The Montesano City Council again is looking at the possibility of introducing a “street fee” for city households going into 2018.

Following a brief conversation about the proposed 2018 budget which was provided in the council packet for the meeting, city chief financial officer Doug Streeter noted that the budget included a “street fee.” The fee would be $5 per month and it would be applied each household in city limits.

If the fee is collected, it would raise some $78,000 for city streets.

The city’s streets have been aging and falling into a state of disrepair. The city cannot afford to fix all of the streets at once, and to repair any one of the most damaged streets also lies beyond the city’s financial means. Because most of the city streets needing repairs are not main streets or connected to highways, those streets would rank low for potential grant funding, Streeter has said in the past.

The repairs, though expensive, somehow must be funded by the city.

Streeter and Mayor Vini Samuel said they hoped the proposed street fee would help the city complete smaller street projects in the coming year.

“When I was on council, we were always struggling with how do you fund streets,” Streeter said. “It’s to the point where we just have to start taking small bites of the elephant. This would provide a funding mechanism to where we could start taking those small bites.”

Recently, the city completed a small section (about 50 feet) of street replacement on Spruce Avenue. City public works staff provided the labor for a significant cost savings. A similar project, if the city had gone out to bid for a contractor would have cost some $75,000, Samuel had said, but by using city crews, the project cost less than $10,000.

Councilman Dan Wood asked that the city make a plan for the street fee revenue.

“There hasn’t been a plan for addressing (the ailing city streets),” Wood said. “If we’re going to have a discussion about having a household fee for that purpose, I want to know how much of the bite do we take out of that. And do we still fall behind? I just want to make sure we’re not piecemealing and feeling like our action is progress.

Past studies of the city streets have put the price tag to repair all city streets at $20 million, Wood noted.

“I want to know, how do we fix a $20-million backlog,” Wood asked.

Samuel said she initially would like to see the city focus on repairs to Spruce and Marcy avenues.

“Spruce and Marcy are the two primary streets that we would be looking at because they’re so terrible,” Samuel said. “But that’s just a one-year perspective — it doesn’t do what you’re talking about, which is long term. This household fee is targeted for a small window, so we get something done while we’re figuring out the larger part of it.”

The street fee would come as part of the 2018 budget and would need to be approved by the city council. A similar street fee was proposed last year, but the council opted not to collect the fee this year because the city was asking voters to approve a levy for the fire department. That levy was approved.

Overall, the budget is expected to close the year with an ending fund balance of nearly $200,000 in the general fund, according to the proposed budget provided on Oct. 24. Streeter, however, warned that balance could fluctuate (either up or down) in the next couple of months if any financial emergencies arise.

If 2017 stays steady and the city’s general fund finishes with $200,000, that would be about even with how 2016 ended. The 2015 budget had anticipated an ending fund balance of about $83,000.

For 2018, if the proposed budget comes to fruition, the city would be looking at an ending fund balance of more than $300,000.