City will delay resort tax if it passes
Nucleus Avenue. The city will delay implementation of a resort tax if voters approve it, to next year.
The Columbia Falls City Council Monday night voted to delay an implementation of a proposed 3 percent resort tax until October 2021.
The tax will be on the June 2 primary ballot, which will be done by mail due to the coronavirus outbreak.
The tax would still have to be approved by voters. It was initially set to go into effect this October, but council sought a delay in implementation.
“The city council understands that our community has been turned upside down during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis and that it will take time for our community to heal. Therefore, on April 6, 2020 during the regular council meeting, City council voted to delay the implementation of the resort tax to October 2021 to provide a full year for economic recovery and a return to normal activity in the valley. The ballot language will have an effective date of October 2020 but the final effective date will be adopted by ordinance after the June election,” the city wrote in a letter that will go out to voters prior to the vote.
The letter also gives the facts about the tax and what it will pay for.
The city sees the tax as a way to pay for critical emergency services, such as fire and police, which have seen the volume of calls increase exponentially as more people visit Glacier National Park in the summer.
The city’s population has boomed as well, up 28 percent since 2000.
Twenty-five percent of the taxes collected will go back to city property owners in the form of a property tax rebate.
“The resort tax option requires visitors to help pay for services and facilities they use, provides funding without increasing residents’ property taxes and provides property tax relief to city taxpayers. Based on an estimated $450,000 in resort tax collections, a property tax reduction of $51 would be applied to the property taxes on a $250,000 home. The $51 property tax reduction is the equivalent of spending $1,700 on items subject to the resort tax,” the city notes in the letter.
The alternative to the resort tax would be an emergency services mill levy.
“Alternatively, if the public safety needs are funded by a $450,000 voted levy, a property tax increase of $203 would be applied to the property taxes on a $250,000 home,” the letter notes.