SPOT tax to appear on this year's ballot

Voters will be asked this year to again approve the Specific Purpose Sales and Use Tax (SPOT), which raises money that goes directly to the four municipalities and the county and is used for infrastructure needs that are often difficult to fund elsewhere.

This time, at the suggestion of Pine Haven Mayor Karla Brandenburg, the amount to be raised for each entity may be increased from $1.5 million to $3 million.

This doesn’t change the amount of the tax itself – it’s still just a penny, she said, and it’s a penny that is already in place, so it would have zero impact on the residents and visitors who pay it.

The intent of Brandenburg’s suggestion, she explained, is to ensure the tax doesn’t sunset before the next opportunity to vote it back in, which has occurred in the past and left a gap of five or six months that impacted the towns.

“Without this money, our town wouldn’t be able to do half the stuff it does,” she said.

SPOT, better known as the “sixth penny” or “one percent tax,” has a strictly defined purpose. It has been utilized to provide extra revenue for counties and towns since it was authorized by the legislature in 1984; in Crook County, it is an additional penny on top of the obligatory four percent state sales tax and the one percent general purpose tax.

SPOT is different to those first five pennies in that, instead of running for a certain period of time, voters are asked to approve a specific dollar amount that must be spent on a specific set of projects.

The tax will only remain in effect until this amount has been collected and, once the total has been reached, no matter how long that takes, the tax will automatically switch off.

Entities have focused on infrastructure needs for the revenue that would be raised by the $7.5 million request. The towns and county have created lists that include such needs as roads, sewer and water.

A lot of the neighboring counties also rely on SPOT, said Brandeburg. It is known in Campbell County, for example, as “Penny Power”.

It’s an appealing tax for the towns, she said, because it can be used for infrastructure. For citizens, meanwhile, it means that visitors are also contributing to the resources they make use of.

Increasing the amount to be raised for each entity would not change the fact that the tax “still sunsets,” said Commissioner Fred Devish.

An average of $34,659.96 is raised by each entity every month through SPOT, according to figures provided by County Treasurer Tammy Jundt.

At this time, the amount remaining on the $1.5 million limit for each entity from the SPOT that was approved by voters in 2021 is $321,561.59, which Jundt estimated will see it sunset in December or January.

Brandeburg suggested that raising the amount to $3 million, based on those figures, would ensure coverage for the next four years.

With the commissioners in agreement, the next step will be for each of the municipalities to decide on its list of specific uses for the SPOT revenue.

Once these have been submitted, County Attorney Joe Baron will prepare a resolution that must be signed by each entity in order for question to appear on the ballot in November.