Legislature(1993 - 1994)
03/02/1993 01:00 PM House CRA
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
HB 143: MARINE FUEL TAX REVENUE SHARING Number 192 CHAIRMAN OLBERG reconvened the meeting at 1:14 p.m. and brought forth SSHB 143. REPRESENTATIVE JERRY MACKIE, PRIME SPONSOR of SSHB 143, testified saying, "The reason I introduced this bill is it was brought to my attention by the City of Craig that perhaps this particular bill or change to law could serve as an incentive to accomplish something that I believe that DOT (Department of Transportation) and the administration, and maybe many of us would like to see in regards to some of our public facilities. ...That wherever possible, the DOT wanted to try to transfer some of these remote harbor facilities to the municipalities and let them own them so they would have to maintain them and have the state get out of the business of having to own, operate and maintain some of these harbor facilities that as we all know is very expensive. REPRESENTATIVE MACKIE continued, "However, there's not a whole lot of incentive for communities to want to take over ownership of these facilities. Along with that comes the liability and maintenance cost and things like that. So we felt that this may serve as an incentive to those communities that wanted to take these over. That this is some way of getting some money back into the maintenance and upkeep of some of these harbor facilities. He then read into the record his sponsor statement which had been provided to the committee members." (A copy of his sponsor statement may be found in the House Community and Regional Affairs Committee Room, Capitol #110, and after the adjournment of the second session of the 18th Alaska State Legislature, in the Legislative Reference Library.) REPRESENTATIVE MACKIE then referred to a list of harbors which had been distributed to committee members." (A copy of this list may be found in the House Community and Regional Affairs Committee Room, Capitol #110, and after the adjournment of the second session of the 18th Alaska State Legislature, in the Legislative Reference Library.) Number 352 REPRESENTATIVE MACKIE added, "The majority of this amendment is being offered as a result of the City of Ketchikan's harbormaster calling me and expressing the City of Ketchikan's support for this measure, the harbor department's support. However they didn't like the word warpage... so we came up with the language that would better suit the wording of it. That's the first four parts of it. The last one, page 2, line 7, moorage facility includes a definition which the Department of Transportation asked us to include in there to clearly define what that means." Number 369 REPRESENTATIVE DAVIES MOVED to ADOPT the amendments. Without objections, IT WAS SO ORDERED. REPRESENTATIVE CYNTHIA TOOHEY asked if it was legal to have the legislation read, "The proceeds from the revenue from the tax on motor fuel in watercraft of all descriptions shall be deposited in a special watercraft fuel tax account in the general fund." REPRESENTATIVE MACKIE said, "That's in statute right now. The only part that changes in the section is what's bold and underlined. ..It had a grandfather clause in the constitution for that particular fund. As we know now we can't have dedicated funds unless they're approved by the voters. ...This bill (SSHB 143)... would still be subject to a legislative appropriation every year, and as we do our budget bills every year you'll see numerous appropriations because of legislation that we've passed over the years, but we can't bind one legislature to do something else that we've done, so each year the legislature would still have to appropriate those funds to the appropriate communities as part of the total budget package." REPRESENTATIVE TOOHEY asked if Craig liked SSHB 143. REPRESENTATIVE MACKIE deferred to the City Manager of Craig, Tom Briggs, and pointed out that Craig had several harbors, some of which were currently owned by the city. Number 420 TOM BRIGGS, CITY MANAGER OF CRAIG, via teleconference, testified and said, "The City of Craig enthusiastically endorses the passage of HB 143... The state has adopted a policy that has been stated in at least two Department of Transportation policy documents, of shifting the entire cost burden of harbors to the municipalities where the harbors are located. This process has begun... municipalities which must bear the entire cost burden for maintenance and repair of public docks and harbors transferred to the municipality by the state should receive a proportional share of the proceeds of the watercraft fuel tax collected within the municipality under AS 43.40..." MR. BRIGGS also pointed out that a similar scheme is already found with the aviation sales tax. Number 475 REPRESENTATIVE MACKIE asked if the City of Craig was happy with the transfer of the harbor facility. MR. BRIGGS said, "Yes, if we receive some assistance to maintain it. ...We don't have a lot of taxable property to support the harbors. ...Since this tax was implemented for this purpose, we would be much happier if it had a proportional portion of the tax that is generated by our community." Number 513 REPRESENTATIVE