through budget season, and the new assembly members, how would they have an impact on— because they got elected in, the community wants them to have impact on the community, but they can't touch the budget for, like, they get elected in the wrong year, that it might be 18 months before they see the budget. How would an assembly member being new on the assembly without having any exposure to the budget, how would— what would we do to make up to give them that operational knowledge of how we're spending money? So you brought up a couple of great points, Mr. Bryson. Absolutely, if we did true biennial budgeting, you could have a situation where an assembly member only really touches one budget. Throughout their 3-year term.

Another element to what you said, how, how do we bring them along to understand the operating? There's an onboarding process that we currently do with new assembly members. It would be a little more budget heavy if they were coming in in a place where they, they wouldn't be immediately learning about the budget. So I think there would be learning opportunities, but as far as making changes to the budget, it would be the same tools that you have today mid-year. They just wouldn't have that, um, that annual look to make adjustments.

Ms. Hughes-Caniz.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Ms. Buck, I think my question is I was just looking back through some of the older budgets that I've been a part of.

Help me understand why we call this— I mean, truly, like, certainly I understand what we're doing is not like a true biennial budget because it would look as you describe it looking. But help me understand why we have year 1 and year 2 and why we are what this bastardized truly is, an annual. Why are we wearing our biennial hat? Why are we such posers? Help me understand that.

Miss Yuskienes, I wish I had a real answer for you. This is part of the reason why I'm bringing this question to the body. It appears that we have, for some long period of time, been in this practice. And so I really wanted to bring this question forward to see if we really just want to do annual budgeting, which is what we're doing, or if we really do want to shift and truly do biennial budgeting and really approve a 2-year budget. And I believe City Manager Kester has some other things to say.

So I'll just— I was not here for that history, but I can certainly assume having— I, um, um, let him move to amend, uh, Homer City Code to a biennial budget. Probably what happened is City Code was amended to biennial budget because the body's like, all we do is budget and we want to work on other things and this takes so much time and we just, you know, approve the same, roughly the same budget every year. And then the new assembly members were like, we want to touch the budget. And then the manager got pressure over time to have more regular budget reviews and then evolved into an annual budget process because the body was like, you know, we need— this is the most important thing we do. And so we need to be doing it every year.

I assume it was a progression like that. All we want to do is budget. Okay, thanks. I have thoughts when you're ready for them, Chair. Miss Atkinson.

Thank you, Chair Wall. I guess my question is kind of in the if it ain't broke category. What if we go to annual budget, like true annual budgeting? Is that just like we're saving staff time? Is it we're saving trees because we're printing out less paper?

Like, what benefit do we get to actually going to annual budgeting? So we, um, Ms. Aikenson, we currently practice annual budgeting. The change would be that we would call it an annual budget. There's no change to the practice that we do today. So your, your columns in your budget book would change, and we would really focus— so like in this process that we just did, um, we would just focus on this is our manager proposed FY26, and then through your process we'd have an adopted FY26 budget, as opposed to 2 years ago we had an adopted 25 and 26 budget, and 26 was kind of a copy of 25 with a little variance.

And so then this year it was confusing because you had an adopted 26 budget that you were revising to get to a final budget. So it would, it would clear up a little bit of the language complication, but really it just changes the title of our budget and how we talk about it. Just to follow up, Because this is basically my question. We just wouldn't have the fake next year budget there. Essentially, that would be one way of saying it.

Okay, thank you.

I think I can see where this is going, but I'm assuming your experience has been with annual budgets also. But if we stayed with our biannual budget process, mill rate, would we still adjust that every year, or would we? We picked it on year 1 and survived 2 years with the mill rate. Um, Madam Mayor, that's a great question. I would need to work with law to make sure we were all in compliance, but I would anticipate that we would, through the adoption of a 2-year budget, say, here's the mill rate for this cycle, and here's the mill rate for the next cycle.

And we would probably have a time period, and this is where I would need help with law to amend the mill rate for that second year if it needed to be before property tax bills got published and all of that. But if you adopt a 2-year budget and part of your revenue stream, as ours is, is the property tax, you would make assumptions about valuations and the change over the, over the years. And establish your anticipated mill rate for both years.

