Pasco property owners will be seeing something new on their tax bill this fall, possibly two new taxes to help keep up with maintenance of the county’s existing roads and parks.
But during the hearing to move forward with those plans Tuesday, commissioners said yes to the new parks tax but had questions about the new tax for road maintenance because it changed significantly since the last discussion in late 2022. While they didn’t reject it entirely, they asked staff to bring back more information later this month.
Over the last couple of years, county officials has grown concerned that the cost for maintenance of existing parks and roads in residential areas was outpacing the county’s ability to pay for that work. Rising prices further deepened the problem and county commissioners began to discuss options.
They settled on the same idea for both problems, creating special taxing districts for parks and roads that would allow them to spread around the cost.
The county had already addressed park needs in several ways. In 2018, voters overwhelmingly approved a $22 million bond issue to pay for a 20-year backlog of parks maintenance projects but those funds did not address ongoing maintenance.
Last year commissioners voted to more than triple park impact fees, which are the fees assessed to new home construction to cover the needs for new public facilities. To approve such a big fee increase, commissioners had to declare an extraordinary need exists. They set those fees at $3,450. The fee since 2002 had been $892 for single-family homes and $627 for multifamily residences.
But what was still missing was funding for long-term operation and maintenance needs of the parks. The county manages 20,000 acres of parks and open space with 23 active parks. In addition, the park’s inventory includes recreation complexes, community centers, swimming pools, athletic fields, boat ramps and trails.
County park staff determined that beginning in the next fiscal year, the department would have no funds for growing maintenance needs.
Commissioner Seth Weightman balked at the idea of charging businesses for the park maintenance since the primary benefit was for residential property owners, but County Attorney Jeffrey Steinsnyder said that they could not break businesses into a separate category.
Commissioner Kathryn Starkey, who has been a big booster of the parks tax, said that the county can’t afford to have its park facilities fall into disrepair. “We have got to find a way to catch up,” she said.
Commissioners voted unanimously to add the parks tax to the next tax bill, with a decision on the amount of the tax to be determined later this year during the budget process. Keith Wiley, director of Parks, Recreation and Natural Resources said that those numbers will likely be discussed at a special budget workshop on Tuesday.
The road maintenance property tax has also been talked about for years. County leaders wanted a replacement for the existing program in which neighborhoods that want to improve their residential streets collect signatures to present to the county. Property owners would agree to pay their share of the work which could costs thousands of dollars per household and discussions sometimes became divisive among neighbors.
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Explore all your optionsCounty officials worked on a plan to spread roadwork improvement costs across all county property owners but legal questions arose and they developed a new proposal that would add maintenance on bigger commuter roads to the mix.
The new plan is to analyze the condition of all those roads and set annual priorities. More roads would get some form of maintenance each year to prolong their life and all residents would pay except residents inside the cities, county staff told commissioners.
The sticking point, however, was that some residents were still paying off old paving projects so they would continue to pay for those and also pay for the new tax on their bills. Commissioners didn’t want to see that happen so they decided to send the idea back to county staff for more options.
Commissioners will discuss a solution at their next regular meeting June 18, which would still allow time for the new tax to appear on the next tax bill in the fall.
