Downtown foot patrol funding

At a glance

What: whether and how to keep funding the police downtown foot patrol in 2027. It began as a pilot in April, paid from a small remaining balance of bed-tax money and voluntary overtime; four speakers asked the Assembly on Oct 20 to fund and make it permanent (see 2027 General Government Operating Budget).
Where it stands: no funding decision. Members used the Oct 16 work session to ask how it could be paid for; police budget questions were deferred to the Oct 23 work session.
Funding scale: the downtown improvement district collects about 1.1 to 1.2 million dollars a year and can pay for security but not law enforcement; about 650,000 dollars of tourism-related bed tax money was approved for patrol overtime, roughly half the district's total.
Options raised: a voter-approved special levy or tax cap change for the police service area, or a new service area; other districts have also asked for foot patrols. Browse noted foot patrol is a subset of patrol and full patrol staffing is still short.
Open questions: Martinez asked who pays and how the district's money overlaps, and noted other commercial corridors differ in residential density; Baldwin Day said the patrol grew out of downtown security demand exceeding what the Anchorage Downtown Partnership could hire.

About 17 minutes across 2 meetings (from transcript timestamps; approximate).

Meeting	Minutes
2026-10-16 - Assembly Worksession	15
2026-10-15 - Budget and Finance Committee-of-the-Whole	2

2026-10-16 - 2026-10-16 - Assembly Worksession: Volland raised downtown support and a special levy; Martinez asked about the improvement district's revenue; staff agreed to provide the numbers; police budget discussion set for Oct 23.
2026-10-15 - 2026-10-15 - Budget and Finance Committee-of-the-Whole: Volland noted the foot patrol overtime appears absent from the proposed budget; the administration said it was funded by one-time money and no 2027 appropriation exists; a special levy was raised as an option.