Lowering the winter sales tax rate, and upping the summer one. That was a popular proposal discussed at a Sitka Assembly work session on Tuesday (7-21-26) aimed at addressing the island’s childcare shortage.

Finding available and affordable childcare in Sitka is tough. Organizations trying to solve the problem have named it a top concern for young families in the community. 

“I’m very lucky to be in the situation I am to have daycare lined up, but it took until my child was five months old to know that I had a space available for her, and I signed her up the month I found out I was pregnant,” Skyleen Bottani told the Sitka Assembly on Tuesday.

She’s a parent to a seven-month-old and works as a mortgage lender at a local bank. 

“I do mortgages, and I’m seeing more parents stay home so they can help raise their grandchildren, or take equity out of their home to help kids buy homes to stay in Sitka,” she added. 

Bottani, along with several other community members, testified to the assembly on the importance of finding an affordable solution that includes career development.

Annette Evans heads up the Betty Eliason Child Care Center, which has operated in Sitka for nearly five decades. She said after setting up their second infant room, it took three months to get the staffing lined up so parents could finally enroll their kids. 

“It really comes down to the staffing,” Evans said. “We could add more children to our facility if we had the staff. We could keep children in our facility if we [could] keep our staff.”

And assembly members agree. They hope to incorporate a career pathway into a $1 million a year plan to address the childcare issue. But how the city is going to pay for the plan is still a question. Assembly members have discussed a winter sales tax increase, an alcohol tax, and removal of the sales tax cap, but finding a stable, dependable funding source has proved difficult for a city with already narrow budget margins.  

“We have spent the last year trying to figure out something besides the sales [tax],” Assembly Member Thor Christianson said. “Everybody’s been throwing out everything, and I haven’t heard anything that works, and if somebody has an epiphany, great. But it has to be stable, and it has to be something that we can know how much to put into the fund. And ultimately, Sitka is going to have to decide how important this is to them.”

But on Tuesday, at the suggestion of Mayor Steven Eisenbeisz, the assembly asked staff to look into how much a summer sales tax increase and winter decrease would bring in — that would put the summer sales tax at 7% and winter tax at 4%. Sitkans already pay a seasonal sales tax. Voters approved a permanent 6% summer tax rate in 2023 to establish a fund for school infrastructure projects.

“If we do a 1% sales tax up in the summer, and then 1% down in the winter, it’s kind of a give and take there,” Eisenbeisz said. “We’re easing the burden on those who stay here throughout the winter, while taking advantage of revenue streams that come through town in the summer.”

Eisenbeisz also suggested the city look at where it can tighten its belt and find money in its existing revenue streams to put towards a solution.

The assembly plans to discuss the issue again at its regular meeting on September 8. A sales tax change would ultimately have to go before the voters for approval.