WHITE SALMON — The City of White Salmon approved both a vehicle licensing fee of $15 and a sales tax of 0.1% to fund future transportation projects, including road reconstruction and smaller chip seal projects, at last week’s city council meeting.
The revenue collected from the funding mechanisms will be added to a new Street Construction Fund, also adopted at the Feb. 15 council meeting.
The sales tax is estimated to collect approximately $73,000 annually while a $15 annual licensing fee for drivers registered in the city is estimated to collect approximately $48,360 per year, based on 3,224 currently licensed vehicles.
Campers, farm tractors and farm vehicles, mopeds, off-road and non-highway vehicles, private use single axle trailers, snowmobiles, and vehicles registered for international use by state statute are exempt from the licensing fee.
City Clerk Stephanie Porter said the city is not eligible for Washington’s low-income vehicle fee rebate program because the city does not meet population requirements.
Projects eligible for funding through these new mechanisms must be included in a transportation plan, whether at the state, regional, or local level. The city has an operating transportation improvement program, which is updated each year, and is undergoing the process to update its six-year transportation system plan. Projects listed within either of those two plans are eligible for funds collected through the new program.
The funds can be used to match grant dollars for transportation improvements as well as investing, preserving, constructing and maintaining transportation improvements. Smaller spot patching projects would not be eligible to be funded through this program, Porter said.
Mayor Marla Keethler said the six-year transportation plan, the draft of which has not yet been published, estimates approximately $22 million in projects over the next six years. Changes to licensing fees and the implementation of a 1% property tax cap in recent years has compounded the difficulty for cities to fund street projects, she said.
“There is still this problem and disconnect of what we believe to be not enough available funds to get as aggressive as we perceive the council and community wanting us to be on addressing street maintenance. Over the last 30 years as these funding options have slowly decreased, there has not been an ability for the city to get proactive on continual maintenance. So streets have fallen into further disrepair that makes them much more costly,” Keethler said.
Resident Kate Bennett said she was excited about the sales tax increase, giving an example of spending $10 at Everybody’s Brewing and paying an extra penny to help fund road construction, adding that tourists who come in and use city infrastructure will help fund projects through this funding mechanism.
“Unless we want to always be footing the bill entirely ourselves, this is our best and only option is my understanding,” Bennett said.
Another resident, Peter Wright, added that the city should look at ways to increase the amount of sales tax White Salmon brings in each year.
Councilor Benjamin Giant noted that the funding collected through the new funds will relieve funds set aside in the city’s normal transportation fund to be used on smaller patch repairs.
Porter demonstrated the power of match dollars — which is one way these new funds can be used through the Garfield Street repaving project. A state grant is funding $275,385 of the construction of the project, and another $26,007.18 for the engineering of the project, while the city is contributing $6,241 in matching funds.
On the vehicle licensing fee, which was originally recommended to be adopted at $20 per vehicle, Giant pointed out the licensing fee is more regressive in nature, saying, “One would have to spend $20,000 on taxable items in the city to equate one car’s worth of a posed licensing fee.”
Councilor Patty Fink added that she was not opposed to lowering the amount on the vehicle licensing fee, but noted that her concern was that “we use this money to be able to capture more of those dollars.”
A conversation ensued over what would occur if the city’s vehicle licensing fee began at $10 per vehicle — City Attorney Kenneth Woodrich said the plain reading of the statute suggested that the city would need to raise the fee in the future to $20 to then raise the fee further in the future as allowed by statute.
Ultimately Councilor Jim Ransier split the difference and moved to adopt a $15 fee, which was approved unanimously. Likewise, the 0.1% sales tax was also approved with unanimous consent.
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