County to expedite Bigfork green-box fees

Bigfork residents will get charged $47.84 per residence for their new green-box garbage collection site starting with the current tax year, the Flathead County commissioners decided Tuesday.

The county had planned to begin the special fee in the 2017 tax year and had advertised it with that time frame, but the commissioners felt the annual fee should be expedited.

“I think it should be on this year's taxes,” Commissioner Gary Krueger said. “Otherwise it is kind of a freebie.”

Commissioners Phil Mitchell and Pam Holmquist agreed.

The new Bigfork green-box site has already been in operation for nearly a year. It opened in September 2015 north of Montana 35 and 83 and east of Crossroads Church

 The county spent $888,800 to build the bigger, fenced site at the insistence of the Bigfork community, which lobbied to retain a collection site. Annual operational costs for the Bigfork site will be an estimated $136,830, which includes 1.5 employees to staff the facility. The annual fee per residence also will cover half the cost of building the site, amortized over 20 years.

The county had planned to close both the Bigfork and Lakeside green-box sites — both unstaffed and unfenced — and consolidate them with the Creston and Somers sites. After citizens from both communities protested the consolidation the commissioners agreed to build new and bigger collection sites, but said users would have to pay for them.

The annual assessments for Bigfork and Lakeside residents are in addition to the $80.73 each residence is charged for the landfill on annual tax bills.

To facilitate the time change in assessing the Bigfork fee, the county will publish notification of the change and hold a public hearing at 10:45 a.m. Aug. 24 before directing the tax department to include the fee on this year's tax bill.

A public hearing that was scheduled for Tuesday morning was canceled because of the time change proposed for the fee assessment.

County Public Works Director Dave Prunty said he budgeted $145,000 in fee revenue from the Bigfork site for the current fiscal year because he initially thought the fee would be collected in the 2016 tax year.

The assessments will be reviewed and adjusted every year to align with operational costs.

The fee areas are set up for 20 years, but the annual assessment will be charged as long as those collection sites exist.

“This goes on in perpetuity,” Prunty said.

The Bigfork fee area includes 3,324 residential units in the an area that generally includes the Bigfork elementary school district and Swan River school district boundaries.

An enlarged Lakeside green-box site off Blacktail Road will be complete later this month and will be operated in the same manner with a special fee area. Lakeside residents will be assessed about $85 a year because there are fewer residential units in that area.

Lakeside's special fee will be collected starting with the 2017 tax year.