Juneau Assembly passes budget reducing the property tax rate

After two months of budget work by the Assembly Finance Committee, the Juneau Assembly passed the Fiscal Year 2022 budget at Monday night’s Regular Assembly Meeting. The Assembly voted to lower the property tax rate from 10.66 mills to 10.56 mills – the lowest property tax rate since 2013. The new budget, which begins July 1, expands the Assembly’s support for childcare services and also restores money to the Capital Improvement Plan, including improvements to the Augustus Brown Pool.

The $420.9 million budget includes reduced projections of sales tax revenues and cruise ship passenger fees in anticipation of limited large cruise ship visitation this current summer. To offset these depressed revenues, the budget utilizes CBJ’s $12.8 million allocation of federal stimulus funds from the American Rescue Plan Act to replace lost revenues in FY21 and FY22. Application of this federal aid to offset lost revenues in FY21 reduced the anticipated $2.8 million deficit to zero, and in FY22 reduces the projected $15.8 million deficit to $5.9 million.

Despite being faced with a deficit, the Assembly maintained all essential city services while lowering the property tax rate to 10.56 mills. Even with the lower property tax rate, CBJ will collect approximately $3.0 million more in property tax revenue in FY22 as a result of a substantial growth in property valuations, including a considerable adjustment to the value of commercial land. The Assembly still needed to draw from savings to cover a remaining budgetary shortfall.

The Assembly also restored $6.9 million of temporary reductions to the Capital Improvement Plan that were made in FY21 to balance the budget, including the $3.3 million Augustus Brown Pool deferred maintenance project.

For more information, contact Finance Director Jeff Rogers at 723-6907 or [email protected].