Repeatedly, our local Assembly has missed opportunities to mitigate the rising costs of living in Juneau. While offering lip service to the importance of affordability, substantial increases to the budget have been passed on to residents through higher taxes and fees.
Here are some eye-popping numbers from the City and Borough of Juneau (CBJ) FYE 2014 versus FYE 2024 Financial Statements:
• Juneau’s population: 2014 — 33,064 / 2024 — 31,549 (-1,515)
• CBJ government employment (not including schools or hospital): 2014 — 485 / 2024 — 530 (+45)
• General government expenditures: 2014 — $110.6 million / 2024 — $179 million (+62%)
Yes, while our population shrinks, our city budget and employee count continues to expand.
It’s no wonder that taxpayers had enough and launched two petition campaigns.
One petition would constrain Assembly spending by capping the property tax millage rate to 9 mills, slightly above last year’s rate. While this wouldn’t immediately affect Juneau’s cost of living, it will help prevent any precipitous rise in the future.
The second petition would exempt food and utilities from sales taxes for Juneau families and individuals. This will reduce the cost of the most basic necessities for Juneau’s working families and lower income individuals.
Both petitions received sufficient voter signatures to qualify as ballot measures for the October municipal election, sending an urgent message to Assembly members that the city should live within its means — just as individual residents must.
These ballot measures sparked a predictable narrative from city officials, who insist that, if passed, everything from ball fields to bus service will suffer. According to some, every single city service or program is at risk.
This is a fear tactic, plain and simple.
If the city’s financial condition is so fragile, how can it afford tens of millions of dollars in new city offices and $60 million for an arts/culture/civic center? Various renditions of these projects are afforded priority despite rejection by voters. Calls for more moderate proposals are ignored while costs escalate.
What city leaders also cannot explain is how discretionary spending has expanded exponentially over the last 10 years.
The three-year average of expenses from CBJ’s FY2014-2016 budgets to operate the Mayor’s Office and Assembly, which include Special Contracts, Assembly Grants, and Community Projects, was $5.1 million annually. This more than doubled to $11.8 million annually for FY2024-2026. These expenditures are largely discretionary, and the increase cannot be blamed entirely on inflation. Several of the grants and community projects appear year after year, some with substantial increases, with little or no review of efficacy. These grants should be limited in scope to help “jump-start” projects and initiatives and not become a perennial source of operational funding with no accountability for results.
Telephone Hill re-development is a project I support. But I was dismayed when the city allocated a staggering $9 million to demolish 13 residences, build a road, and prepare the site, even though no plan or developer has been identified.
The millions add up. I have only mentioned a few examples. But city leaders apparently consider them absolutely necessary expenditures, presumably to be spared, while threatening to cut basic services.
The Assembly also keeps monkeying with our voting system. Several years ago, they replaced traditional precinct polling locations with an expensive, unnecessary, and wasteful mail-in voting center and system. Now, they are considering mandating a ranked-choice voting scheme that will add additional expense. Why?
There seems no limit to projects and initiatives the Assembly will consider regardless of cost at the expense of basic affordability.
Questions voters might ask themselves:
• Why are water/sewer rates increasing 60-80% over the next five years?
• Why have solid waste disposal and the potential closure of the landfill reached a crisis stage?
• Why do city employees require pricey new offices if existing buildings can be re-purposed?
• Why aren’t civic center upgrades being considered that are affordable to operate and maintain into the future?
• Why do our city leaders seem more focused on wants, not needs?
Ignoring essential basic services while spending money on projects and services that few want or need doesn’t make Juneau more affordable.
As a voter, your opportunity to be heard will be at our next municipal election in October.
• After retiring as the senior vice president in charge of business banking for KeyBank in Alaska, Win Gruening became a regular Opinion Page columnist for the Juneau Empire. He was born and raised in Juneau and graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1970. He is involved in various local and statewide organizations. Columns, My Turns and Letters to the Editor represent the view of the author, not the view of the Juneau Empire. Have something to say? Here’s how to submit a My Turn or letter.
