Kalispell will discuss gas-tax idea

The Daily Inter Lake

A proposal for Flathead County and its three cities to collect a gas tax will go to the Kalispell City Council tonight.

The proposal is for the county government to tack on the tax at fuel pumps, and to use the collected money for road fix-it work across the Flathead.

The Kalispell council will discuss the proposal tonight at a workshop session after its regular meeting. No votes legally are allowed at a workshop session.

Montana allows counties to levy local gasoline taxes of as much as 2 cents a gallon - if voters approve such a measure.

Tonight's proposal - in the form of a draft agreement among Flathead County, Kalispell, Whitefish and Columbia Falls - does not cite a specific figure for the proposed tax.

Elected officials from the four governments discussed the idea Jan. 29 during a joint meeting.

This gas-tax proposal is prompted by Congress allowing the Rural Schools and Community Act of 2000 to expire this year after a seven-year extension. That federal law provided counties and schools - which had lost much of their taxable bases because of national forests in their jurisdictions - to receive 25 percent of the revenue from those forests.

As federal timber revenues began to drop significantly during the 1990s, so did the revenue to local schools and counties.

That means the last federal payment to Flathead County - roughly $1.5 million - will be applied to the 2007 budgets of the county and its schools.

Of that $1.5 million, about $900,000 goes to Flathead County's $4.865 million annual road budget, providing 18.5 percent of that total. The proposed gas tax would make up a portion of the predicted $900,000 shortfall expected for 2008.

At the Jan. 29 meeting, elected officials said that dollar figures and road fix-it projects need to be identified before putting such a proposal on a ballot. Also, elected officials suggested that projects be identified that would cut across two or more of the four jurisdictions.

During its regular meeting, which begins at 7 p.m., the City Council is scheduled to:

. Vote on whether to adopt an overall $64.809 million budget for fiscal 2008, which began July 1. That would be $219,831 less than the fiscal 2007 budget.

The city's general fund, which pays for most city government salaries, would increase from $10.087 million to $11.014 million with the addition of two employees to the Police Department and a part-time worker to the municipal court.

The biggest portion of the overall budget is roughly $20 million to expand the city sewage-treatment plant.

. Vote on whether to give preliminary approval to a law that would levy fines and other penalties for violations of the Kalispell Airport's written standard operating procedures regarding ground operations, environmental regulations and personal conduct. Under the city staff's proposal, a warning would be issued before a fine would be levied.

. Vote on whether to give final approval for modifications and mitigation measures for R-3 single-family-house zoning for the 1-square-mile Starling project that the council annexed Aug. 6. These measures would allow roughly 3,000 homes to be built on the site - west of Glacier High School - during the next 20 years.

The council gave preliminary approval to the measures Aug. 6.

. Vote on whether to give final approval to R-2 single-family-house zoning for 8.5 acres of recently annexed land, dubbed Ashley Heights, on the south side of Sunnyside Drive. The council gave preliminary approval Aug. 6.

. Vote on whether to give final approval for R-3 single-family-house zoning for 7.6 acres of recently annexed land on the north side of Three Mile Drive, dubbed Mountain Vista Estates Phase Four. The council gave preliminary approval Aug. 6.

. During the work session, discuss whether to add a mezzanine to the remodeling of the old Wells Fargo building into a new City Hall. The mezzanine would add 1,600 square feet, seven offices and $75,000 to the $1.3 million overhaul.

The size of the current City Hall is 26,229 square feet with some city departments occupying another 5,991 square feet in leased space elsewhere downtown.

The city government is moving most of its offices into the 19,662-square-foot former bank building, 201 First Ave. E. This move will eliminate the need for leased space. It also will leave only municipal court, plus the fire and police departments within the current City Hall - allowing them to expand from their present cramped quarters.

The move is expected during fall or early winter.