For a small Arctic city managing everything from tax payments to business licensing with a lean team, paper-based sales tax and hotel/motel filings were a breeding ground for taxpayer errors, back-and-forth calls, and administrative headaches. By partnering with Localgov, Nome moved to a fully digital filing and licensing platform — eliminating manual errors, lifting business license compliance to 94%, and growing annual tax revenue by $600k year-over-year. Their staff couldn’t rate the experience higher: 12 out of 10.
Perched on the southern coast of the Seward Peninsula along the Bering Sea, Nome, Alaska is one of the most storied and resilient communities in the American frontier. Known worldwide as the finish line of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, Nome is home to approximately 3,700 residents and serves as a regional hub for Western Alaska — providing essential services, commerce, and governance to a vast and remote area.
As a first-class Alaska city, Nome administers its own local sales tax — a hallmark of Alaskan municipal governance, where there is no statewide sales tax and each municipality designs and enforces its own tax code. The city levies a tiered sales tax rate of 6%. Business owners operating within city limits must maintain active licenses with both the State of Alaska and the City of Nome, making business registration and licensing compliance an essential function of the city clerk’s office.
The City Clerk’s Office is the operational backbone of Nome’s local government. With a lean team, staff shoulder a remarkably broad range of responsibilities: receipting tax and fee payments, billing and collecting sales, property, and hotel/motel taxes, administering municipal elections, managing the permitting process, and providing walk-in support to residents and businesses. With over 300 registered businesses filing monthly returns and the city managing millions in annual tax revenue, efficiency and accuracy are not optional — they are essential.
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For years, the City of Nome administered its local sales tax the old-fashioned way: paper return forms submitted in person or by mail. On the surface, the process seemed workable — until you looked closely at the real cost it imposed on city staff. Taxpayers would rush in near monthly filing deadlines, drop off their completed returns, and leave. Then the real work began.
Staff would review each paper return and routinely discover errors — miscalculations, missing exemption data, incomplete fields, and incorrectly applied tax rates. What followed was a time-consuming cycle: calling taxpayers back, requesting amended returns, re-processing filings, and manually entering data into the city’s separate financial system. Mistakes didn’t just come from taxpayers. Staff also introduced their own transcription errors when keying paper returns into the city’s systems. Exemption data from original filings sometimes failed to carry over correctly, creating discrepancies that required resolution.
Compounding the challenge, the city had no systematic, real-time way to track business license compliance across its entire filer base. With roughly 337 registered businesses, identifying which were current, delinquent, or non-compliant required significant manual effort the team simply didn’t have. With a lean staff juggling walk-in constituents, utility assistance, property tax processing, elections administration, and more, there was no bandwidth to audit or improve the system.
Something had to change.
City leadership evaluated digital tax administration platforms and selected Localgov for its municipality-first approach and proven track record with local governments across the country. The implementation replaced paper return processing with a fully online filing, licensing, and payment portal, built specifically around Nome’s own code — including its exemption categories and compliance requirements.
With Localgov, businesses can now file and pay their sales tax and hotel/motel tax returns online, with built-in validation rules that catch errors at the point of entry — before they ever reach city staff. Exemptions and exceptions are captured accurately in the system, eliminating the transcription errors that plagued the manual process. Staff can pull digital returns directly on screen and enter data into the city’s financial system side-by-side, with no paper forms to manage or physically store.
Beyond tax filing, Localgov also manages Nome’s business licensing and health & sanitation permitting programs, giving staff real-time visibility into which businesses are active, expired, or non-compliant while providing a seamless renewal experience for businesses. Localgov’s responsive support team — described by city staff as a genuine partner, not just a vendor — handles taxpayer education, onboarding questions, and issue resolution quickly and professionally. When Nome wants changes or improvements, Localgov implements them. The relationship is collaborative, responsive, and built for the long term.
The transformation has been measurable and meaningful. What was once a manual, error-ridden process is now a streamlined digital operation that reduces administrative burden, improves accuracy, and strengthens Nome’s revenue foundation. The results speak clearly:
Perhaps most importantly, Nome now has a clear, real-time picture of where its revenue stands, where compliance gaps exist, and what levers are available to grow revenue further — without raising tax rates. With audit capabilities and additional revenue stream analysis on the horizon, the partnership with Localgov and Azavar is positioned to deliver even greater returns in the years ahead.
For Deputy City Clerk Brad, the message to other municipalities is simple and direct: “They will save their municipality a ton of hours. In the long run, it’ll definitely be saving people work hours — and in turn, save money and mental clarity.”
The upfront investment in transitioning to a digital platform pays dividends quickly: fewer errors, fewer in-person interactions, fewer amended returns, and a team that can finally focus on serving Nome’s residents and businesses rather than chasing paperwork. For a lean government office managing the complexity of Alaskan municipal governance, the ability to rely on a trusted digital partner is transformative.
Nome’s experience also illustrates a broader truth for local government finance leaders: compliance is revenue. Reaching 94% licensing compliance isn’t just an operational milestone — it directly translates to more businesses paying what they owe, more accurately, on time. And with Localgov’s data and audit capabilities available to help identify additional revenue streams, the city is only beginning to realize the full value of the partnership.
Online filing with built-in validation eliminated the error-correction cycle that consumed staff time. Less time chasing amended returns means more time serving Nome's community.
Localgov's responsive support team and fast feature implementation give Nome city staff a true partner — one that responds to feedback, adapts to local needs, and grows with the city.
"Localgov will save your municipality a ton of hours— and in turn, save money and mental clarity. The transition to digital filing was seamless, and our taxpayers adapted quickly. I’d rate Localgov’s customer service a 12 out of 10, because 10 just wasn’t enough.”
Brad Soske
Deputy Clerk
The City of Nome, Alaska
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