Mr. Smith.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I was kind of going in a similar direction in terms of, you know, I'm looking at our schedule that we had, that we, you know, looked at every week for our, for our budget thing and just kind of looking to be like, which of these things would we be looking at every year? And the mill rate was one, but I was also like, what about the CIP and the passenger fee plan? I, you know, I could see— I mean, looking at some of these, I'm like, Bartlett, do I need to— anyway, like, there's some that I could see that we don't adjust often. I mean, there's sometimes times we need to, like Eagle Crest or whatever.

And I'd wonder, could we set that at a retreat or something and say, hey, we want to do something on this budget this year? But I mean, I guess my question is, yeah, it'd be, it'd be interesting to know which of these pieces would, would actually touch again and which we wouldn't, because I actually see some potential benefit. You know, Mr. Bryson said at the beginning of this year, like, we're taking on bonds and sales tax and whatever, it's going to be a lot for the budget. And I have to admit, at the beginning I was like, I don't think it'll be that big of a deal. Now I'm like, damn, that was a lot of work.

So, I mean, and that's where I do potentially— sorry, this is supposed to be a question time, right? Anyway, I guess I would kind of be interested to know which of those pieces from, you know, because they're big chunks, which of those would we be looking at every year or Or like maybe we, again, maybe CIP and MPF were not. So anyway. That's a great question. And I think there's certainly some wiggle room.

We could set MPFs for 2-year cycles. We could, you know, our capital improvement plan is a 6-year plan. So if, and it adjusts all year long, right? We think we're gonna do this and something happens We need to shift and do that instead. So we could, in a biennial budget, do the CIP at the beginning and not really focus on it again until the next 2-year cycle, knowing that PWFC and other groups, you know, in other committee work and staff are going to make those recommendations for changes as the environment changes.

So I think there's a lot of things that you could do once every 2 years, knowing that there's changes. I would expect there may be things as a body you want to touch. If you want to touch your community grant process, do you do that once every 2 years? Is that something you would really like to touch every year? Or is that— or, you know, there could be options with that too.

So I think that a lot of those things could come way. I think if there's an emerging— I'm going to say an emerging fire. So this year we spent a lot of time talking about Eagle Crest. Last year we spent a lot of time with the school district and with Bartlett. When those crisis situations come up, we will have to take the time to talk about them.

And so it won't— in some ways, if we do a biennial budget, then it doesn't matter when the crisis happens. We're going to talk about it when the crisis happens. Decisions. If we do an annual budget, it's oftentimes a little bit easier to say, okay, let's learn about this, but we're going to make the real decisions during the budget cycle. And like I said, both, both mechanisms and both ways have a lot of pros to them.

And so it's really just a choice about what you want to do. And we always have the ability through ordinances to make changes to the budget.

It's a kind of a follow-up. I think it's a follow-up, and maybe you touch on at the end. So in a biennial budget, you would pass a budget that is authorized for 2 years. But if you want to make changes, you would then make changes via an ordinance to the existing 2-year budget. That's correct.

And we would still need to, for good accounting practice, you know, we would pass FY27 and FY28 in those buckets because we need to, we need to manage to our budget. But if we get halfway through FY27 and we realize we need to make a change, that ordinance would need to specify we're changing FY27 or FY28, or maybe both. Thank you, Mr. Steininger, and then Miss Hall. So this might be for Manager Kester, since you mentioned that you went in this direction in Homer. So when I, in the past, I've talked to other states at state-level budget that have biannual budgets to kind of get an idea if, like, if it's a productive tool to avoid spending every year talking about the budget, and not universally, but almost all of them said, well, yeah, no, every year we end up still having a big robust budget discussion.

In your experience in Homer, were you able to actually avoid spending most of your energy every year, every other year on budget? Did it actually free up time, or do you still just have the same number of budget conversations? They're just formatted differently. Unfortunately, I'm unable to answer that question because I was quickly hired by the City and Borough of Juneau after that happened.

Miss Hall, this is a question for Director Flick. Um, with revenue sources coming from so many different, you know, state, federal, local, and then our disasters that crop up, um, is there enough certainty to plan 2 years in advance? You know, as far as will we have the money? And yeah, so. That's a fantastic question.

