Street Use Fee Proposed Eugster Says It Could Raise $4 Million For Maintenance

Spokane residents may have a new utility fee in their future - one for using the city’s streets.

A street utility fee was discussed at Monday’s City Council public works committee as a way to generate funds to pay for the city’s $96 million street repair backlog.

City Councilman Steve Eugster, who proposed the fee, said it could raise up to $4 million a year for ongoing street maintenance.

The city would bill businesses based on how many employees they have, while residences would be billed on a vehicle trips-per-day formula that is widely used for land-use planning. Single family homes would be charged a flat rate, while multi-family buildings would be charged based on the number of units.

It’s unclear how much an individual home would be charged. Based on the city’s 69,000 utility billing addresses, however, it would cost each address $58 a year to raise $4 million. That doesn’t factor in higher fees for businesses.

The idea makes sense, because it attaches the fee to the use, Assistant City Manager for Operations Roger Flint said.

“I like it because it’s a very fair way of allocating cost for an ongoing service,” he said. “With a utility, it’s a fee for a service.”

There are a number of obstacles to implementing the fee.

While Eugster believes it is legal, the courts may not. The state Supreme Court struck down a street fee in Seattle, ruling it an illegal tax. Eugster said the Seattle fee was a flat fee charged to every address and not attached to use. Courts have ruled that the Spokane County aquifer protection fee - which is charged to homes based on sewer use - is legal, Eugster said.

It’s also not clear whether the fee would require a vote of the people.

The state Supreme Court is considering Initiative 695, which would place all fee or tax hikes before voters.

Mayor John Talbott, who otherwise supported the idea, said “695 has to be decided upon by the Supreme Court before we can feel comfortable about (the proposed fee).”

If it passes legal muster and the City Council, the street fee would be added to the mix of possible solutions for the city’s crumbling streets.

The council was recently presented with three packages of potential funding options by the Citizens Committee on Street Repair. Among the suggestions were a property tax increase, a business and occupation tax, a gas tax and lobbying the state Legislature for an increase in local option sales tax. The committee did not include a street utility fee as part of its suggestions.

Councilman Rob Higgins asked that members of the committee be brought back into the discussion to address the fee.

“They spent over a year working on this,” Higgins said. “Let’s use that resource.”

Eugster quickly rejected that as too time-consuming.

“Rob, we’re the legislators; it’s our job,” he said. “I don’t want to sit down with a non-elected group to discuss this. I want to sit down with my fellow council members.”

Ultimately, the committee overruled Higgins and asked Flint to fine-tune the proposed fee, then to include it in a larger menu of street funding options for the council to consider.