The Anchorage Assembly has approved the 2025 budget for the municipality — and it’s the biggest in city history.
Mayor Suzanne LaFrance’s budget is $639 million and comes right up against the tax cap, which is the legal limit the city can levy against property owners.
The budget approved is also $39 million greater the one that Mayor Dave Bronson had offered last year for the 2024 budget cycle. His budget was then increased by the Assembly to $611 million and the Assembly overrode his vetoes, as he tried to push city spending back in its box.
This time, unlike last year, the Assembly fell in line with the new mayor’s spending plan and offered few amendments and little resistance.
“Crafting a balanced budget that meets the diverse needs of our community is no simple task,” said Assembly Chairman Chris Constant. “The budget we passed tonight reflects our values and is a return to good government—a government that functions between branches, collaborates with community members, and delivers quality public services people can rely on.”
For comparison, in 2009, the Anchorage budget was $421 million. If inflation was calculated into that amount and the budget was held steady, the Anchorage budget would be $614 million today. Instead, because of increased spending by Democrats who control the Anchorage Mayor’s Office and the Assembly, the budget is $25 million higher than what it would be had spending been kept in check.
The Assembly recently passed a massive tariff increase on goods coming through the Port of Alaska. Such an increase allows the city to collect revenues that are outside of the tax cap but that are passed on to consumers as a 7.5% increase in the cost of food and supplies.
I said it before and I’ll say it again: You can thank dumb Anchorage voters for this.
Read my thought exactly!
Yes I agree.
We need to raise taxes 50% to get these dumb voters to leave.
I wish we could set a tax on these voters that want this.
Yep, I expected nothing less from this gang of immoral degenerates.
Bidenomics is Working! Spend Spend Spend your way out of inflation.
Absolutely no one has mentioned the millions gifted to the muni by the feds for covid relief when their appointee AQD was in a s**thouse hurry to piss away all the money on everything but what it was intended for before Mayor Bronson was able to take the reigns and put it to good use.
Meg’s homeless pets are warm and cozy in their hotel rooms enjoying the fringe benefits of hot meals and free entertainment on the taxpayers dime. Life is great for them.
The spending Queens have a gold card and lots of blank checks AND a free ride at election time.
This tax is just one of the reasons why we need a rail line to Canada. Gov. Dunleavy should put a priority on the rail line to connect us with our neighbor.
That is idiocy. We need a rail line to the West coast of Alaska so we can have a transportation system that supports the citizens of OUR state and would encourage mineral extraction in OUR state. The payback would be 7 1/2 years if they put a rail to Nome, with a spur to Kotzebue, Red Dog, and Ambler. And forget that idiocy of a road to Ambler. That is a waste of public money. And a rail to Canada would further make us dependent on what has become an increasingly restrictive government on our free travel down the Alcan.
Yeah because the rail spur to Point MacKenzie did so well?? How much land do you own out there in western Ak?
Not one square foot do I own in Western Alaska and the idiots involved in the Point MacKenzie debacle wouldn’t listen to any of us that were telling them it was a non starter. You obviously didn’t do any math on the freight costs to western Alaska, the cost of the maintenance to the state for the Port Site Road at Red Dog mine, the cost to ship Zinc out of Red Dog, the idiocy of the Ambler Road project, the potential income from raild ore transport by rail to dockside in Anchorage, the potential jobs and income of a smelting operation in North Pole, and the fuel transportation costs to the west coast of Alaska. The cost to built a railroad would be $1.5 million a mile, if it is properly planned and executed and payback would be 7 1/2 years, or less. The idiocy of the LNG project has already cost the state more than the railroad expansion would cost and THAT project will NEVER happen.
How many people will move out of Anchorage based on this budget increase? The 7.5% tariff increase will hurt the people with the least money and income as a greater -recent age of their money must be spent on day to day living. The Anchorage Assembly doesn’t have to worry about this as they have increased there renumeration from $12,000.00 to $65,000.00 in recent years.
When will the conservatives in Anchorage start voting again?