I can forecast tomorrow pretty well. A week out, maybe okay. A month out, a year out. I mean, if you think about it, we make plans in February and March for a year that starts in July. And so there's always going to be some uncertainty.

We would have to be careful in our forecasting of revenue sources. We would definitely want to be on the conservative side of forecasting because you don't want to get into a situation where you— like a great example is our remote sellers sales tax. When that started, the sales tax growth was exponential in that particular area just because there was so much new new coming in. We're still seeing some growth, but we're seeing it slow. And so I think that, you know, you would make your estimates.

There are great economists out there. There's great people that do work to help you guide those decisions. If we ended up in a 2020 again where the unthinkable happened, we would have to step back and adjust budgets.

So we would always have to have the flexibility to respond to something significantly different than what we planned, but most of our revenue sources are fairly, fairly consistent now that we got out of kind of that catastrophic couple years that we hope we don't have to visit again. I'm gonna sneak a question in here. Um, you talk a little bit about you know, some of the advantages of biennial around kind of more thinking big picture about priorities. Can you tell me what cyclical priority and zero-based budgeting are and kind of what— I actually don't know what those things are and I have some general sense, but what they are and or how they might look?

Cyclical priority. I am—. Euro-based budgeting. Yep. So, for larger pictures for the budget, cyclical priority or zero-based budgeting.

So you could say, we're going to do a biennial budget. So in year 1, we're going to go through and look at everything. But in year 2, we really— we're not necessarily looking to change the budget, but we want to do a deep dive on Maybe these 4 departments and really have them build decision packages or do some zero-based budgeting, not necessarily say everybody in the CVJA do a zero-based budget this year, but through some sort of cycling of we want to do a, a big review on programs, or we want to do maybe, you know, a large look at, you know, one of your goals for this year is to look at leaky revenue. So looking at those kind of priorities that you might want to deep dive into, where you're not necessarily touching every department through everything, but you say there's, you know, 8 different departments and we're going to look at 2 this year with some very specific questions. Maybe we want to look at the performance of a department and how that relates to how they're spending, or we want to look at, you know, their retention of employees, or I mean, there could be some, some things that you want to deep dive on in particular departments, but not do it all at once.

Just kind of cycle through them is what I meant by cyclical priority budgeting. And what about zero-based budgeting? Zero-based budgeting in the true academic sense of the word is you don't look at what you've had in the past. You figure out what services you need to provide and what you need to provide them. One of the common notions along with this is we're going to save tons of money if we do zero-based budgeting.

Don't, don't go in with that idea, because if you ask people to really figure out what they need to provide services, it's generally more than what they have today, because we've learned to accommodate and live with less. But zero-based budgeting is really saying, I don't care what your budget's been in the past. You need to provide these 6 services. What do you need? Staff, supplies, infrastructure to get that done.

Other questions? All right. I will just open up for discussion. I think my understanding is, you know, if we make it, we can make a decision tonight to say we're going to annual budgeting and we're going to change the words on the paper, or we want to explore biannual budget. And then I'm guessing we don't— we'll, we'll get— that conversation will continue, as opposed to that means we just are doing it.

Miss Agenson, Mr. Kelly, Miss Huscandiz. Uh, thank you, Chair Wall. Uh, I think that I, I have no problem going to like true annual budgeting if that's basically what we're doing, and really all we're changing is that the fake budget is isn't there anymore, then that's fine with me. I see benefits to biennial budgeting, but frankly, I don't think I, or to be honest, anyone on this dais is capable of being that hands-off when it comes to budgeting. And so I think we might repeat kind of what we assume happened to get us to this point where we said, oh, we're going to do biennial budgeting.

And then sure enough, we're like, oh, but we haven't checked in with that department in a while. And actually, I want to see the full thing. All these questions that are basically, we mimic the budget process again. So I think it's probably easier for staff. We just accept that we're all hands-on people and it's our job as electeds to look at the budget every year.

And we just go to true annual budgeting. Mr. Kelly.

Thank you. I think I would be willing to give an honest try to true biennial budgeting. I see the benefits as it gives the, I think, more opportunity to weigh in. We have more longer-term thinking and planning that we can do. And obviously the less condensed budget cycle.

