By NATALIE SPAULDING
A municipal tax cap is one way to prevent a borough or local government entity from spending taxpayer money on unwarranted travel expenses or political causes. Understanding current borough spending habits can help voters decide about the necessity of a tax cap. In an effort to show why a tax cap is both necessary and desirable, Fairbanks residents Jon and Ruth Ewig conducted a FOIA request to shine light on Fairbanks North Star Borough expenditures.
Ruth Ewig requested documents detailing borough expenditures through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. The documents she received show that Fairbanks North Star Borough representatives Savannah Fletcher, David Guttenberg, Brett Rotermund, Mindy O’Neall, Scott Crass, and Kristan Kelly cumulatively spent $34,800 of taxpayer money on travel expenses from February 5, 2024 – February 21, 2025.
According to the documents released to MRAK, David Guttenberg spent the most money: $13,000. Mindy O’Neall spent $7,500, part of which was used to fund a trip to Victoria BC, Canada to attend a conference about “preventing hate and building social cohesion.”
According to Ewig, the documents show that Guttenberg and O’Neall failed during their authorized Junea trip to keep their appointments with their interior Legislative Delegation. Released Assembly reports do not account for their absences.
The FOIA documents also reveal that North Star Borough Assembly members used Borough funds to attend the Alaska Municipal League’s Annual Local Government Conference. Additionally, the Borough Assembly paid $50,000 to a lobbyist.
During the February 2024-2025 time frame, Borough member Scott Crass spent $5,000; Savannah Fletcher spent $3600; Brett Rotermund spent $3,500; and Kristan Kelly spent $1,000.
In 2024, according to Ewig, Borough members O’Neall, Crass, and Fletcher spent $125,000 sponsoring a campaign to remove the tax cap and to increase real property land taxes by $10 million. That campaign failed. “These travel expenditures do not represent a wise use of taxpayer-generated revenues,” said Ewig. “Fairbanks residents know that raising the tax cap is not necessary, and that these funds can be better utilized on the proper functions of government.”
Natalie Spaulding, a 2025 Hillsdale College graduate, recently joined the Must Read Alaska team.