MISSOULA — Citing a shortage of revenue available for roads and bridges, Missoula County on Thursday voted to place a levy on the ballot to raise $1.8 million a year for deferred maintenance.
The levy will ask voters to fund the “construction, repair and maintenance” of county-wide bridges, trails and roads.
It would cost the owner of a $600,000 home roughly $26 a year. That's in addition to the county's proposed budget, which is seeking $5.7 million in additional revenue, much of which will fund wage increases.
County officials on Thursday said that as the state and federal government shift funding to other areas, the “delta” over local infrastructure needs will continue to grow.
“The state and feds come up with the funding for construction, but not for ongoing maintenance. The ongoing maintenance is left to local residents,” said Commissioner Josh Slotnick. “Unfortunately, our only tool here is property taxes. The recipe we have right now is entirely inadequate, and it's the one we've been given to work with.”
Watch related coverage: Missoula County seeking $1.8M levy for road and bridge maintenance
The county maintains 450 miles of roads, including 264 paved miles. It also has 61 bridges longer than 20 feet and 62 bridges that are shorter.
Jason Mitchell, the county's director of public works, said the county should be spending around $5.14 million annually on road and bridge maintenance. But the county this year has only budgeted $550,000 toward those costs, leaving a yearly deficit of $4.59 million.
“That's a pretty big delta,” said Mitchell.
The county in past years has attempted to find other tools to fund local infrastructure, including a local gas tax. Voters approved the tax in 2020, though the Legislature quickly revoked it while doing little to address infrastructure maintenance at the local level.
Federal grants for maintenance aren't available, the county added.
“Those kinds of funds, like grant funds, aren't available for those kinds of maintenance activities and how we address those going into the future,” said Chris Lounsbury, the county's CAO. “It's been left to local governments to figure out in the form of property taxes.”
Critics of the proposed levy on Thursday suggested the county create a savings account for infrastructure needs, or stop building infrastructure if it can't afford to maintain it down the road.
But county officials said the latter is not based in reality, given the county's growth and the public's expectations for safe and working infrastructure.
“What we're doing today is giving the choice to voters of Missoula County,” said Commissioner Dave Strohmaier. “We'll see if they have the appetite to pay $2 a month to at least take an incremental step toward maintaining our infrastructure.”
The scope of the challenge remains well beyond the county's reach, with six bridges currently posted for load limits and four others under scour critical conditions.
If a bridge like Boy Scout Bridge in Seely Lake needed replacing, it would cost more than $13 million. Replacing the county's eight priority bridges would cost $63 million.
“We are not meeting our maintenance needs. Each year we're going backwards,” said Slotnick. “The farther we go down the line without addressing this, the deeper the hole we dig, the steeper the hill we have to climb and the larger the amount of money we have to come up with. The sooner we deal with this, the better off we are.”