I don't think we should just write ourselves off, just say that, well, we're incapable of biennial budgeting and so we shouldn't try. I think we should give it a try. If we don't do it very well, then maybe we can, go back. We can always change our minds and go back to single-year budgeting. So I think my initial thought is that I would like to give it, give a try to biennial budgeting.

Ms. Hughes-Goodees.

Thanks, Madam Chair. I would put my plug for annual budgeting. Um, I think it works well. I think kind of right now, especially, I think there's so much dynamic stuff happening in the world that it's— I like that it's a shorter time span. Um, I, I think it works well for this community and it goes well with having 3 new people come on the assembly every year.

So, uh, that would be my plug to just do annual budgeting.

Mr. Smith. Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess still not knowing things like, do we have to set the mill rate every year? Do we look at the CIP every year? Or I guess I'm still kind of curious about, I don't wanna just keep piling much more work on staff, but I'm like, I'm still kind of curious about what does it look like a little more built out than just a page-long memo?

Because I actually, I wonder about what the efficiencies to staff might be. I wonder about what the benefits to us might be if we're not spending hours looking at docks and harbors in Bartlett and Juneau School District, where we literally do nothing to do anything to affect their budget. We just listen to presentation, ask questions, probably sometimes because we feel like we have to, because we don't want to be rude and not pretend like we didn't read the packet. But we read the packet, but you wanna ask a question to show that you did is what I was trying to say. I guess I do, I mean, I don't feel like we have a problem with it, we do, but I'm also, I'm curious to be like, what kind of capacity could be built in if we weren't hearing from Eagle Crest and JEDC and Travel Juno every single year, and that we actually maybe had capacity to say, Hey, let's deeper, let's deep dive into, you know, in any way into some areas that we really want to, because I, to be frank, I don't actually feel like we've, I don't know, sometimes I don't feel like I dive that deep into some of these pieces.

I look at the manager's increments, I do some of these, but like, I don't know, I wonder what kind of capacity it could free up for us to look at like a, you know, anyway, evaluate departments more. I guess I still would like more information because it would be interesting to actually know what other communities do it, what states do, what kind of benefits. I'm kind of feeling remiss that I actually didn't talk to Mr. Saniger before or look at some of that. But I guess I'm not really willing to like just throw it in the recycle heap yet. So I would like some more information and maybe just have a little more, you know, a little more pieces built out before deciding we're just keep doing the same thing we've always done.

Thanks, Mayor Walden. I appreciate what Mr. Smith is saying, but that's something that we can change right now. We can choose to just accept their budgets without hearing from them at any time. Um, and as far as what Mr. Kelly said, I've had enough tenure in the city, not on the assembly, to see when the biannual budget started, and it's exactly what, uh, city manager says. You start with a process that you think is really well, and then people want their fingers on the budget, and we've morphed into an annual biannual budget.

So I think it's been tried, and I hear what Miss Akerson and Mr. Ryson are saying about, could you imagine if you were put on the assembly and you get one touch of the budget? That would be pretty hard for any of us to take. So I'm for the annual budget, but I don't have a problem if you want more information, because I don't think there's going to be a rush into this decision tonight. Mr. Bryson.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Appreciate that. Uh, people have mentioned new members, new assembly members, but I was thinking the Yockelhops, the school district, uh, financial situation, the Eagle Crest, the Bartlett. We did the priority-based budgeting cards. That's almost 7 items for the 7 years.

Like, every budget has its own uniqueness and its own challenges. And this year, uh, got the issues of this budget cycle. And then last year, I, I don't remember which budget cycle Hesco was on, but it was like a new part, a new aspect of it. Hearing that this assembly does have the authority to just approve some budgets without necessarily hearing them. That might— there could be some room for efficiencies.

And we're sitting in the room with Miss Efficiency herself. Miss Wohl has brought the labor hours that are involved for staff and the assembly significantly reduced from when we were first doing budgets a few years ago. So we've already reduced the amount of time that we are spending on our budget as this annual process. We all like touching the budget every year. When our constituents are talking to us, it's generally about the funding of stuff.

