Ephrata considering transportation district

EPHRATA — The winter was so long, cold, and brutal that it left this little town of roughly 8,000 souls with about $145,000 in damage to its streets.

And nowhere near that much money to pay for it.

“We have $18,000 in our street repair budget,” City Administrator Wes Crago told the Ephrata City Council on Wednesday.

Crago said the city would find the money using a real-estate excise tax and drawing from its reserves, but this was not a permanent solution to the problem of maintaining Ephrata’s roads.

While the city could do nothing about the condition of the roads, Crago explained that Ephrata needs a dedicated funding source for road maintenance — about $200,000 per year. The solution would involve voters approving the creation of a Transportation Benefit District, Crago said, using either a dedicated 0.2 percent sales tax or a $20 per vehicle car tab.

“There’s no funding source for streets. They don’t produce revenue like other departments might,” Crago said.

“We need a chip seal program, about $180,000 per summer to keep water out of the roads. And I would like to stockpile a reserve, maybe even pave a couple of the gravel roads in town,” Crago said.

Crago told the city council that a number of public hearings and other discussion events would be held over the summer and the early fall to determine which Transportation Benefit District option would be more acceptable to voters.

Currently, Ephrata residents pay a 0.1 percent additional sales tax to support the city’s police department. Ephrata residents currently pay 8 percent sales tax, higher than the 7.9 percent in most cities in Grant County.

If all goes well, Crago says he anticipates city council approval for some kind of tax increase in November, with the actual measure itself on the ballot for voter approval in April, 2018.

“This gives us a darn good savings account to do some things we want to do,” said Mayor Bruce Reim. “I don’t like taxes, but we can justify this. Everyone benefits.”

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached via email at countygvt@columbiabasinherald.com.