The federal government – which at one time helped fund our police and fire departments – is now looking to eliminate Headstart, a 50-year-old program that provides our most vulnerable young people with a few meals and instruction on being good people.
The State of Alaska has $80 billion in the bank but can’t manage to fund schools, parks, ferries or much else. The state has no income tax, no state sales tax, no schools tax (that it once had), no general source of income at all.
The Haines Borough has $10 million in the bank but has a 10-mill property tax cap downtown, a $300,000 property tax exemption for seniors and a property tax mill rate that’s significantly lower than it was back in the late 1970s, when it was around 16 or 17 mills.
Our town is a tax haven within a tax haven.
Which is great if your highest value is low taxes but our firehall/police station looks like junk, our parks are run-down, our roads are pot-holed and our schools can’t keep teachers.
Our 50-year-old preschool is closed, our senior center serves lunch only three days a week and we won’t even think of providing a year-round recreation program for residents who endure one of the world’s most punishing climates.
Are we wealthy but impoverished in spirit? Do we lack faith in ourselves? Do we believe in ourselves and our town? Certainly if we did, we’d take better care of ourselves. Too often we are all “me” and no “we.” Too often there’s no “our” here. The word “community” implies that we consider ourselves together, that we do what’s best for us all.
Perhaps we should look toward our indigenous citizens for a model of how to act benevolently and for the greater god. At traditional potlatches, the greatest honor was reserved for the person who gave away the most of his possessions to guests. Such generosity showed he was both confident in his ability to succeed and sincerely caring toward others.
We are the hearty Alaskans of legend, with an expansive outlook and big courage. We’re not small-minded, tucked inside the Russian nesting dolls of the Haines Borough and the State of Alaska, insulated from the world and from our own potential by fear, greed and self-interest.
The Rocky Mountain Institute, a think tank that studies communities, maintains that a hallmark of a functional community is a willingness to tax and spend, to invest in itself and its citizenry.
The condition of our community – not lower taxes – must become our top priority. That alone should dictate our taxation.
It’s also a mindset we will need to adopt to survive now that our state and federal governments have abandoned their obligations to us.