Yankton County is hoping $1 will go a long ways toward the future of its road system.
During Tuesday’s meeting of the Yankton County Commission, the board voted 3-2 in favor of raising the county’s wheel tax from $4 per wheel on up to four wheels to $5 per wheel on up to four wheels.
Commissioners Dan Klimisch and Gary Swensen opposed the move.
On Wednesday, Commission Chairperson Loest told the Press & Dakotan that the wheel tax hike will make getting state dollars for larger projects easier.
“The Bridge Improvement Grant (BIG) program takes into account if a county has a wheel tax,” she said. “If you are at the maximum wheel tax at $5, you get extra points. … This is essentially a $110,000 investment toward getting our projects further up on the list.”
She said that the competition for the grants has been growing stiffer as other counties take steps to utilize it.
“If we can do anything to get our bridges higher in points, we’re more likely to get an investment,” she said. “We’ve talked about our challenges with the James River bridges and how expensive those bridges would be. Say it’s a $3 million bridge, and if the state would come in and fund 80% of that, that’s a $2.5 million return to the county.”
With the $1 addition, the county expects to take in an additional $110,000 per year that would go towards road and bridge considerations.
While the county is able to go up to $5 on 12 wheels, Loest said that it’s unknown how much of a benefit this would be for the county.
“It’s really tough to forecast — if we would increase that to 12 wheels — what that change would be because not all of the wheels are currently in the system,” she said. “Historically, that hasn’t been entered. You only enter the number you would be taxed on.”
Loest said the county is now in the process of double-checking the new wheel tax hike ahead of implementation.
“There was a question during the discussion (Tuesday) night, ‘When you pass a fee increase, do you need a majority vote or do you need a super-majority vote?’” she said. “We actually pulled the state law around wheel tax and the assistant state’s attorney interpreted last night that we only needed a majority vote. She is going to follow up with the Attorney General’s office.”
She said there is a 10-day window to find out, at which time it would be published.
This isn’t the first time that Yankton County has looked at raising its wheel tax.
In 2016, voters rejected a similar proposition that would’ve raised the wheel tax to $5 per wheel on the state maximum of 12 wheels.
The latest wheel tax proposition may also go to a vote of the people, along with a separate item on zoning amendments considered earlier in Tuesday’s meeting.
Former County Commissioner Bruce Jensen spoke before the board Tuesday evening, vowing to
“I’ll take it to a vote at the same time as I do the setbacks,” Jensen said. “Let the public decide because they’re the ones paying for it. If they think they can have it, I’ll live with it. That’s the way elections run.”
Loest said that she’s confident that the public wouldn’t be as averse to the rise this time around, noting that the previous attempt saw it fail by a thin margin of 53% against and 47% in favor.
“I feel good that we have put a plan in place,” she said. “We have had a task force that identified priority roads. We completely revamped our five-year plan last year and we will look at that again this year. Hopefully the public has gained a little bit of trust that we are putting as many dollars in our road as we can and that we will be responsible with the money.”
She said it’s important to be aggressive about road funding options, and that’s why the hike was pursued.
“It’s no different than if you’ve got a home and your paint is starting to chip and peel,” she said. “If you don’t repaint your home in a certain period of time, pretty soon your siding is rotting and then it’s a lot more expensive to fix your problem. We are kind of at a tipping point on many of our roads. We know we need additional dollars.”
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August 20, 2020 at 10:24AM
https://www.yankton.net/community/article_93995a1a-e294-11ea-b421-4b985e7ff90d.html
Wheel Tax Hike Aims To Bring In More State Dollars - Yankton Daily Press
https://news.google.com/search?q=Wheel&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
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