Coming to grips with county costs

The Flathead County commissioners deserve kudos for recognizing the need for an honest analysis of all costs associated with development that occurs in the county.

Now they need to do something to adequately, and fairly, cover those costs.

Myrt Webb, the county's acting administrator, did an initial analysis that focuses on far-flung development that occurs in most corners of the county. His findings are not that surprising - it's more difficult and expensive to provide road maintenance and plowing, law enforcement, garbage collection and other government amenities to some new subdivision that crops up in rural areas.

And that kind of development has definitely been occurring in Flathead County. Consider that during the first six months of this year, there were 74 final plat approvals and 56 preliminary plat approvals for rural subdivisions in Flathead County.

The county is becoming a kind of "5,000-square-mile city," as Webb so aptly put it.

It doesn't take brilliance to understand that it will cost the county more to service some new subdivision near Ashley Lake compared to a subdivision more centrally located in the Flathead Valley.

"It would seem intuitive that as more residents locate further from the Kalispell area (where county government is centered) the costs of providing services to them would rise," Webb's analysis says.

The Flathead County Solid Waste District reports a 35 percent increase in costs over the last four years, a period in which local cities have experienced an increase of only 2 percent in the tonnage of garbage they are handling. The sheriff's office handles 200 percent more cases than it did in 1990, and the county road department is struggling to simply maintain existing roads - there is no money for paving or maintaining new roads that come with new development.

We all know there is considerable resistance in Flathead County to "smart growth" planning measures that impede a landowner's property rights in any fashion for the sake of encouraging more centralized development. Folks believe in free markets, and that's just the way it is in Flathead County, where 67 percent of the population lives in rural areas.

But the flip side of free market economics must account for costs.

Webb's report does not get into the details of how to do that, but there are methods. Other states allow "service districts" where taxes reflect the higher costs of providing services. There are also impact fees and other revenue solutions.

The Flathead County commissioners need to find an answer. A rural development that is costly to service should somehow be covering those costs as well. Otherwise growth will bankrupt us rather than enrich us.