The St. Ignatius Town Council discussed changing the fees for municipal services the city offers at its last meeting on Tuesday, June 15, and tentatively plans to put the proposed changes to a vote in July.  

Mayor Daren Incashola explained that when the town has people building homes, and they say the fees are too low, the town should “probably raise them a little bit.”  

The town also does not want to increase its impact fees to be relatively close to the City of Polson’s, which recently increased its water impact fee to $306 per fixture and sewer impact to $200 per fixture. Incashola added he doesn’t want to raise these fees to “make bank” for the town, but the town doesn’t want to lose money providing these services. 

The town's fee schedule includes 25 fees related to alcohol licenses, marijuana licenses, water and sewer impact fees, and zoning permits. He presented a rough draft of the fee structure outlining 14 changes.  

The draft document suggested increasing the water impact fee from $1,000 to $2,000 and establishing additional fees based on the width of the line. For three-fourths of an inch, the suggested amount was $2,000; for one and one-half inches, it was $2,500.  

The sewer impact fees were also proposed to increase from $1,000 to $2,500. These also had the same increases as the water impact fee, based on the width of the line. The draft also proposed increasing the water-on and shut-off fee from $50 to $75.  

Under permits, the suggested change includes increasing the single-family zoning permit from $25 to $50 and all other zoning permits from $50 to $100.  

Incashola said some of these increases will better align with the costs of sending out the public works director, Scott Morton. Councilwoman Janis Heffern agreed and added that it is time, and energy Morton has to take away from other public works projects.  

The conditional use permit also had a proposed change from $200 to $250, and a zoning amendment was proposed to change from $400 to $500. For a single-family variance, the suggested increase was from $25 to $50.  

Incashola said he would like to amend these fee ordinances to a resolution, so they don’t have to wait 90 days or more to make these changes in the future. Currently, he plans to have the first reading of these changes ready in July.  

Council hopes to create second full-time public works  

The council also discussed converting its current open part-time public works position to a full-time position. Currently, Morton is the public works director and is nearing retirement.  

The town had posted this as a part-time position to hire someone and allow them to obtain all necessary certifications before taking over as the director.  

Incashola said this would raise the wage cost from about $20,000 to $45,000, including fringe. Morton currently receives a significant amount of overtime as director, but Incashola noted that hiring a second person would hopefully reduce that overtime and allow the town to allocate those funds toward this new full-time position.  

Incashola said things may be a little leaner this year, but finding the funds for this position is really something they need to do.  

The next town council meeting is Tuesday, July 7, at city hall.