Equal Protection of the Law and Hardship – The devil is in the details

Friday 10/15 Mary Becker and Karen Crane, our two new Assembly members were sworn in. They are both smart and conscientious, and I am looking forward to working with them. We baptized them with fire right off, addressing detailed issues that still need to be addressed.

In the comments period we have at the end of each meeting I made a proposal to change our CBJ code to make it constitutional in one sub-section. Under CBJ Code 69.05.045(a) spouses of senior citizens who are not yet 65 can also receive the senior sales tax exemption. Since the code says “spouses,” this benefit is limited to those who are married and since same sex couples are prohibited from marrying by the Alaska Constitution, this falls under the same 2005 Alaska Supreme Court ruling that mandated extending state employee benefits to same sex couples. The City Attorney agreed that the code as currently written was unconstitutional.

The matter was referred to our next Finance committee meeting where we will have to decide whether to add same sex partners to our code language, or eliminate the exemption for everyone (I don’t think that is likely). I have always been a strong supporter for equal rights for everyone, regardless of individual characteristics, and this is just the right thing to do. But if I had not previously gotten the Attorney’s support on the constitutional issue, this would have had more problems moving forward. As it is – I still need to work it through Finance and back to the Assembly.

Then we held a short, previously planned, Finance committee meeting to address the property tax hardship exemption. Currently, all senior citizens get a $150,000 exemption from their property tax assessment, but if any can prove “hardship,” they get additional property tax relief. The problem is in the definition of hardship. Currently the regulations say a hardship exists if a person has property tax liability “in excess of 2% of the taxpayer’s gross household income.” That means that the owner of a $500,000 house can be said to be in a hardship condition if they make less than $250,000. That is obviously not a hardship and not what this exemption was intended for. So the proposal is to adjust the formula to lower the income rate that could qualify for hardship. While all exemptions are great – every time we give one, we increase the tax burden on everyone else. That is the reality of balancing the budget that we have to keep in mind.

This is a perfect example of “the devil is in the details” and our new members had to immediately vote on these issues. The Assembly asked for more financial information and we address this again in an upcoming Committee of the Whole meeting.

Next Thursday at 7 pm there will be a public hearing in the Assembly Chambers to address the creation of a Bridge Park and Seawalk beginning under the downtown bridge
The background can be found HERE Anyone interested in the downtown waterfront should attend. Unfortunately I teach Thursday evenings, but I hope some folks will be able to attend.