Streets and sidewalk committee discusses gas tax

Havre City Council member Andrew Brekke said Monday during a meeting of Havre City Council’s Streets and Sidewalks Committee that he would be against a two-cent per gallon countywide gas tax on domestic gasoline to help cover the cost of repairing the city’s streets, saying the cost would be paid more by locals than by tourists.

“Let’s not lull ourselves into a false sense of hope that tourists pay all the taxes. You probably buy most of your gas if not all of your gas here,” Brekke said at a meeting of the City Council’s streets and sidewalks committee Monday night.

The discussion over the issue arose after committee member Terry Lilletvedt asked Brekke what he thought about gas taxes.

He gave Missoula County as an example of a locality where in the past such a tax was pitched as one that would be absorbed mostly by tourists but local residents found later that they were the ones who shouldered most of the cost.

Brekke said that right now Montanans are paying 27 cents a gallon in state gas taxes and motorists are likely fine with that until prices rise.

Montana counties have the authority to put a local gas tax increase in place, but not cities, Brekke said.

Such an increase would have to be approved by a majority of voters in Hill County.

Brekke said an increase would be a good source of revenue. He said numbers from Havre Finance Director and City Clerk Doug Kaercher estimates the tax would bring in $160,000 in revenue.

However, Brekke said the city would get even more revenue if the state Legislature would allow the counties to also apply the tax to other fuels such as pure ethanol and dyed diesel, which are exempted.

In the coming legislative session, he said, lawmakers are likely to look at possibly allowing those exempted fuels to be subject to the tax or allowing cities to impose their own gas tax increase without countywide approval.

Brekke said he has discussed the possibility of a gas tax increase with area farmers who initially expressed opposition. However once they learned diesel and other fuels were exempted then said they would support the increase because the bulk of it would be paid by those who live within Havre.

Fellow Council member Terry Lilletvedt said she agreed the tax should not be sold as a tax that would be paid primarily by tourists, but such a tax is a more fair way to get revenue to repair the city’s streets rather than have property owners alone shoulder the financial burden.

The committee is considering working on a mill levy proposal that would appear on the ballot next year.  

Havre Mayor Tim Solomon said he thinks the discussion needs to wait until after the legislative session to see what state lawmakers will do with gas taxes.

No gas tax has been brought before the county or the City Council.

Brekke later said a proposal has been made to increase the gas tax in Lewis and Clark County.