The Kenai Peninsula Borough is looking into jointly hiring a consultant to assess the effects of the potential LNG tax structure.
Yesterday we spoke with Borough Mayor Mike Navarre about the proposal which Fairbanks North Star Borough, North Slope Borough, and the City of Valdez have joined. Each joined with the KPB to send a letter to Governor Sean Parnell asking to be more involved in the discussions and pledged $50,000 for hiring the consultant.
Mayor Navarre: “If it happens it will be a huge tax base and it’s not that we’re opposed to something like that its just that we need to know how it impacts us and would like to be party to some of the discussions and negotiations, so that we can determine how it’s going to effect us when the plants being constructed and well out into the future because we’ll have to deal with the impacts of the population increase and education services and all the other things that go along with an expanded population.”
Mayor Navarre said that the project would triple the assessed value of the Borough, however if a PILT is enabled, the borough would almost certainly generate less revenue.
Mayor Navarre: “It’s a payment in lieu of taxes and so instead of saying you get the $15 billion and you get to put your mill levy on top of it, your only going to get or your going to get instead of that a payment in le and that’s going to be calculated in this fashion and that’s what we don’t know is how it’s going to be calculated.”
Borough Assembly Members will address it as a resolution at their next meeting February 25.