FAIRMONT– County Engineer Kevin Peyman presented a sample resolution for the Transportation Sales Tax to the Martin County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday. Per the board’s request, Peyman has been working on collecting information on the matter over the last few meetings.

“Historically county road construction has been paid for with gas tax, sales tax on vehicles and license tab fees. Over the last 50 or 60 years that’s how county road construction has primarily been paid for,” Peyman explained.

However, due to rising costs of constructing and maintaining transportation infrastructure, Peyman said there have been more options given to counties on ways to bridge the funding gap.

He went over some of the sample resolution that the board had been provided with. It says that a one-half (0.5 percent) sales tax collected in Martin County would stay in Martin County completely. The money generated can only be spent on roads, bridges and highway department needs and must be spent on projects within the county’s 20 Year Road and Bridge Improvement Projects List 2026-2046.

As a large number of counties in the state already have this half-cent sales tax in place, Peyman provided a list of various counties, their population and what they have generated.

“Generally the larger counties have all passed the sales tax. The smaller counties sometimes haven’t just because they don’t generate enough money to make it worth their time. We’re somewhere in the middle of that,” Peyman said.

He said there are just three counties larger than Martin County that haven’t passed it.

As of Jan. 1, 2025, 57 of the 87 counties are collecting the transportation local option sales tax. Peyman also shared that the city of Fairmont’s half-cent sales tax, for trails and a community center, has generated $1,188,689 in a 12 month period.

Peyman tried to find some taxable sales numbers similar to Martin County’s based on the department of revenue. Martin County’s 2022 taxable sales was $218,223,059.

“A county that’s somewhat smaller than us, Fillmore County, they were $193 million in taxable sales and they generated just under $1.5 million,” Peyman said.

However, he could not say exactly how much money would be generated in Martin County with this half-cent sales tax. The board had previously discussed undergoing a Local option Sales Tax Analysis by the University of Minnesota Extension, which would help determine how much money could be raised but ultimately opted not to spend $3,000 to do it.

“Looking at what the city brought in and the other counties, it makes me pretty confident that $1.5 to $2 million is a pretty fair estimate,” Peyman said.

After Peyman spoke, Commissioner Billeye Rabbe asked what the next step was and Peyman said it would be a public hearing. Per state statute, the transportation half-cent sales tax does not require a public vote, but just a resolution passed by the majority of the county board.

Rabbe made a motion to set the public hearing to be held during the July 1 county board meeting.

Commissioner Jaime Bleess asked if Peyman could still come up with a capital improvement plan for roads and bridges with the new sales tax and “return” the $500,000 property tax levy allocation that the board gives every year.

“So you would net that million dollars and plan on that million dollars every year, where we could plan on $500,000 in the budget as recurring capital outlay for improvements elsewhere,” Bleess said.

Peyman said he believed it was possible but that he would want full board direction for it.

Commissioner Kevin Kristenson asked what Peyman’s total budget would be for roads and bridges, assuming this sales tax generated $1.5 million. Peyman said that the overall budget is around $12 million, with about $5 million per year in construction, so the $1.5 million would be added on to that.

After some more discussion the board unanimously set the public hearing for 10 a.m. on July 1.

In other news:

— Several organizations had representatives give a quick update on their various programs and also put in budget allocation requests. These included Sonja Fortune with the Red Rock Center for the Arts, Lenny Tvedten with the Martin County Historical Society, Robin Celander with the Martin County Fair Board and Jen Kahler, Katy Gonzalez and Trey Lozano with Kinship of Martin County.

— The board approved the hire of a new full-time election technician in the Auditor/Treasurer’s Office.

–The board accepted the retirement resignation notice from James Main, Parks Coordinator and Highway Maintenance Specialist, effective Dec. 1, and authorized recruitment to fill the role.

— The board approved a use policy statement of Webex Video System for board meetings. Per the policy, active participation is limited to internal use and designated presenters only and all participants must display their legal full and last name when joining. The general public is not allowed to participate in meetings via web conferencing.

— The board rescheduled a work session from June 3 to 1 p.m. on July 1 to discuss future plans for the Law Enforcement Center (LEC).