City officials and Assembly members can stop holding their breath.

Juneau voters have approved a ballot proposition extending the city’s temporary 3 percent sales tax for another five years. The proposition passed with 75.7 percent of the vote.

About one quarter of the city’s general government and capital improvement project funding comes from sales tax. The city’s finance department predicts that the tax will generate about $25 million during the current fiscal year.

Of that, $8.8 million goes to road and infrastructure repair. Another $8.8 million goes into youth activities and the budget reserve. The rest funds general government operations.

The three percent tax was scheduled to expire in July 2017.

Had voters not passed the proposition, the Assembly would have likely been forced to make some difficult budgetary decisions, including heavily cutting city services and or increasing other taxes.

Though city officials were happy to see Proposition 2 pass, they didn’t get everything they wanted Tuesday.

Juneau voters didn’t pass Proposition 3, which would have made the temporary 3 percent sales tax permanent. More than 68 percent of voters said “no” to the proposition.

City manager Rorie Watt and Finance Director Bob Bartholomew both supported making the sales tax permanent — and recommended as much to the Assembly. Because the tax funds about a quarter of city’s general government operations, making it permanent would provide the Assembly with some stability when its budget season rolls around every year, Watt and Bartholomew have said.

Though they didn’t get the financial stability they were hoping for, they won’t have to worry about the sales tax again until October 2021 when the issue will go to the ballot again.

Proposition 1

Juneau voters strongly supported a proposition that will raise the sales tax of marijuana products from 5 percent to 8 percent, matching the city’s sales tax rate for alcohol.

That proposition passed with 86.6 percent of the vote.

When Alaska voters passed Ballot Measure 2 two years ago, they called for marijuana to be regulated like alcohol; that’s how the measure read.

With little dispute, the Assembly voted to put Proposition 1 on the ballot in early June.

The city’s finance department estimates that with an 8 percent sales tax, the marijuana industry could generate between $170,000 and $455,000 annually for the city.

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