With all of the new roads going into Ridgefield as a result of development, the existing neighborhood streets are in need of a little more maintenance.
That’s the reasoning behind a proposed $20 vehicle tab fee the Ridgefield City Council is considering on Thursday that would add about $165,000 per year on average from 2020-2024. The tab fee coincides with the reformation of the city’s Transportation Benefit District (TBD), a special purpose district that under state law can collect funds for, in the case of the TBD, road maintenance and repair.
Ridgefield currently has a TBD that went defunct in 2012 following the completion of the Interstate 5 overpass project in the city. Since then, a new state law has streamlined some of the district’s functions, Ridgefield City Manager Steve Stuart explained, meaning that this time around there won’t have to be separate meetings between the city council and the district — the council can act as both at their regular meetings.
Unlike the past TBD which levied a 0.2 percent sales tax, which would require a districtwide vote for approval, the city is looking to go for a vehicle tab fee that the council can approve following a public hearing. That hearing was held Dec. 6 according to city documents.
Nearby Battle Ground, Kelso and Longview have similar fees while Vancouver and Kalama have $40 ones.
Revenue estimates
The revenue generated from the fee is estimated to be more than $143,000 in 2020, the first full year of the tabs, then around $188,000 in 2024. Ridgefield Finance Director Kirk Johnson said those numbers were based on state Department of Licensing data and expected growth detailed in the city’s comprehensive plan.
Though the council recently voted to increase per-residence traffic impact fees on developer’s by 25 percent, those funds can only be used for new construction, Stuart said. Instead the city would have to look at sources such as a tab fee to bring dollars in for road repair.
Stuart said the council considered a variety of options, including keeping the status quo on funding, but ultimately they went with a tab fee as it would allow for the quickest turnaround on fixing streets. The increase would go into effect 180 days after adoption.
Wallet to roads
Funding from the tab fee will work to pare down some deferred road maintenance that the city currently faces. Information from the city shows about $10.1 million in deferred maintenance in 2019, with the number growing to $15.7 million in 2023.
Ridgefield City Engineer Bryan Kast said the council had been doing well on increasing the the amount of money going from the general fund to the street fund for maintenance since 2013, going from $40,000 that year to $175,000 now. However, without the tab fee the city’s pavement condition index (PCI), a measure of overall road condition, would steadily decrease, moreso if bad weather causes quicker deterioration.
With the fees, the PCI would stay about the same though Kast noted the modeling was dated and didn’t include brand-new roads in the city — he anticipated the actual index to rise if they were factored in.
Funding from the fees would go toward projects found within an improvement plan passed by council, according to staff documents. Kast mentioned specifically projects based off of a 2013 assessment of street conditions.
Kast said one of the goals for the new funding would be using it for more neighborhood-level improvements. In the past, the focus had been on more heavily-traveled areas. Much of the funded work would would be preventative maintenance.
Apart from the price point — a total reconstruction would cost about 15 times more than a slurry seal repair, for example — the less-intensive work would also have lesser traffic impacts during the work, Kast noted.
Stuart said that “the majority” of residential streets would see repair in a 10-year timeframe should council approve the fee. He explained that although council has marked more funding for roads in recent years, relying on general fund subsidies wasn’t sustainable in the long run.
“The only real option for having cost-effective road maintenance, to spend a little now to save a bunch later, is (through) the Transportation Benefit District,” Stuart said.
