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NEWPORT — The Newport City Council heard Tuesday, Sept. 2 a proposal to establish a countywide transportation benefit district.
Presented at the Tuesday meeting by Pend Oreille County Commissioner Brian Smiley on behalf of the county Road Department, the district would collect revenue dedicated for transportation needs via a sales tax of up to 0.3%. That would raise the county a projected $740,000 a year.
“I’m tired of hearing about our roads falling apart, and I’m tired of hearing about people saying, ‘Well, somebody should do something,’ and nobody doing anything,” Smiley said at the meeting. “Frankly, I think that’s why we’re all in the positions we are, is because we need to do things and we need to present solutions.”
A transportation benefit district would address the county’s aging infrastructure and public expectations for better roads, Smiley said. As of now, Pend Oreille County has no such revenue source. Both state and federal funding remain unpredictable.
“The reality is, we have less and less money to spend all the time on our county roads,” Smiley said. “At the same time, those roads are getting older and older. At the same time, we have more and more people here.”
Most of the revenue collected by the transportation benefit district would go toward roads and bridges, funding processes such as resurfacing, routine maintenance, preservation and rehabilitation.
The county may also use the revenue to fund county transportation projects, match grants from state and federal programs, conduct road inventories or pavement condition assessments and service debts on transportation bonds.
“The main focus of this is the roads. We want to get as many dollars into our dirt roads, paved roads, upkeep and maintenance of them, so that’s the main thrust of it,” said traffic program analyst Jerad Anderson, who presented the proposal alongside Smiley. “But you can also leverage this in a number of other ways.”
A county ordinance would form the transportation benefit district, to be managed by the Board of County Commissioners. Municipalities would then opt in by signing interlocal agreements.
While the commissioners can vote to increase the sales tax by 0.1%, a majority of the county must vote in support of the other 0.2%. As of now, Pend Oreille County has a sales tax of 7.7%. The sales tax is based on population, meaning that a portion of the revenue will be distributed to municipalities per their share of the population.
“One thing I like about the sales tax model is it’s also scalable and growable,” Smiley said. “As our economy grows and hopefully we get some more industry, it’s a feedback. And hopefully we can grow that.”
This was just one of the means of revenue collection the county considered, Smiley said. Others included increasing flat rates like license plate tab fees or imposing another property tax. The county may also do the former, but Smiley was against the latter.
“In my mind, there’s no support for any kind of a property tax increase,” Smiley said. “Sales tax to me is an equitable way to disperse the load of these roads, especially here in Newport — I think a lot of your sales are paid by non-residents. So to me that’s an equitable way of spreading the load out away from property owners.”
The commissioners plan to draft the ordinance and interlocal memorandum of understandings this fall. Further public outreach and education will follow in early 2026, with a potential ballot measure in November that year.
So far, Cusick, Ione, Metaline and Metaline Falls have all expressed approval of the transportation benefit district, Smiley said. Though the Newport City Council did not vote on the subject, most members expressed approval as well.
“I just think this is a good idea, and my thing for this is at least you guys came up with a plan, which is great,” council member Mark Zorica said at the meeting. “It’s going to be a tough year next year because people are going to have to make some decisions, and this seems a little bit simpler and more common sense to me.”
