A proposal to establish a 9-cent transaction tax to pay for street maintenance will be formally introduced at a Kalispell City Council work session on Monday.

The meeting will include time for public comments.

“It’s a starting point,” City Manager Jane Howington said of the already-controversial transaction fee proposal. “This is not etched in stone. This is an introduction, and after this then we’ll take [the proposal] to a variety of community meetings.

“We may not come back with the same proposal” in the end, she said.

City officials for some time have been mulling a plan to raise enough money to cover $4.5 million in needed street maintenance and improvements. The current street tax, based on the size of a property in proportion to the area of the entire street maintenance district, has fallen short of meeting the need to fix and maintain city streets because it brings in only $1.5 million.

The conundrum with the current assessment is that it taxes 9,654 property owners in the city for infrastructure improvements that benefit some 80,000 to 100,000 people per day who use city streets, according to city figures.

Imposing retail transaction fees would provide a more equitable funding solution and lift some of the burden off the property owners, according to a fact sheet on the proposal.

Almost all Kalispell property owners would see a decrease in their street maintenance assessment, with a proposed assessment of $50 per single-family home instead of the current assessment that, based on square footage, is about $150 annually per home.

It’s not an actual cost savings for a homeowner, though, Kalispell City Attorney Charlie Harball cautioned. City property owners also would pay the retail transaction fees and probably would spend about the same amount as they’re currently assessed for street maintenance.

“It’s close to a wash,” Harball said.

The city “sent some feelers” out to gauge support for the proposed transaction fee from the business community. The Kalispell Chamber of Commerce conducted a survey that was “generally negative” about the proposal, Harball said.

Some have misunderstood the fee as a sales tax, when in fact the 9 cents per transaction would be built into the cost of goods, he said.

Some businesses that generate a lot of traffic, such as Walmart, would pay a lot of money, he said.

“Walmart may pay $200,000,” Harball said.

The city needs feedback from businesses about how it will affect sales or if it’s too cumbersome to administer, he said.

Harball reiterated Howington’s statement that the proposal could end up being something entirely different by the time the public process has run its course.

The council will begin Monday’s work session with an explanation of the current and proposed assessments, followed by discussion of alternative collection methods and explanation of an analysis that looks at the number of vehicle trips made in the city each year. Specific capital needs for streets also will be detailed.

The public will have a chance to comment following the council discussion.

The meeting begins at 7 p.m. Monday at Kalispell City Hall, 201 First Ave. E.

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