| DCRA
administers five programs that provide financial assistance to
Alaskan communities:
| State
Revenue Sharing Program
|
This program has two major elements. The Municipal Tax Equalization
element rewards municipalities for local fiscal effort by allocating
money on the basis of a formula incorporating locally generated revenues
and property values along with municipal population. This account
also provides for a minimum entitlement of $25,000 for municipalities,
with a geographic location adjustment. Funding in FY 99 for this account
was $14,389,200.
The second element, entitled State Aid for Miscellaneous Services
provides money for public roads, ice roads, hospitals, health
clinics,
unincorporated communities, and volunteer fire departments. FY
99 funding of $7,194,600 resulted in payments at 25% of the
statutory
allocations.
Safe
Communities (Municipal Assistance) replaced the Gross Business
Receipts Program in 1979, and uses the FY 78 gross business receipts
payments to municipalities as a base amount under this new program.
The base amounts total approximately $10.6 million. Any appropriation
from the Legislature to the Municipal Assistance Program that
is above the level necessary to fund the base amounts is distributed
on a per capita basis. Funds appropriated in excess of the base
amounts are designed to provide property tax relief. The FY 99
appropriation was $26,256,300.
| Shared
Fisheries Business Tax Program
|
This
program provides for an annual sharing of fish tax collected outside
municipal boundaries to municipalities that can demonstrate they
suffered significant effects from fisheries business activities.
In FY 99, $1,208,039 was distributed to eligible municipalities.
| National
Forest Receipts Program
|
DCBD
distributes National Forest Receipts under the authority
of a 1908
federal law. This is a revenue sharing program, in which 25%
of the income earned from activities within the national
forest is
distributed to boroughs and cities within the national forest.
Federal and state law require that national forest income
be expended only
for the benefit of public schools and public roads. In FY 99,
$1.8 million was distributed to 9 boroughs, 17 cities,
4 Regional Educational
Attendance Areas (REAAs), and the Metlakatla Reservation. Boroughs
have been eligible to receive these funds since statehood.
Cities,
REAAs and Metlakatla became entitled as the result of a state
law passed in 1991.
| Federal
Payments in Lieu of Taxes
|
Division
staff worked closely with Senator Stevens to establish and administer
a new program which expanded federal Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT)
payments to include cities located in Alaska's unorganized borough.
The division distributed approximately $3.44 million to 96 Alaska
cities in FY01.
For more information
about DCBD's revenue sharing programs, contact:
Bill
Rolfzen
Division of Community and Regional Affairs
Department of Commerce, Community, and Economic Development
P.O. Box 112100
Juneau, AK 99811-2100
Phone: (907) 465-4733; Fax: 465-2948
e-mail: Bill.Rolfzen@alaska.gov
|
