A look at Lincoln-area road funding and taxes

County taxes are often a source of chagrin for Lincoln residents, with indignation often leveled at road maintenance in the area, but a look at county expenditures on roads reveals those long-standing complaints may not reflect current reality.

The fact that roads in the Lincoln area are in constant need of maintenance hasn't changed. Potholes develop every winter and spring, dust and washboards plague the unpaved roads every summer and fall. But the belief that Lincoln is somehow still the "red-headed stepchild" of the county when it comes to roads is belied by how much the county spends to maintain roads here.

According to information provided by Lewis and Clark County Finance Director Nancy Everson, property owners in School District 38 - which covers Lewis and Clark County west of the continental divide – paid $120,754 in mill levies for roads in fiscal year 2021. (That doesn't include taxes paid to fund Rural Improvement Districts.)

So, how much of that $120,754 came back to maintain Lincoln-areas county roads?

All of it, and then some. County road and bridge manager Kevin Horne said the county spent a total of $513,461 toward Lincoln area roads in FY 2021.

"That includes your capital improvement plan, that includes all of our expenditures for gravel and mag chloride and labor cost, all those incidental items."

Horne explained the county pays $166,000 to their capital improvement plan every year to pay for the eventual replacement of the equipment stationed in Lincoln.

"We have a road grader, two snowplows, a loader, a dump truck, a water truck, a backhoe and a pickup truck," Horne said. "There's a life expectancy on each piece of equipment. A snowplow for instance is like 15 years. What we do is we incrementally put a little money away every year, so in that 15-year period, when that snowplow comes up for new, we have the cash to buy a new snowplow. That basically is our capital improvement plan."

Taking that $166,000 for the capital improvement fund out of the mix shows that in FY 21, the county spent about $347,461 directly on costs associated with maintenance of county roads around Lincoln. That amounts to nearly $227,000 over and above the taxes property owners paid for roads last fiscal year.

"That doesn't include general fund money for bridges," Horne added, explaining that the county's general fund pays for the bridge department. "So, any of the work we did on bridges or guard rails, or Sucker Creek improvements when we put all those culverts in, that's not even included in that number."

Horne also noted that the two RIDs in Lincoln and the one in Augusta also receive benefits property owners in the 100-plus other have, such as snowplowing, sanding and sweepeing. "Usually, when an RID is set up, all of the snowplowing and grading and mag chloride, all that stuff is paid for by the homeowner through the RID, over and above the taxes they pay." County Special District Program Coordinator Jessica Makus also pointed out the county covers the cost of all maintenance on the paved portions of both Sucker Creek and Stemple Pass Roads.

In terms of overall county taxes, Everson said property owners here have been levied and assessed a total of 227.65 mills for Fiscal Year 2022, which runs from July 2021 to July 2022. In dollars, that amounts to $829,102 that will flow into the county coffers from property owners in the Lincoln School District.

That doesn't include locally voted levies, such as those for the School, the Fire District, Ambulance, the Hospital District or rural improvement districts.

The $829,000 that goes to the county goes into a lot of different pots, including Public Safety, the library, district court, the detention center, parks, senior citizens and an all-purpose fund, among others. For FY22, more than $211,000 of the property taxes from Lincoln goes toward public safety, which funds the Sheriff's Office, and nearly $134,000 will go into the all-purpose fund. A bit over $75,000 goes to the Lewis and Clark Library and some $74,000 goes to detention services this fiscal year.

While not all of those may be seen as delivering a direct benefit to Lincoln, nearly all impact Lincoln. Everson pointed out for example that anyone who deals with the Clerk of District court for things like judgements, child support, trusts or marriage licenses, benefits from the $12,000 property owners here pay toward District Court. Likewise, the detention center may not seem to provide an obvious return to local taxpayers, but more than one person arrested in Lincoln is enjoying a stay there or has in the past.

In terms of dollars that do come directly back to Lincoln, Everson said it can be hard to put exact figures to much of it.

"As far as direct services, library, road maintenance, bridges and sheriff's deputy will be the direct ones," Everson said. She said we see about $150,000 to fund our local deputy, his vehicle and all the equipment he carries. Likewise, the library here receives almost $106,000 per year, while the Lincoln Senior Center almost certainly received more than the $3800 that Lincoln area property taxes provided for senior citizens last year.

Everson said it can be difficult for people from outside the Helena Valley to appreciate some of the indirect returns they see from their county taxes. "A lot of the services are here (in Helena), which also makes it hard," she said. "

"Roads are always going to be way out of whack, because they're so underfunded," she said. "When you have a community like Lincoln or Augusta, it's going to be disproportionate because you have to have big pieces of equipment and a person there, serving far fewer residents, versus here in the valley. It's kind of the same with the sheriff's deputy, too."

Everson also pointed out that Lincoln School District property owners pay more for the local voter-approved mill levies than they do to the County, something she said is actually quite common. In this fiscal year, property owners in School District 38 will pay $986,181 for Lincoln Schools, $97,678 for the Lincoln Fire District, $51,207 for the Lincoln Hospital District and $34,198 for Emergency Medical Services.

While the condition of roads will undoubtedly always be a topic of discussion and complaint, it may be worth keeping in mind how much worse things could be if the county didn't provide additional money for road maintenance and equipment replacement for the Lincoln area.