The Anchorage Assembly made mistakes in how it handled the CARES Act money when it played a shell game last year in order to buy a hotel or two for drug addicts.
Now, it has discovered that its mistakes impact property tax payers from Girdwood to Chugiak — drastically.
A special meeting of the Anchorage Assembly has been called for Monday at 6 pm to try to resolve the matter as a critical deadline approaches.
The matter came to light when Girdwood Board of Supervisors Co-Chair Mike Edgington caught the mistake and brought it to the attention of the Administration after the Assembly voted on the rate of tax levy on Tuesday.
At issue is legal usage of CARES Act funds, which former Mayor Ethan Berkowitz and the liberal members of the Assembly wanted to use to pay for a massive homelessness industrial complex in Anchorage, with shelters and wrap-around services next to neighborhoods full of children.
When that CARES Act money was discovered to be improperly used for the hotels, the Municipality moved it over to cover police and fire response, and shifted police and fire money over to pay for the hotels.
That caused an unintended imbalance in the tax levy, pushing a drastically increased tax levy for Girdwood, Chugiak, and other tax districts outside of the APD and/or AFD service areas.
The mill rate notices must be in the mail by May 15, and the municipality’s property appraisal office needs 10 days between finalizing the mill rate and preparing and printing the tax notices. Therefore, the Monday meeting of the Assembly is somewhat of an emergency meeting.
