Jared Goecker: Anchorage has a spending problem, not a revenue problem

By JARED GOECKER

Across Anchorage, families are tightening their belts. Groceries cost more, utilities are higher, and everyday expenses keep rising. Yet, City Hall has not shown the same restraint. Instead of reducing unnecessary spending, the Mayor and several Assembly members continue to push new taxes as the answer to every budget challenge.

Anchorage does not have a revenue problem. We have a spending and priority problem. It’s possible that nothing illustrates this better than what happened during the budget meetings themselves. While the Administration was warning of a looming “fiscal cliff” and insisting there were no good places to cut, a moving truck pulled up outside City Hall and unloaded brand-new office furniture for municipal employees.

Don’t tell me government has been cut to the bone, and we must resort to new taxes while the moving trucks are still running.

During the Assembly’s budget process, I introduced an extensive slate of amendments, many co-sponsored by Members Keith McCormick and Scott Myers, to cut or reduce unnecessary municipal costs. These amendments focus on eliminating waste, duplication, and unchecked growth in administrative spending.

Our amendments do not impact police patrols, fire protection, snowplowing, road maintenance, or essential frontline services. They instead target the back-office budgets that quietly expand every year without public conversation or accountability.

Among the reductions I sponsored:

• Cutting excess dues and memberships that provide minimal taxpayer value
• Eliminating departments with duplicative missions or no clear mission at all (e.g. Office of Equity and Justice)
• Scaling back travel spending citywide
• Trimming promotional, advertising, and communications budgets that have grown far beyond necessity
• Eliminating taxpayer-funded meals for the Mayor’s Office and Assembly
• Reducing office supply and miscellaneous spending that should be absorbed through efficiencies
• Cutting non-urgent equipment and furniture purchases
• Tightening overtime spending in departments that repeatedly exceed appropriations
• Eliminating retreats, conferences, luncheons, and ceremonial expenditures
• Redirecting donation budgets and grants toward real community priorities
• Eliminating funding for chronically vacant, funded, non-recruited for positions citywide

Altogether, these amendments represent millions of dollars in reductions, proof that meaningful savings exist if we are willing to look for them. These are not radical cuts; they’re the same commonsense decisions every Anchorage household and small business makes: focus on what matters, eliminate what doesn’t, and live within your means.

And yet, despite these available savings and the looming fiscal cliff the Mayor is talking about, the Administration and Assembly recently voted to spend $35 million to buy the City Hall building, a purchase that is not urgent, comes with significant capital needs, and is happening at the worst possible time for working families.

I was the sole ‘no’ vote, because I believe discretionary spending should come after we’ve fixed our priorities, not before. This is exactly the kind of decision that proves Anchorage doesn’t have a revenue problem it has a spending problem.

Before we ask residents to dig deeper, government must prove it is spending current dollars wisely. Anchorage deserves a government that is disciplined, efficient, and focused on delivering value, not a government that reflexively reaches for new revenues. My amendments are a first step toward rebuilding public trust, restoring fiscal discipline, and refocusing municipal government on its core responsibilities.

I’ll say it again; we do not have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem. These amendments will be before the Assembly on the meeting of November 18^th for debate and a vote.

Jared Goecker is a member of the Anchorage Assembly who represents Eagle River.