A boroughwide tourism working group will get more time to put together a report with recommendations. That’s after group members failed to reach a consensus on what should be included in that report.
Assembly members created the group last fall to study how tourism impacts borough services, including the potential impacts of a lodging, or “bed” tax. The group met four times between December and April. At its last meeting, a tie vote killed approval of the draft report.
Borough Mayor Peter Micciche, who chaired the group, said a lodging tax would single out and penalize a specific industry, while generating money he says the borough doesn’t need.
“I just do think it's important that we operate on the facts of the financial position of this borough that does not need more money,” he said. “Frankly, that needs less money.”
The draft report does propose restructuring how the borough collects sales tax. Currently, the borough collects a three percent sales tax all year. The report proposes changing to a two percent tax in the winter and a four percent tax in the summer. The report estimates the new structure would generate more than $4 million new dollars for the borough each year.
Carol Fraser agreed with Micciche’s stance on a lodging tax. She’s the vice president of Aspen Hotels Alaska and sits on the working group.
“It's inequitable, and the tourism – the hotel side of the tourism industry already pays more than our fair share of taxes and the value we bring with complimentary rooms and giving back to our industry is massive,” she said.
But others, like member Larry Opperman, said the draft report didn’t capture all the ideas proposed by members. For example, he floated a gas tax and a fishbox tax as potential new revenue streams. And the information that was included on a lodging tax, Opperman said, was all negative.
“We've discussed several things, but this report only deals with lodging tax and it changes the sales tax,” he said. “We discussed a lot of other issues within this committee, and I’m curious why a lot of those things aren't in this report.”
There appeared to be confusion among some group members about who actually put the draft report together. Micciche said it was written by borough administrators based on the input of the working group.
The extension approved by assembly members last week gives the working group 60 more days to reach consensus on a final report, to be sent to the assembly by the end of June.
