A lone drift boat floats down the Missouri River near Craig.
Tom Kuglin
The Lewis and Clark County Elections Department mailed ballots to the 35 registered voters in Craig Wednesday to decide whether to raise and extend the resort tax in the area.
The town, which sits halfway between Helena and Great Falls on the Missouri River, is known for its fly fishing and relies on tourism to prop up the local economy.
The handful of voters will determine if the area’s resort tax is extended year-round. It is currently in effect only between April 1 and Nov. 15.
They will also vote on increasing the tax from 3% to 4%. If approved, the tax hike would go into effect March 5.
The Montana Legislature passed Senate Bill 241 during the 2019 legislature, which allows for the governing body of a resort area to present to the electorate the question of whether to increase the existing resort tax by 1%.
According to Misty Edwards, a finance coordinator with the county, revenue from the resort tax is split three ways. She said 85% of revenue collected through the tax is used to pay down the debt on the area’s wastewater treatment plant, while 10% goes toward maintenance on the Craig Training Center, a multi-use community center and firefighter training facility, and 5% goes back to the businesses that collected the tax to offset associated accounting costs.
In the 10 years that the resort tax has been in place, more than $1 million has been collected, $980,000 of which has been used for the repayment of the revenue and general obligation bonds associated with the construction of the wastewater system as well as the maintenance of that system, according to a memo from county staff.
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