BUNDE asked if there would still be local monies towards funding of maintenance. REPRESENTATIVE MACKIE said, "My understanding is that this would be just to help offset those costs. ...The actual amount of money we're talking about is minimal..." REPRESENTATIVE BUNDE asked for a specific percentage of reimbursement on harbors from the water tax. REPRESENTATIVE MACKIE speculated, "Maybe 25 percent." REPRESENTATIVE WILLIAMS cautioned, "I'd sure hate for us to do something that we think is good for the community and end up not benefitting.." He expressed concern that harbors might not be repaired. Number 567 REPRESENTATIVE MACKIE said, "That's something that we're constantly concerned with because I think our harbor facilities throughout the whole state have been substantially neglected as far as state contributions to their maintenance. ...I look at this as only being able to help some of the communities. As far as the state putting any more money into the harbor facilities in those communities to upgrade them, it isn't going to change because that's going to be our ability to have those kinds of projects and DOT's ability to have them included in their six year plan will always remain whether we dedicate some of the fuel taxes back or not. Those of us that have harbor facilities in our communities are always faced with that.." REPRESENTATIVE DAVIES asked about the costs and revenues of harbors. REPRESENTATIVE MACKIE replied, "I think basically these funds whatever they may be, I don't think they're very much, but I think they would help to offset the costs... of general maintenance of the facility... Any kind of major refurbishment, expansion, or major maintenance of course all these communities will have to look to the legislature for that kind of support in the future and look directly to DOT for that kind of help." REPRESENTATIVE DAVIES said, "As I read this bill (SSHB 143), there appears to be no actual requirement that the funds be spent for any particular purpose. Would you be opposed to an amendment that added purpose to it?" Number 649 REPRESENTATIVE MACKIE said he wouldn't, but added that this would probably be applied in regulation rather than statute. He said, "I think it's a good practice not to micromanage in statute some of these things but making sure that they are utilized for that purpose is a very good point." REPRESENTATIVE DAVIES asked who actually paid the motor fuel taxes, a few larger communities or many small ones. REPRESENTATIVE MACKIE said, "It's unfortunate that not every single community has a fuel facility, most do..." and, "I'm not as convinced as DOT that this is going to cause any fallout or cause people in hock to want to assume ownership, because I think those that just economically can't do are not going to do it anyway and this might help some of the borderline communities like Craig and Ketchikan and some other ones..." Number 683 CHAIRMAN OLBERG asked for clarification on the routing of the marine fuel tax dollars. REPRESENTATIVE MACKIE replied, "Because we can't create a dedicated fund by law, any harbor improvements or any money that's given to any one particular community is through the general fund process in the DOT budget." TAPE 93-8, SIDE B Number 000 CHAIRMAN OLBERG said, "This bill (SSHB 143) does not speak to capital improvements. It does not speak to where the fuel was purchased. It simply says that through this bill a percentage can be returned to the community that owns its own harbor facility." REPRESENTATIVE MACKIE gave the example of Craig. "...It's determined that Craig owns 25 percent of the total harbor facility. Then the community of Craig would be eligible for 25 percent of that $50,000 that was collected in Craig only. The linear footage is only the means by which you determine the percentage of how much harbor is municipally owned." Number 056 REPRESENTATIVE BUNDE asked if municipalities could double dip funds. REPRESENTATIVE MACKIE said, "...I think it's highly unlikely...if the money is collected in the community of Craig from the people that are using those harbors, some of it should go back to maintain those harbors; and the state hasn't had the ability to do that very well in the past, and the municipalities are having to do it on their own anyway." REPRESENTATIVE BUNDE asked if Representative Mackie knew of other communities that were interested in SSHB 143. REPRESENTATIVE MACKIE said no and, "This is just a new idea that Commissioner Turpin had and brought to my attention...they decided to do this one harbor on a test run type thing to see if they [can] really make it work, to see if it will be beneficial. I've let the communities in my district know that this is an option that they might want to consider. It's not something that I'm either for or against. I think it's really a local issue." Number 137 CHAIRMAN OLBERG requested the discussion on SSHB 143 be continued next Tuesday, March 9, 1993, due to a time conflict of several members. REPRESENTATIVE MACKIE said he wanted to find specific numbers for the questions asked on revenues. Number 170 ADJOURNMENT CHAIRMAN OLBERG adjourned the meeting at 1:49 p.m.
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