After a tally of Flathead County’s provisional ballots on Monday brought a county emergency services ballot measure to within 11 votes of passing, County Administrator Mike Pence said he will recommend a recount.

The county went into the provisional ballot counting just 71 votes shy of the support needed to establish a special emergency communications district to provide an equitable source of ongoing funding for the 911 dispatch center.

The new tally is 15,201 votes in favor and 15,212 against the ballot measure.

Provisional ballots are used for late voters who have moved within the county or have moved here from another Montana county. Provisional ballots also are used in any cases where there are questions about voter eligibility.

 “It was a huge pickup for a relatively small number of ballots,” Pence said. “We’re just 11 votes under the nose. I’m definitely going to recommend a recount and I’m reasonably sure it will happen ... it’s probably worth taking a shot.”

The county commissioners will decide whether to move forward with a recount.

County Clerk and Recorder and Elections Administrator Paula Robinson said last week she would use as many county employees as possible to conduct such a recount, estimating it would take somewhere between 16 to 20 people to complete the task.

If the ballot measure were to pass, the district would be funded with a flat annual fee similar to the way the county’s Solid Waste District is funded.

The maximum fee would be $25 per residential unit or $50 for each commercial unit, up to a maximum of 30 units for each commercial property. The fees would raise about $1.8 million annually.

The district would erase a double-taxation issue created by the current funding process. The 911 center is now funded by county and city taxes, so residents of Kalispell, Whitefish and Columbia Falls pay both city and county taxes for the consolidated center. 

The outcome of the provisional ballot counting did not affect any other state or local races within Flathead County.

The final count for the Kalispell city ballot measure to provide emergency medical services funding failed by a narrow margin, even though 98 of the roughly 200 provisional ballots supported the measure. Opponents of the funding measure picked up another 61 votes, making the final tally 2,980 for the city levy and 3,146 against.

There were, however, 294 under votes for the city levy, according to revised election results posted late Monday. Under votes mean people completed ballots without voting on the Kalispell funding issue.

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