Office of Management and Budget staff told the Anchorage Assembly that departmental requests in the 120-day memo add up to about $1.2 billion over six years and that a substantial portion of those requests fund recurring maintenance that has historically been paid through bonds rather than the operating budget.

Why it matters: Staff and assembly members said routine maintenance lines for drainage, signage, traffic signals and similar annual programs are often listed in bond and capital requests rather than as ongoing operating costs. "If we were to remove the annual funding lines from all of our bond requests that we ask on an annual basis, it is between 20 and $50,000,000," an OMB presenter said, adding those are annual funding amounts that arguably belong in operating budgets.

Key details: The memo presents the full set of departmental capital requests (about $105 million in a single-year departmental list, not the recommended bond request) and department-level six-year projections. The administration said the prior year'to'year bond ask was reduced: the 2025 bond package was about $69 million in actual bonding, whereas departmental asks exceed that figure. Staff advised that many capital projects rely on outside funding partners and that the successful share of state or federal grants is uncertain. The memo also noted the municipality's legislative priority lists have shrunk compared with prior decades, limiting the number of projects likely to receive state capital funding.

Process and prioritization: Assembly members asked how departments prioritize projects. OMB staff said departments generally stage work by feasibility/design and construction phases and that availability of partner funding and emergent repairs (for example, sinkholes) can move projects higher on the queue. Staff said departments are aligning scoring and prioritization processes and that a capital work session in October will address further details.

Population baseline and bond assumptions: Staff told the body that AEDC (Anchorage Economic Development Corporation) will not provide the same annual population report used previously as the municipal population baseline for tax-cap calculations; the administration will use an alternate source unless a new standard baseline is adopted.

Ending: The administration said more detailed capital program materials and project-by-project attachments in the 120-day memo will be available to the assembly and that additional capital-focused work sessions are planned this fall.