Green River will receive approximately $18.5 million in special purpose tax funds if a proposed sixth-penny tax is approved by voters later this year, but concerns remain as far as longterm funding for the city.
Mayor Pete Rust is concerned about how Sweetwater County’s communities will remain competitive with other Wyoming communities as they initiate the sixth-penny process. He said other counties have initiated similar sales taxes with an intent to collect over long periods of time. With the commissioners’ decision to seek a total tax amount of $80 million, an amount that should take approximately four years to pay off, Rust said communities would need to return to the tax in order to fund high-value projects.
Rust said also criticized the process involved with setting the funding amount, saying the cities should be the ones choosing where to apply special purpose funding, not the county commissioners.
Rust’s criticism comes from the commissioners’ previous meeting. Two weeks ago, as the commissioners discussed what the funding allocations for the proposed sales tax, Commissioner Lauren Schoenfeld said the initial $16 million the group originally proposed to give Green River would cover the city’s streets projects, which were listed as a top priority.
However, it doesn’t appear the commissioners were trying to set which projects would be funded. During the Tuesday commissioners’s meeting, Schoenfeld said the next step would be for communities to provide the commissioners an updated project list, reflecting the amounts the commissioners proposed two weeks ago. The commissioners intend to talk about the sixth-penny tax and those updated project lists at their upcoming March 3 meeting.
As funding sources continue to tighten for cities across Wyoming, Rust said tools like the sixth-penny tax have only become more important.
Rust said the Wyoming Legislature initially planned to replace funding from a repealed grocery tax, which has cut back revenue to the state’s municipalities. He said other avenues, such as consensus grant funding from the State Lands and Investments Board, have similarly disappeared. Meanwhile, costs associated with construction and maintenance of existing infrastructure has only increased.
“We’re receiving less than 10 years ago and prices haven’t gone down,” Rust said.
Rust said the city Councils weren’t happy with the funding amounts they were granted by the commissioners. Rock Springs City Council member David Halter said the $80-million cap, with the county taking $25 million for its projects, doesn’t leave a lot to split between other entities.
“I would be happier with a $100-million cap,” he said.
However, the collection rate would mean an additional $7-8 million for the city if the tax is approved -- giving the city an additional $29 million that otherwise wouldn’t be available to them. In the future, Halter said he would like to see sixth-penny tax support for more quality of life projects, not just infrastructure.
“The voters want infrastructure projects, but I think we would have better support from the community if we sponsored the quality of life projects as well,” he said.
In Green River, streets remain a high priority for the Council. Rust said a streets survey the city conducted shows it will have difficult time catching up with its maintenance schedule if it is unable to find additional sources of funding. However, with upcoming expansions being initiated by local trona mines, Rust believes the tax may be paid off sooner than anticipated.
“Hopefully we’ll continue right on (with the sixth-penny tax,)” Rust said.
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