The Ketchum City Council will discuss potentially asking voters in May to approve increases in local-option taxes to support workforce-housing initiatives during its meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 3.
The city put an initiative to increase LOTs charged in Ketchum before voters last May but the measure did not pass. By law, the city has to wait a year before putting a similar initiative on the ballot again.
The ballot last May asked citizens a two-part question:
- Should the city add “workforce housing provision and support” to a list of authorized uses for local-option taxes?
- Should the city increase local-option taxes by percentage-point increases of .75% on retail sales, 2% on lodging, 2% on by-the-drink liquor and 1% on building materials, with the extra tax revenue going to exclusively fund workforce-housing projects?
Voters had the option of casting a single vote either in favor of or against the proposal.
Per state law, changing the city’s LOT ordinance needs approval of at least 60% of Ketchum voters.
The initiative to increase the self-imposed local taxes is part of a far-reaching city Housing Action Plan to develop new affordable housing, preserve the affordable units that exist and bring some existing market-rate or under-used units into the affordable-housing pool. Through analysis, Ketchum determined that it needs to develop, preserve or convert 660-980 affordable, workforce units over the next decade or so.
One major source of funding identified in the plan is changes to the city’s local-option taxes. If voters had approved the 2022 proposal, it could have added some $2.8 million to annual LOT income—a projection based on previous revenues—that would have been used only for workforce-housing initiatives.
Currently, eligible uses for Ketchum LOT funds include transportation, recreation, capital improvements, emergency services, promoting the city to visitors, property-tax relief, and costs related to collecting and enforcing the taxes. The funds have been allocated to yearly line items in the city budget to fund operations such as the Mountain Rides Transportation Authority, as well as emergency services.
Housing projects are currently not an approved use of the LOT.
Meanwhile, the discussion will likely consider the fact that a "1% for Air" tax approved by voters to add 1% to the city's local-option taxes to support Wood River Valley commercial air service is set to expire on Dec. 31, 2023.
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I agree 100% with the three previous comments, and will vote no again for any Lot Tax in its present form.
Just look at what the City of Ketchum is doing with the money we are giving them now and you will understand why most of us voted against increasing the LOT.
The City is using our tax dollars to pay for new trailer housing for immigrants (and illegals?), not for our locals. This new trailer park is being set up in the Industrial Center, the area with the greatest restrictions on residential zoning. The City has also paid for hotel rooms for the winter, again for immigrants/illegals, not locals.
Folks, government doesn't do a great job at fixing things. Citizens need to start trusting Free Markets again and throw off the brainwashing. Using tax dollars to INCREASE tourism is part of how we find ourselves in this predicament in the first place. Why? Because the growth is not organic. It doesn't take place over time. Instead, these tax dollars act like chemical fertilizer that stimulates artificial growth and weakens the roots. The City has created this problem over decades and now they are asking us to pay more money to fix the problems they created. This is why gov't is not the answer here.
Take all the money the City is spending on tourism and get back to the basics of supporting our roots. Let this tourism boom even out. Give it time. This means that some people will be leaving our area. That's ok. We need more balance in our communities and an understanding of the consequences of unchecked cancerous growth.
I voted NO last time and will again this time. While I support workforce housing, the city of Ketchum is delinquent when it comes to the purpose of the LOT. Take a look at our streets: left unplowed to ice up, pot holes everywhere, no strategy to solve any other problem other than spending the tax on something the LOT was not created for. We need new leadership not just for our housing issues, but all the other issues that this city’s government just want to ignore.
On the purpose of the LOT, can we stop using any of it to fund Visit Sun Valley? Their budget is over $2mm/yr and $1.6mm of it comes from a mix of tourists and residents being taxed. If businesses in Ketchum want to promote Ketchum as a destination, sure, but perhaps they could do it with their own money, not ours. As for using LOT for housing--what does that mean? Housing for who? To be build where? With money from whom? Without a solid plan for exactly where the money will be going, LOT for "housing" makes no sense. And who will be taxed? Why does the City want locals to be taxed at all? LOT is supposed to be a tax on tourists, not locals, for the negative impact they have on the community. Let's raise the LOT on lodging and eliminate it on sales taxes on locals. The City lost last year's LOT even with the Mayor campaigning for it and people from outside Ketchum going door to door to get people to vote for it--because the CIty doesn't have a solid plan on how it will be spent (read the Housing Action Plan on the City website--basically they can spend the money any way they want, and define "worker" to include people who choose not to work--you can't make this stuff up.-- and they wanted to increase taxes on locals. We don't even know how bad the workforce shortage is--the City seems reluctant to survey employers to get any actual data on this.
After this past week on the hill, we certainly don't need more tourists. You had to wait for 30 minutes to get a table, then another 30 min in line to get served. Baldy simply doesn't have the services and capacity to support crowds of that size. And I would guess that many were on discount IKON tickets, so the financial benefit is reduced.
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