Kenai Peninsula property owners who want to take advantage of the borough’s new, higher residential tax exemption must reapply for that exemption by next Feb. 15. And to make sure everyone knows, the borough’s spending $31,340 to spread the word.
That’s after borough assembly members greenlit the expense last week. Starting next year, some Kenai Peninsula borough property owners will be able to exempt the first $75,000 of their residential property value from borough taxes. That’s up from $25,000 from last year and comes after peninsula voters increased the exemption amount during last month’s election.
Borough Mayor Peter Micciche told assembly members last week the requirement to re-apply is largely due to a technicality.
“There is some misunderstanding,” he said. “The key issue is that the $50,000 exemption doesn’t exist after Dec. 31. So it will be a new exemption at $75,000.”
But Adeena Wilcox says there are other benefits. She heads the borough’s assessing department, which administers the borough’s property tax exemption programs and applications.
“It allows us to audit all of those,” she said of exemption applications. “Auditing is part of a process that the state requires us to do anyhow periodically. This allows us to cover all of those.”
Of the money approved by assembly members, $21,840 will be spent on posting mailer reminders to property owners. The rest will pay for employee costs.
The borough’s online residential application is already live on the borough’s assessing webpage.
