Assemblymember Wilson asked the Finance Committee to approve placing a ballot question before voters that would add 4 percentage points to the boroughed tax, increasing the rate from 8% to 12%.

The proposal would also change which properties are subject to the borough portion of the tax: under the current proposal the additional 4% would be charged on hotel and motel rooms inside the City of Fairbanks and the City of North Pole as well as in borough-only areas. "What this would do, it would add 4%. So it would be a 12%," Assemblymember Wilson said.

Mayor Hopkins
sked committee members to consider administrative implications if the measure passes, noting the borough may need additional staffing to implement collection for new accounts. "If it passes, the time frame would be tight to implement," Hopkins said. "If you need an additional staff for that, I think that's something we could probably look at in the budget process." The borough
ttorney explained how the change would interact with the boroughodeap: "Our tax cap is a tax revenue cap" and the portion of room-tax revenue transferred into the room tax fund is excluded from that cap, so raising the room tax would slightly increase the cap calculation.

Committee members asked about revenue estimates and possible demand effects. Wilson provided a back-of-envelope estimate she had prepared: roughly $2.2 million for six months and about $4.4 million for a full year, but staff cautioned those figures could be higher than actual collections because they used last year ata that included delinquent accounts. Committee discussion noted the numbers do not explicitly account for any decline in visitor demand that might result from a higher tax. As the boroughudget office puts it, typical budgeting practice applies a conservative reduction (the office cited a notional 10% adjustment for planning purposes), but no formal elasticity analysis was presented at the meeting.

Several members asked about timing and impacts on contracts or events already negotiated by hoteliers and tour operators. Wilson said she would discuss whether implementation timing could delay the effective date for specific contracted events, but did not propose a formal carve-out during the meeting. The administration said implementation timing could be refined as the measure moves to a ballot ordinance.

No formal vote on the ordinance text was recorded at the committee; the matter advanced as a staff report and will return to the assembly in ordinance form for vote to place the question on the ballot. The committee iscussion included requests to refine the fiscal note and implementation timeline before final action.

Ending: The committee recessed after continued business; the hotel-motel tax item will return to the assembly with a prepared ordinance and updated fiscal analysis for a future meeting.