Unalaska, AK – The city is considering eliminating or reducing sales tax on food and residential heating fuel. Community member Dennis Robinson is advocating for the change, at least on a trial basis.

"Granted, it's not going to be a whole lot, but the bottom line is it'll be 3% more than they're getting now," he said. "And for single mothers and people on fixed income and people who are working for $12 or $15 an hour, how will they make it?"

Robinson says designing the ordinance could be easy if it's based on federal templates and food definitions, like those created by WIC.

City Manager Chris Hladick says that until the definitions of food and residential heating fuel are determined, it's unclear how changing sales taxes would affect the city's revenue.

"We've got wild estimates from $500,000 to over a million," he said. "[When] we get to what the definition is, we can begin to pick things apart and we can get a better estimate."

At the moment, the city and the stores do not track how much tax revenue comes from certain types of foods nor what fuel goes towards heating residences owned by businesses.

Council member Dick Peck is arguing for the sales tax cut because he says the city is taking in too much revenue.

"We should only take the revenue that is needed to in fact make sure we meet our expense goals. And we have done that," Peck said. "But to continue to over collect $6 to 8 million in excess revenues? I don't think is the prudent and proper way to budget services and values to their customers."

But Hladick says the city, like most municipalities, just budgets conservatively.

Council member Juanita Lewis says she questions if cutting the food tax will really help people.

"If we're trying to accomplish helping people in town financially, I think there are other ways we can discuss other ideas that can be brought forward that are going to be more beneficial than a 3% tax on food."

Lewis is also manager of the Eagle. She says cutting the sales tax doesn't hurt the store and is logistically feasible.

The council plans on hosting a special session on the food and fuel sales tax proposal once they have researched the idea further.