Cities look for Benton County to share tax revenue

Richland is among eight local governments wanting Benton County to return money collected from a sales tax next year.

The county in 1998 qualified for a Rural County Development Sales Tax, which started at 0.04 percent and is now 0.09 percent. The county government collected it along with Richland, Kennewick, West Richland, Prosser and Benton City and the ports of Kennewick and Benton.

The governments agreed in 2000 to allow all the money collected to go to the county, so it could retire the debt on the Benton County Justice Center project, said Jon Amundson, Richland assistant city manager, at a recent meeting. But the county is now in position to collect all the money it needs for the project by the end of the year and the other entities would like to begin receiving their share next year to use for economic development.

Representatives from the cities and ports recently met to discuss approaching the county on the issue, Amundson said.

“We don’t want to surprise them,” he said. “We want to work with them on what’s best for the agencies’ needs.”

A couple options are now being considered. Diahann Howard, the Port of Benton’s director of economic development and government affairs, told the Herald one involves splitting the money evenly among the eight groups, with each getting about $475,000 a year until 2023, when the law is scheduled to sunset.

Another proposal is that Kennewick and Richland get extra money based on population, with Kennewick collecting $685,187 and Richland $621,062 each year. West Richland, Prosser and Benton City would get $475,000 annually, but Benton County and the ports would receive $356,250 each.

Both options are only recommendations, Howard said.

“It’s the county commissioners’ decision,” she said. “We’re open to all of that.”

Howard is part of a subcommittee that also includes Kennewick City Manager Marie Mosley and Prosser Mayor Paul Warden.

So far, the cities and ports have been meeting with each other. The only meetings with county commissioners have been one-on-one with commissioners, Howard said. But they will eventually meet with the county to show a “united front.”

“We don’t want them to hear from eight of us separately,” she said. “We wanted them to hear from us as a group.”

The cities and ports first will need to agree among themselves how much each should keep before bringing commissioners in, Commissioner Jerome Delvin told the Herald.

“I’m sure we’re going to want to keep some of it,” he said. “We want a fund in case, say, Kennewick comes along and says, ‘We need $130,000 to do this.’ We’ll be able to partner with them.”

It is too soon for Richland to know how to spend the money, should it get it, but it could go toward roads or new employees related to economic development, Amundson said.

Potential uses of the money for the Port of Benton include planning and roads for land the port will be getting from the Tri-City Development Council. The Department of Energy recently transferred 1,641 acres just north of Richland that was seized for the Manhattan Project.

The money also could go toward buildings used for economic development.

“We appreciate the county commissioners’ consideration,” Howard said. “We’re hopeful they’ll be open to our ideas.”

This story was originally published December 3, 2015 at 6:24 PM with the headline "Cities look for Benton County to share tax revenue."