I can't think of how many— too many conversations I've had about Assembly politics that didn't have the financial aspect in them. It's that important. In your personal life, how often do you deal with your finances? One of the rules of wealth is you pay attention to your finances regularly. You will have better finances paying attention to them regularly than if you don't.

I mean, it's— that's the two outcomes. So I would really have to heavily side with what we've been doing because I don't see Reducing a year to almost not having a budget process. I don't see that being a benefit to this assembly or to any of the constituents listening. Thank you for the time.

Thank you. I'm going to— that's a good or a bad segue into what I was going to say. I don't think that I— feel strongly about biennial versus annual, but I think what I do feel strongly about is after being through 4 or 5 cycles, what I, what I don't like is that I feel like we go through the motions on a lot of things, and as a result, we're often playing defense when needs show up. So all of a sudden, the schools need $4 million or Bartlett needs $5 million, or Rainforest Recovery needs $2 million. And instead of thinking big picture about what the things are that we need in the community, we're like, we can't pay for that.

And as a result, you know, I've often said I would cut other things before I'd, you know, get rid of that service, but we never actually have the process to kind of figure out what are those things that are most important. And so I don't know when we do that, a biannual budget would allow more time to whatever you want to call it, zero-based budgeting or priority-based budgeting, you know, to think bigger picture before just saying, manager, provide us the same budget you did last year, and then we'll like play defense on the things that come up. So maybe this is, you know, maybe we say we want to keep doing annual, but this year, we might be looking at cuts and, and I feel like I would rather think big picture before we get to the final day of our budgeting process and say, no, no, no, we can't do this, you know, new thing that just popped up. So I don't know if that makes any sense, but that's, that may just be after 5 years doing this. So that's how I feel.

But I wouldn't mind a reset at some point. Ms. Yuskianis. Thanks, Madam Chair. I was just gonna add on one other comment after. It's always good to hear you guys talk and know where you're coming from, uh, and, you know, people provided different comments there.

My new favorite thing is, um, putting more blame on us personally, uh, because I do that to myself and now I can do it to all of you too. But I mean, also, there's nothing that stops us in our our current process from being like more diligent assembly members approaching the annual budgetary process with like, and I got big thoughts about, you know, how we're gonna turn this down and turn this up. So, but I do, I do like the idea of us thinking a little bit more critically about that. And I think you can do that within either of those structures, but That was just a gem, or not a gem, that's, that's my parting words. I have to jump off here just so I can go to bed in order to get up in the morning for my work thing.

But, um, thank you for letting me add that.

Any other comments?

Okay, so I think the decision before us is whether we want to continue this conversation or not. I think If we don't, we just say, let's call it what it is, annual. If we want to kind of spend some more time thinking about what a biannual process would look like, we can do that. Mr. Kelly. Thank you.

I think I can maybe start us off with a motion. I move that we direct staff to, to come back to us with, with an idea of what a biennial budget process would look like, and I ask for unanimous consent. Thank you, Mr. Kelly. Ms. Atkinson. Thank you, Chair Wall.

I think that I'm normally be fine with that, but we have put a lot on staff and I feel very— I feel ready to make a decision tonight and I would not want to move forward with biennial budget. So if people want to keep considering and that's fine, but I would just ask that Remember, we are putting a lot on staff right now. So, uh, Ms. Hughes-Canniz. Thanks, I'm, I'm still here. So, uh, I'm gonna object only because, like, I think this is great if people care about this, good.

But, um, we also only— we're human beings with only so much bandwidth and capacity. And, you know, it's nice that staff brought this to us, but I think that's enough to just be like, yep, relabel it. Uh, in that— be just because I hadn't heard any burning desire from anyone to potentially, uh, excluding you since you just said your thing about reset. But, um, if this isn't coming from someplace, then I don't think we should add it to our list.

Um, Mr. Smith— sorry, Mr. Bryson was first. I'm going to have to object to this. I just, from my recent memory, I was able to come up with the uniqueness of certain budget items that hit each budget. If from now until the next time, if we were to discuss this, I could probably look at budgets and like pull all the uniqueness out of each budget year. I don't think this assembly would be served well to have a biannual budget.

Thank you for the time.

