Last week, the Bismarck City Commission continued to hash out which direction to go as far as balancing its two priorities:
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Renewing the 2018 voter-approved half-cent sales tax to offset the need for Special Assessments to finance arterial roadway construction.
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Reforming the financing of all other street maintenance with a monthly street utility fee to replace Special Assessments for that kind of regular maintenance work.
Below is the video from last week’s meeting segment covering both of these issues:
The discussion over the renewal of the 2018 half-cent sales took a positive shift as the proposed list of projects that would be on the list qualified to for using this sales tax revenue was culled from its previous iteration:
While still extensive, it is not as expansive of a list as was previously proposed:
The one change that has been added is a provision that states this list will be completed even if the voters do not renew it again in another 10 years. Assuming there is general agreement on this list, this provision should not be a huge deal breaker. But it should be understood that this is not a hard sunset the current language passed in 2018 states.
The city should be expected to provide an estimate on how far out this would extend the sales tax if it were not to be renewed again.
The Bismarck Tribune reported:
City commissioners on Tuesday voted to survey residents to determine support for a proposed street utility fee rather than place a nonbinding advisory vote on the June 9 election ballot. If the scientific survey shows support for the idea, voters would likely be asked to approve a home rule charter amendment during the Nov. 3 general election.
Commissioners agreed a survey would be a better approach than an advisory vote because it would give them clearer feedback from a broader group of residents and a better sense of where residents stand.
City staff will need to develop survey questions and return to the Commission for approval before moving forward. City Engineer Gabe Schell said he is unsure when questions will be ready for the Commission to review, or whether the survey will be conducted by city staff or an outside firm.
Prior to the meeting, I indicated my support for the non-binding advisory vote as a means of determining whether citizens even want the city to keep going down this path.
I’m not sure where the concept of a “scientific survey” came from, or whether spending money on such a survey is a good idea.
The only reason this would be better than just placing a non-binding advisory vote on the ballot would be if there were going to be so many things on the ballot already that this would force the city to pay for a 2nd page of ballot measures.
In a surprise development, it appears that the Bismarck Park Board has decided to put the city commission in a bad position with bad timing by asking the city to take a role in pushing for a new sales tax to fund the building of a Rec Center.
You can watch that video here:
The Bismarck Park District is looking at this as its last attempt to find a Rec Center with a sales tax was rejected by Bismarck Voters back in 2020, as the Bismarck Tribune reported at the time:
Bismarck voters have rejected a half-cent sales tax hike that would have helped fund a new recreation center.
Known as “Measure 1” on residents’ ballots, the sales tax increase failed after managing to secure just 37% of the vote with 16,710 residents voting.
The Bismarck Parks and Recreation District put forward the proposal, which would have funded much of the roughly $114.5-million facility.
A combination of the vote happening during COVID when indoor activities were in question, and the appearance that the project was a “Taj Mahal Boondoggle” led to its defeat.
The timing is no better right now as the City of Bismarck, as well as Burleigh County, have been pushing sales tax revenues to offset property taxes, offset special assessments, offset law enforcement costs, and reform infrastructure spending. The notion of increasing taxes for recreation is not going to be well received when the current effort is to restructure financing of basic governmental functions most people can get behind – especially when other taxes are offset.
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