Absolutely, and some of us are going to have to run against these grifters in order to at least shine a light on the total disregard they have for the working public and property owners. I intend to run for Perez-Verdia’s seat in April. I don’t have the time but I will have to figure it out because this running RICO violation has been going on too long. Nowhere in the private sector could you front load a position at a “non profit” with public money, then, take the position as director of that entity for a $250K a year paycheck, like Zalatel did.
I will support you.
We need a group that is for the people and not in it for money and power so we don’t need more democrats or Republicans as they both are one and the same.
Right on Robert!
I will support anyone that can topple Perez Verdia off his stool.
The last time Perez Verdia ran for reselection he had telephonic cronies calling from Seattle campaigning for him while he was snoozing from the comfort of his home like he did during the all important Covid lockdown meetings.
The sleepy Dr’s son does not belong on the ASSembly. There are enough clowns at the circus already.
I believe that conservatives are voting, but thanks to garbage like RCV, dark money streaming into the state thanks to RINO Murkowski etc. this entire state is being overrun by corruption and Marxist.
This Assembly doesn’t listen to the people, obviously they missed the precedent sent by the recent national elections where we the people told them we are fed up with the non-sense of DEI, excessive spending, the out-of-control crime.
Just look at this joke with the counting of ballots going on and on and on. This state has been overrun by corrupt Marxist that will force their garbage on the people and buy their way into office at every turn.
We need some quality legal minds to come together and tackle the corruption at every level of govt in this state and end this strangle hold by the Marxist mob. Starting with the current out of control assembly.
Eaglexit plus another 80’s-style exodus of productive residents might be just what it takes to topple Anchorage’s junta.
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Imagine the junta -and the bond market- suddenly realizing that taxing the few productive left-behinds for all they’re worth won’t support the junta in the style to which it’s become entitled.
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Conservatives stopped voting?
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No way (for now) of knowing. Voters know -only- what they’re told by unelected bureaucrats whose methods and means of vote tabulation are anything but “open and honest”, whose livelihoods may depend on election outcomes, who aren’t accountable to voters, who farm out voter-roll upkeep to ERIC, an organization with known leftist ties, and the list goes on.
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Good news is conservatives in Anchorage probably didn’t stop voting, other news is only an adult-level audit can prove it and that doesn’t seem likely to happen without a big shove from outside The Club, say, from a federal grand jury acting on a citizens’ petition.
When?, i wouldnt count on it till the left goes broke.
We are leaving Anchorage. Building a home in Settlers Bay this spring.
We see no change in the last 5 years. Homelessness is out of control. Crime is still increasing.
Taxes are going up. What happened to the tax cap?
I also predict special assessments are coming (like we paid under the Rollins settlement) coming for wrongful death claims. At least 2.
Leftists run the city, unions show up for elections.
Then there is a sales tax on top of the property taxes.
Yep- we are OUT.
This isn’t a budget, it is a huge check being written that will have to be paid by every taxpayer in Anchorage. It is disgusting that these carpet baggers on the assembly continue to collude with others of their ilk to steal from the public in order to advance their own economic positions. The pure inconsideration for those that have to work and live in this community, and around the state, is absolutely unconscionable. I am surprised that other communities north of Anchorage that are being bent over by this assembly have not risen up en masse to address the screwing this assembly is imposing on their communities with the unreasonably massive increases in the tariff surcharge at the port.
Robert
I have been saying the same thing as the taxpayer is gettin stole from and lied to by the crooks running this show.
You don’t see any poor politicians and the amount of money to get one of these jobs is so they can steal legally from the citizens.
There are 6 seats up for grabs this next spring and if we could get some business owners on there with real problem solving skills, we could really get this city running for the residents again instead of prioritizing putting money in a few select pockets.
These Marxist have no clue. Spending money to buy off the few at the cost of the many. Anchorage is a city in decline, these members are the reason why. The budge spends money on things that might seem nice to have while things needed get little help. Like snow removal that affects all is ignored for things like the equity center.
Anchorage residents voted for this….with a Leftist Assembly, you are not going to see a Conservative in office for a while.
