Juneau Assembly begins city budget process amid federal uncertainty, ski area deficit

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The City and Borough of Juneau’s municipal budget process kicked off over the weekend. On Saturday, the Juneau Assembly met for an all-day meeting to begin building the framework for next year’s city budget. 

Throughout the next few months, they’ll break down the city’s current finances, along with the school district, the city-owned hospital, the airport, Eaglecrest Ski Area and Docks and Harbors to come up with a municipal spending plan beginning July 1.

But as City Finance Director Angie Flick warned, they’re having to do so amid state and federal funding uncertainties, President Trump’s tariffs and other factors out of the city’s control.

“As you are considering all of the needs before you, we just need to be aware that there could be some other forces at play here,” she said. 

For the most part, the budget proposed by the city manager more or less maintains the status quo – it’s not cutting or adding any major services. But it does propose bumping up the current property tax rate of 10.04 — the lowest it’s been in decades — up to 10.19.

City leaders say that’s to help offset inflation and additional ongoing costs like taking over buildings that were transferred to the city under the Juneau School District’s consolidation plan last year, along with flood mitigation efforts. 

A mill rate determines how much property tax residents pay to the city. One mill is equal to $1 per $1000 in property value. This means that for every $1,000 in taxable property value, there would be a tax of $10.19 for next year.

While the hospital and school district presented balanced budgets to the city, Eaglecrest Ski Area faces a $2.7 million deficit. Its managers are asking the city to help cover that in order to fund repairs to some broken and aging infrastructure and boost pay to its employees.

While no decisions were made at the meeting, Assembly member Wade Bryson noted that Eaglecrest has had these issues for years despite receiving money from the Assembly to fix them in previous budget cycles.  

“For seven years in a row, I’ve heard Eaglecrest wages aren’t high enough. CBJ government is not going to be able to fix that,” he said. “I think that’s where my question comes in. How bad do things have to get before we recognize that maybe a private sector company needs to operate Eaglecrest?”

Nothing is finalized yet. Eaglecrest’s deficit and request will be taken up again by the Assembly in the coming months, along with the property tax rate and community funding requests.