Park County 1 cent tax may end sooner than expected

Posted 10/18/18

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ark County residents and businesses have been buying enough stuff that an extra 1 percent sales tax could end next spring — six months earlier than expected.

When voters approved the …

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Park County 1 cent tax may end sooner than expected

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Park County residents and businesses have been buying enough stuff that an extra 1 percent sales tax could end next spring — six months earlier than expected.

When voters approved the temporary hike to the county’s sales tax rate to fund $13.68 million worth of projects, they were told it could take 2 1/2 years to collect the money. But it now looks like all the money could be collected in just two years.

“We’ll ... shut it down [at] the end of March,”  Park County Treasurer Barb Poley predicted Tuesday, “if we continue the way we are.”

If that holds true, the local sales and use tax rate would drop from 5 to 4 percent starting in April.

Some 53 percent of voters across Park County approved the 1 percent specific purpose sales tax during the November 2016 general election. They gave the greenlight to a set of specific projects:

• $5 million for the City of Cody to upgrade sewer lagoons, add wheelchair ramps and crack and chip seal streets;

• $4.25 million for the City of Powell to widen and improve Absaroka Street;

• $2.43 million for Park County to upgrade the South Fork Road, replace two bridges in the South Fork area and a box culvert near Garland; and

• $2 million for the Town of Meeteetse to overhaul sewer lagoons.

The money can only be used for those projects.

When the extra 1 percent tax was put into place on April 1, 2017, Poley had projected that it would take until Oct. 1, 2019, to amass the full $13.68 million. It was a very conservative estimate, going so far as to assume that local sales would slow down a bit.

Instead, sales have actually gone up, putting tax collections roughly six months ahead of the predictions.

“It’s looking wonderful so far,” Poley said.

From April 1, 2017 through last month, nearly $10.65 million has been collected. If people in Park County keep buying and selling at exactly the same pace as they did last year, nearly $13.93 million will be collected by the end of March 2019 and more money would keep trickling in after that, as there’s a lag between when taxes are collected and when they arrive in government coffers.

Poley wants to see how monies come in over the coming months — and she plans to consult with fellow officials from Park County, Powell, Cody and Meeteetse about when the 1 percent tax can come off the books.

The State of Wyoming only allows counties to change their tax rates at the start of a new quarter (Jan. 1, April 1, July 1 and Oct. 1) and vendors must be given a full quarter of advance notice so they can prepare for the change. That means county commissioners and city and town council members will likely have to decide in December whether they’re sure they’ll have the full $13.68 million by April.

Poley is hoping that it will be possible to end the tax then.

“Because otherwise … we’ve got a whole quarter [of sales taxes] coming in and collecting and, you know, that doesn’t look good to the taxpayer,” the treasurer said. “I’d much rather be closer.”

While the governments will have to be careful to not underfund the projects, either, Poley said they “should be fine” if things continue the way they have been.

Sales and use tax collections increased by about 4.8 percent in the last fiscal year, according to state figures, and things have been looking even better — up another 5.8 percent — since the current budget year started in July.

As for the process, “it’s gone really smooth,” Poley said.

Absaroka Street project about to kick into high gear

Powell officials have been waiting more than three decades to widen and improve Absaroka Street. Now, that wait is almost over.

“It’s been a lot of years in the making,” said Gary Butts, streets superintendent for the City of Powell. “It’s a project that a lot of people wanted and I think that’s why one of the reasons it got voted in. Once it gets completed, I think it’ll be a lot safer — and that’s the main thing. Pedestrians will be safer, cars will be safer. It should help out.”

The city is currently in the process of seeking bids from contractors to complete the project, with bids slated to be opened Thursday, Oct. 25, at 10 a.m. Once the winning bid is chosen, contract negotiations and contract execution will follow before labor begins either in
November or early December.

Butts said trees and roots will be removed from the Absaroka Street area between Dec. 6 and March 15, with installation of water lines, an irrigation drain and new storm drains to follow. He expects most of the paving of Absaroka, plus the installation and renovation of curbs, gutters and sidewalks to take up much of next spring and summer, wrapping up by Nov. 1, 2019.

“It should be 100 percent complete by then,” Butts said.

Absaroka Street is not only one of Powell’s busiest thoroughfares, but also an unsigned portion of Wyo. Highway 295 that runs north of town to the Powell Municipal Airport.

Butts said the desire to widen and renovate the route goes back to the 1980s. However, it was the passage of a 1 cent sales tax in November 2016 that provided the spark to make the project a reality, approving $4.25 million worth of funding for the work.

“It’s been talked about, it’s been looked at for funding. It [was] decided finally after the tax passed that it would be the project to [be] taken care of,” Butts said. “We’ll be widening both sides from Third Street to Seventh Street, we’ll be widening the west side from Second Street to Third Street and then putting in new water line and storm drains from First Street to Seventh Street. A new paving will go in all the way through that area from First to Seventh with all new sidewalk, curb and gutter between Third and Seventh — and some new sidewalk, curb and gutter between Second and Third.”

With so much traffic on a relatively narrow thoroughfare, residents of Absaroka Street currently have to resort to extraordinary means to safeguard their vehicles when they park on the street.

“A lot of people, if you’ll notice, they park upon the [sides] to keep their mirrors from getting knocked off,” Butts said. “There’s a lot of people that end up parking upon the sides overnight because they don’t like their mirrors getting hit. This’ll make it so that they have actual parking lanes, and then there’ll be driving lanes — rather than the driving lane ending up smacking parked cars.”

Butts said the Absaroka Street renovation project will be a “turnkey operation” and that the contractors will work to minimize traffic issues, although non-local traffic will be diverted around the area next year.

“They’ll work with the citizens to make sure that they can get in there during the evenings,” Butts said. “There might be some times that the streets are closed, but they’ll be working to make sure that traffic and the mail can get delivered, emergency vehicles can still get in and things of that nature.”

However, Butts expects the project to be worth the long wait and any traffic delays once it’s finished.

“It should be a good project when it gets completed,” he said. “I think people will like it.”

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