Mr. Smith. Thank you, Madam Chair. I mean, I don't need like a dissertation on it or anything, but I'd like— I would take a little more information to see what it looks like again, and I can do some more looking and seeing. I guess I'm just kind of like, Ms. Youskany is right. We do have time and ability.

Is it very helpful to have 9 of us asking questions about 17 different departments every year? Probably not. Like, I think there is a point of having a streamlined process where we are focused as a group on things. I don't know, I guess I've, as I've heard more from people and thought more, I mean, it's been a while since we did, I don't know if it was priority-based budgeting, whatever those cards were, but we were looking at things and, Anyway, I'm like, is it time? And when do we ever have the capacity to do that?

And does this bias the capacity? I don't know. But I'd be open to looking at potentially slightly different ways of trying to do something. But I don't know. I'll support the amendment.

Again, I don't need like a PhD. I don't need something super complex, take a little more information. So thanks. All right, we have a motion on the floor. We have objection.

Oh, Mayor Wilder. Um, I just say I'll object also. I think my reasons have already been, uh, stated. I think most of us are wanting to look at the budget annually and everything everybody's talked about, different changes and everything. We have the capacity to do that right now.

So great, we have a motion on the floor. We have objection. Miss Wendell, will you call roll? Thank you, Chair Wall. On the motion to direct staff to come back to the body with an idea of what our biennial budget process would look like.

Assemblymember Kelly? Yes. Assemblymember Atkisson? No. Assemblymember Steininger?

Mayor Weldon?

Assemblymember Hughes-Scandies? No. Assemblymember Smith? Yes. Assemblymember Bryson?

No. Assemblymember Hall? Nope. Chair Wall? Yes.

Motion fails, 3 ayes, 6 nays. All right, um, staff, I think you can take that as direction as relabeling all of our stuff annual moving forward. And whoever is the chair of finance next here can take some of this feedback into— with, with staff in designing next year's process. Mr. Bryson, are we at the end of the meeting, Madam Chair? Um, I think we have one more item first, which is, I don't think, going to take long.

But if I just want to— I would just want to make sure there— people know there is an investment report at the end of our red folder item. Ms. Lekas, anything you want to say about it? I do want to say that we're supposed to be providing you with an investment summary quarterly, and we needed to provide an investment summary for our Standard Poor's rating. This is what was provided. We wanted to make sure that you had it in your hands.

We're still working on what we really want a regular tool to look like. So we're going to continue to kind of work with the data that we have on our investments. And I don't necessarily need to get round robin feedback tonight, but if you have some ideas of something that is particularly of interest to you, we'd love to hear it as there's not— it's not like your standard financial reports out of accounting that are prescribed of the way that this looks. And so we have a lot of flexibility. Flexibility, um, with providing this information.

But we do want to regularly provide this to you. Mayor Walden, uh, thank you for this. Uh, how does this compare with year 1 of our biennial budget? Um, so how, how does our investment compare with last year? Um, we We are, so remember last year the Fed was going to cut rates like 4 times and they never did.

And so this year they were going to cut rates about 4 times. We're still at 0 rate cuts. So our investments are doing really good, which, you know, I will probably have to, when we give you the FY25 update, tell you the bad news that you got more revenue than we budgeted in the investment category.

That I do feel like that gets at the core of the type of information that I'd want from a quarterly is just, are we on track with how we said we would do so we can feel confident about where we're going to come out at the end, especially if it's— I mean, if it's behind or ahead.

Any other questions on this? No, thank you for providing it. Mr. Bryson, do you have—. I did have a just a little announcement or comment for the Finance Committee. We talked about all the nights that we spend in here in finance.

Last night, Craig Duncan, who was the finance director for CBJ for a handful of years, I think until 2015, maybe somewhere around there, but he sat in this room did what we did many, many times. And unfortunately, Craig passed away with his family last night. But somebody let me know about that today, and as we had a finance meeting today, I thought it was appropriate to share because that man definitely sat over there on that side of the room and had some of the very similar conversations that we had today. So I want to thank Craig for his service to Juneau. So thank you for that.

Thank you, Mr. Royson. Really appreciate it. Okay, that brings us to next meeting date, August 6th, 2025. Um, and with that, we will adjourn.