County sets Bigfork, Lakeside green-box fees

Bigfork residents will see their annual green-box garbage collection fee decrease by about $10 for the next tax year, and Lakeside residents won’t pay as much as proposed.

The Flathead County commissioners on Monday voted to set the assessment for Bigfork’s special fee district at $37.72 for this fiscal year, a substantial decrease from the initial fee of $47.84 per residential unit.

Bigfork and Lakeside pay special annual fees for their green-box sites because the communities opted to retain their collection sites instead of consolidating them with other sites. The fees are in addition to the $80.73 solid-waste assessment each residence is taxed annually for the county landfill.

“We looked at revenue and expenses to make a determination of what we anticipate for fiscal 2018,” Public Works Director Dave Prunty said about the Bigfork site, adding that during the last tax year the county collected $33,000 more in revenue than was expected because more residential units were determined within the special fee district boundary.

The plan for Bigfork is to divide the $33,000 by three and give those residents a reduction of $11,000 for three years.

“We think we’ve got a really good game plan,” Prunty told the commissioners.

This is the first tax year Lakeside residents will pay the special fee for their green-box site. The Solid Waste District had estimated an annual fee of $76.84, but scaled that back to $70.23 per residential unit. The commissioner’s also OK’d that fee on Monday.

The annual fees for the two sites cover the costs of staffing, snowplowing and general maintenance. For both Bigfork and Lakeside, the Solid Waste District bore half of the cost of construction, with residents in the fee district picking up the rest of the cost, amortized over 20 years.

Bigfork’s new green-box site opened two years ago north off Montana 83. 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 when the Solid Waste District proposed closing it and consolidating the collection site with Creston and Somers.

The Lakeside site also was built with solid community support, at a cost of $569,285. It opened last year and is located 276 Stoner Creek Road.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.