And soon … an Anchorage sales tax. Followed by gas and electric bills tripling when Cook Inlet gas is not able to cover winter demands and we have to import gas. And a tidal wave of homeless coming from the Bush to this sanctuary city because inflation makes living there unaffordable. And boomers fleeing in mass because of the high cost to live in Anchorage and lack of medical care. Tax base will shrink as taxes go up. Death spiral. The demise of Anchorage is just starting.
Ones again folks voted in who are out of touch with the working class and the poor.
If the tariff is on all goods moving through the port it will affect the price of goods for the entire state? Yea!
This is shocking! (Said no-one who knows leftist assembly history.) I should have bet my entire savings on this and retired five years early. Strap in and hang on, Anchorage-ites, it’s only going to get worse. Next: a sales tax. Bet on it. Hey, but at least the assembly dealt with those pesky plastic shopping bags at the grocery store. We have that going for us.
Maybe MRAK can explain how a 7.5% increase on the tariff will destroy Alaska, but Trump’s 100% tariffs on imports and deporting 40% of our farm workers will not?
The globalist idiot speaks again. 2 things dipstick, first, 100% tariffs on China is needed if ever we will have again the one thing that made America the powerhouse it once was, MANUFACTURING which leads to JOBS. Plus, for someone who is so quick to spew opinions, you forget that China has for decades literally said that they want to destroy America in any and every way, so when we support them, we support the destruction of our own home. Secondly, the 40% of the workers you describe are ILLEGAL ALIENS. You globalist idiots forget that they are NOT helping our economy by accepting low wages to do ag based work. Instead they make an artificial economy based on exploiting ILLEGAL activities.
Thank you. The leftists always present tariffs as if it is a tax policy or revenue. It is designed to change behavior. We need to produce all of our medical equipment and medicine, all strategic metals and parts. We must deny a country that uses slave and child labor with no environmental mediation any profit from our nation. The left doesn’t seem to want corporations to “pay their share” if it benefits China.
Thank you so much Suzanne Downing! I so appreciate all your efforts to bring these important things before us. Linda Waggoner
This money steal is in step with the entire fall of the nation!
Just what the voters asked for, hmmm…
Nothing to see here!
The writer is only told by unelected bureaucrats what voters asked for.
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The writer doesn’t know, and has no way of verifying, what voters actually asked for.
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What have unelected bureaucrats ever done to earn such blind trust?
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Makes you go, “hmmm”, no?
What are the odds. Leftists spending other people’s money to make themselves look good.
Check their pockets at the door
Hopefully once the DOGE starts firing useless federal employees they will decide to leave our state and take their Marxist ideology with them. Can’t happen soon enough imo!
LaFrance needs that sweet sweet cash for her mid dayshopping excursions at the Dimond Mall I ran into her there during my daily walk. During business hourswhen she should have been in her office mayoring or whatever it is we pay her too much to NOT do. .. iNCOMPETENT!! Like she called Bronson
They don’t approve of the actual US Constitution and have no intention of including it in anything their group of privileged rulers do to you. They resonate with personal superiority complexes not equality. It is not apparent to me they have fellow feeling for taxpayers.
You voted for this Anchorage. You wanted this.
No point in continuing complaining.
I am at a loss of how 9 communists in Anchorage get to decide to jack up the tarrif and port rates by hundreds of percentage points and pass that on to all of us in Alaska.
The state and feds pay for and work the port, how is it these pukes can f**k us?
Any lawyers or reps with a backbone want to take this on??
Lots of complaints and fearful concerns about the size of the municipal budget. Meanwhile the mayor and assembly members are preening about how the budget reflects their diversity, equity and inclusion achievements. Apparently, the assembly is knowingly oblivious about the affect of their wildly bloated budget on the city’s well being. And yet the voters of Anchorage still manage to vote for these people again and again in a total disconnect between cause and affect.
Just a quick congratulations to Seattle North on allowing your fine city to become another blue s*** show. Well done folks. Very tolerant of you.
Ahhh Los Anchorage. Transplants that think they actually live in Alaska.