September 17, 2018
Monday PM

I served in the Alaska Senate for twelve years (1997-2008). Whenever I needed help on a legislative matter involving local government, I turned to Dan Bockhorst. Dan played a pivotal role in my successful effort to reduce the State education tax on borough governments by one-third (Chapter 95, SLA 2001). To date, this tax reduction has saved Ketchikan Borough taxpayers $19.5 million without reducing vital funding to your Ketchikan schools. If the law remains in place, these savings will continue to grow.

Even when the State was in its strongest financial position ever, some legislators wanted to repeal this tax relief. The State House Task Force on Sustainable Education’s final report in January 2014 concluded current State funding for education was no longer sustainable and looked to shift more costs to taxpaying boroughs.

Within days of the Task Force’s final report, the Ketchikan Borough boldly filed its lawsuit challenging the State tax on boroughs altogether and my borough willingly joined in. Suddenly talk of repealing the tax cut stopped after the Ketchikan/Fairbanks lawsuit was filed and, while the suit was successful in Superior court, it was unfortunately overturned in Alaska’s Supreme Court.

However, the Supreme Court thankfully left the door wide open for a challenge based on the State’s responsibility for schools rooted in Article VII of Alaska’s Constitution. A 2017 Alaska Law Review article concluded that “a successful challenge to the [State tax] under the Public Schools Clause is a possibility.”

Interest is growing again among legislators in gambling that there will be no further lawsuits and the path is clear to repeal this tax reduction. If the tax cut is repealed, the Ketchikan Borough will be forced to pay the State an additional $2.5 million per year. Fighting on behalf of taxpayers in boroughs across the state, Dan Bockhorst has stood front and center in the effort to squash any attempt to add to your taxpayers’ burden. It was an honor to sponsor his valiant fight in 2001 and I encourage your support to keep him on the side of Ketchikan taxpayers as a member of the Ketchikan assembly.

Gary Wilken
Fairbanks Alaska

Editor's Note:

The text of this letter was NOT edited by the SitNews Editor.

Received September 16, 2018 - Published September 17, 2018

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