Assembly Work Session on Fully Exempt Real Property Review – August 7, 2026
Assembly Work Session on Fully Exempt Real Property Review – August 7, 2026
The Anchorage Assembly held a work session on August 7, 2026, from approximately 11:50 AM to 1:00 PM, to discuss AIM 103-2026, a follow-up to Resolution AR 2026 73. The session focused on a presentation by the Municipal Assessor’s office regarding the review of fully exempt real property, the backlog of exemption verifications, proposed code changes, and estimated fiscal impacts. No votes were taken; the session was informational.
Discussion Items
- Presentation Overview: Alden Thurn (acting CFO) and Jack Adamus (Municipal Assessor) presented findings from a report requested by the Assembly in March 2026. The report examines fully exempt property, which totals about $15 billion of the $50+ billion total property value in Anchorage—roughly one-quarter of the tax base. They distinguished between ownership-based exemptions (e.g., government property, requiring minimal review) and use-based exemptions (e.g., charitable nonprofits, requiring a two-part test: charitable purpose and exclusive use for that purpose).
- Backlog and Staff Constraints: The assessor’s office identified 100 high-priority and 550 medium-priority exemptions that needed review. With only 55% of one staff member’s time dedicated to this work since 2023, they have reviewed 80 of the high-priority exemptions, leaving 20 high and all 550 medium still pending. At the current pace, completion is not expected until 2032. The office is working to increase audit review capacity by upgrading two positions, potentially doubling capacity.
- Proposed Code Change – 90-Day Certification Deadline: Currently, the annual certification deadline for exempt properties is March 15. The assessor proposed changing the code to require that when the office requests an annual certification, the applicant must respond within 90 days. If they fail to respond, the exemption would expire, but the entity could still file a new application by the March 15 deadline. This would allow the office to stop follow-ups earlier and focus on the backlog, potentially reducing the completion timeline to 2030.
- Fiscal Impact Estimates: Based on empirical results from the 60 exemptions reviewed in 2025, the office estimates that approximately $52.1 million in exempt value may be potentially taxable, resulting in a future tax burden shift of about $811,000 (using District 3 mill rate). This is not new revenue but a shift among taxpayers; it does not affect the tax cap. Recovering prior years’ taxes was deemed functionally infeasible due to legal challenges.
- Recurring Review Proposal: For ongoing compliance, the assessor recommended a risk-based review cycle: no annual audit for ownership-based exemptions (e.g., government), a 3-year cycle for secondary-purpose exemptions (e.g., nonprofit leasing to for-profit), and a 6-year cycle for use-based exemptions (e.g., charitable nonprofits).
Key Outcomes
- The Assembly received the presentation and report, with no formal action taken. The work session was intended to inform future policy discussions, including potential code changes and resource allocation.
- Assembly members expressed support for the proposed 90-day certification change as a way to streamline reviews without penalizing compliant nonprofits. Several members noted that every tax exemption represents a taxpayer investment and that the review is a legal obligation of the municipality.
- The assessor’s office will continue working on the backlog and pursuing the internal resource reallocation to increase capacity. Any code amendment would require a future ordinance.
Meeting Transcript
Okay, everyone, I'm gonna call this work session to order. Today is Friday, August 7th. Um, we are noticed from 1150 to 1250, and then we will have one work session after this. Um, today we are here to talk about AIM uh 103 2026, which is the follow-up to resolution AR 2026 73, and we will be discussing a presentation uh regarding fully exempt real property um and the request that was made by resolution earlier in the year. So we'll start with member introductions and we'll get into it. George Martinez. Janice Park. Sydney Scal, Anna Brawley. Um, and then I'll also note I know there's a few members around, um, so I'll just uh announce them as when they are arriving. We are also joined by assembly council uh members of the administration who will speak uh in a minute, uh, a couple members of the public. And um yeah, so I think we'll go from there. So we have a presentation up on the screen and uh um the memo itself. So I will turn it to Mr. Thurn and Mr. Cadamis, whoever would like to start. Perfect. Well, thank you for the assembly giving us the opportunity here to talk about this uh this topic. It just says a reminder, uh, this uh report came from uh uh uh a request from the assembly back, I believe in the March time period to have a look at the uh exemption property exemption uh uh status all the way around, and it gave 120 days to trying to get that report done. Jack and his team have worked excessively hard over that time period to put together this report. Um, we're only gonna cover the highlights today, but I'm sure you all have it. It's almost 20 pages of very small font. So there's a lot of good knowledge and good information that's that's contained in that document. Um, as I stated today, we're going to just kind of hit the highlights, but more importantly, give you an opportunity to um ask any questions you may have as we go through that. Um, and then we are uh going to be asking uh uh for support on a code change. So when we get to that, we'd be more than happy to to uh go when we're going through those slides, answer any questions you may have on that topic as well. But uh, we're excited to be here today and to and to talk about this. Um, and as you'll see in the report, this is something that actually Jack and I have been working on since 2023. So uh this is not something that just came up because of the uh March request. And you're gonna see a lot of work that was done prior to that, a lot of work that's been done since uh that's happened, as well as a lot of great work and ideas that uh the department has going forward to try to uh um address this very important thing that uh you know the city deals with and uh as we go through there. So, Jack, I'll kind of turn it over to you and then I'll just chime in. Um, but as I stated, we've been on this for when I was when we started this when I was CFO, and uh we saw the need, and and we can certainly give some history on on where we've come from since that time period, but we know we can probably do a little bit more, and that's what we're gonna be here to talk about today. Okay, thank you. And I'll just note real briefly uh we were joined by Mr. Bulland and Ms. Baldwin Day um at 1156. So go ahead, Mr. Giddington. Yeah, thank you. So um uh Alden, thanks as well for the history. So again, my name is Jack Adamus, I'm in the municipal assessor. And uh throughout this, you'll see it's was and still is a collaboration between uh Alden, who is now acting in different capacity, um, as you as he mentioned as CFO, he was was um helping us with us at that time. Uh during this presentation, if you do have any questions, we have about I believe 15 slides or so. We're as Alden said, covering the main points. But if you do have any questions, just ask. I will try my best to answer it. I may have to phone a friend, but I um not uh we'll we'll figure out your your question. So on this first slide, moving forward with is looking at just the agenda of what I want to talk about from a high level of the report. So the first one is talking about the resolution as well as the AIM. What did the resolution call? So I'll briefly talk about that.
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