By Michael Somerby EBS STAFF
BIG
SKY – On Feb. 4, the Big Sky Resort Area District tax board held an open board
meeting in the Resort Tax office, its first in several months. The organization
recently expanded operations into an adjacent office space, freeing real estate
for its well-attended board meetings.
With
an agenda of critical and year-defining items, the return held a semblance of
pageantry. These items included the ratification of the language of the
Infrastructure Interlocal Agreement with the Big Sky Water and Sewer District;
viable means to implement the Our Big Sky Community Visioning Strategy; and
tentative dates and procedural updates to the 2020 resort tax appropriations
slated to be realized by late June.
The
Resort Tax Board ratified the agreement language and the BSWSD board followed
suit on Feb. 5, setting up a voter decision on the 1 percent increase on May 5
(see more on pg. 10), a date that doubles as the BSRAD’s election day.. The
board then turned its attention to how it will realize the implementation of
monthslong commissioned
surveying and discussion, ultimately leading to BSRAD’s Community Strategic Plan, a platform on which the community voiced its opinions
about the most important issues and initiatives in Big Sky.
A
council comprised of community
leaders, with Bierschwale representing BSRAD and the board’s newest member
Ciara Wolfe representing the Big Sky Community Organization, of which she is
CEO, aims to
ensure the plan’s implementation “for the greater good of Big Sky.”
Legally
speaking, BSRAD is not empowered to implement the strategic plan in the same
way a traditional municipal government might.
“Trying
to implement, that’s not our business,” Wolfe said. “[But] that doesn’t mean
there’s no involvement in any capacity. This staff team would have an equal
seat at the [council] table with everybody and I would hope this board uses
that plan going forward to consider its allocations.”
While
the board isn’t expected to implement, it is expected to fund, said BSRAD Vice
Chair Steve Johnson. “When you look at the initiatives that were
identified in the visioning strategy, so many of them involved multiple players
…We need to be able to fund in a responsible way.”[1]
Funding,
in this context, is rendered through appropriations of the resort tax collected
by qualifying businesses on various luxuries and goods and services, per an ordinance
revised in November 2019. This year’s collections are expected to outpace last
year’s roughly $8 million, but with single appropriations sometimes totaling in
the millions, the amount available was
still nearly $3 million short of the total requests from community groups and
organizations.
For
the resort tax board, the appropriations process needs some tweaking in order
to best serve the vetted interests of the requesting groups, with two key
changes: The first will be splitting the appropriations meeting into two
shorter sessions rather than one lengthy affair in order to curtail “fatigue”—a measure geared at affording fresh
attention to each applicant, no matter their position in the session lineup.
The
second adjustment will be to enhance lines of communication and understanding
between members of the board leading into the appropriations sessions, so there
will be a measure of expectation on how various board members will vote.
Following
the April 30 application deadline, the board will also have the opportunity to
ask questions of the staff and the applicants, ensuring minimal friction and
maximum preparation come June 10.
As
of press time, the BSRAD appropriation meeting dates are set for June 10 and
17.
