There are so many questions surrounding the proposal to implement a so-called retail transaction fee to pay for Kalispell roads that it’s now clear the idea is simply an awful one.
City Manager Jane Howington emphasized that the fee is just “the very beginning of a community conversation” about how to address the fact that the cost to maintain the city’s roads is far outpacing the $1.75 million annual street maintenance assessment. But it may already be time to move to Plan B.
Even if roads are crumbling to the point where Kalispell needs a new revenue stream – and I’m not yet convinced that they are – the worst part of the retail transaction fee is that deciding who pays it would be completely arbitrary. For example, “services” such as banks and insurance companies would apparently be exempt, which makes little sense since many of them draw as much traffic as, say, local boutiques.
How the 9-cent fee would be assessed is also convoluted. A business owner would supposedly have the option of either taking it upon him or herself to add the cost to each transaction, leaving them open to audits; or leave it up to the city to decide how much traffic a retail establishment generates. There are other valid concerns, such as over how events such as weekend farmers’ markets, festivals and gun shows would charge the fee, or whether they would have to at all.
Howington says the avenues in which the city can raise funds are limited. The Legislature has refused to allow larger cities to charge a resort tax. And apparently the county will not agree to a 2-cent raise in the gas tax. She says the city needs to more than double what it spends on roads, estimating that proper maintenance would cost about $4.5 million, which seems high.
Of course, I complain along with everyone else when I’m forced to dodge small canyons in the asphalt. It’s a Montanan’s annual rite of spring to curse the pothole that threw your alignment out of whack. But Kalispell is no worse off than other cities in the state.
The fast-warming snowmelt followed by freezing temperatures devastated roads across Montana. I remember driving up the Rattlesnake in Missoula in March and wondering how the streets could get that bad, where it looked like small bombs had been dropped on them. The mayor there said “cold patch” used to fill potholes was breaking open within hours, so the city leased an asphalt recycler from Bozeman.
But Bozeman had its own road problems. And like Missoula, the city faced a number of pothole-damage claims. In Great Falls, officials said they were filling 200 potholes a day in the spring. Ours isn’t an isolated case.
I agree with Howington. Property owners shouldn’t have to shoulder the entire burden of paying for local streets, but neither should retailers. And overall, I believe the city of Kalispell is frugal and wouldn’t be discussing the need for road funds unless it was really needed. Howington convincingly makes the case that though the street budget covers patchwork, it lacks the funds to replace equipment and rebuild the roads that need it.
But I’m also not convinced the street budget needs to grow more than twofold. And neither are some city council members, such as Bob Hafferman, who has lived here a lot longer than me, and thinks the current level of road maintenance is adequate.
That’s not to say the city doesn’t need any more money to run its road department – perhaps it does. But as this community discussion moves forward, it should move away from transaction fees aimed at retailers and toward more modest means and goals. Expect the road (sorry, couldn’t help myself) to a solution on this particular issue to be a long and bumpy one.