Spokane Conservation District asks Spokane County to approve parcel fee increase to bolster conservation programs
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Summary
Vicky Carter, director of the Spokane Conservation District, told Liberty Lake council the district will ask county commissioners to raise rates from $10 to $15 per parcel, a roughly $0.42 per month impact, to increase matching capacity for grants and expand programs including wildfire assessments and education.
Vicky Carter, director of the Spokane Conservation District, told the Liberty Lake City Council on April 14 that the district plans to ask Spokane County commissioners next year to raise its per-parcel rate from $10 to $15. Carter said the district leverages its roughly $2,000,000 base to secure significantly larger conservation investments and estimated the local change would amount to about $0.42 per parcel per month.
Carter described the district’s portfolio of programs — a long-running tree and seedling sale, technical assistance such as wildfire ‘Firewise’ assessments, a natural-resources apprenticeship (NRAP) that pays students to pursue a two-year conservation track at Spokane Community College, river and riparian restoration projects and a year-round market incubator built on a repurposed scale house. She said roughly 76% of the district’s budget is grant-funded, about 10% comes from earned non-grant revenue (events, sales) and roughly 15% from rates and charges.
Explaining the rationale for the increase, Carter said the statutory cap has risen at the state level and that moving from $10 to $15 per parcel would allow the district to enhance its match for larger grants and scale construction and technical programs. She said the district’s return on the base assessment is about five to nine times that amount in leveraged program dollars and that recent restoration work has reopened miles of riparian habitat.
Council members asked questions about workforce training, the apprenticeship (NRAP) structure and the district’s market campus. Carter said NRAP pays for community-college coursework for 18– to 24-year-old students, employs them in paid summer internships and that the district is starting a second cohort. She also confirmed public hearings on rates and charges will be held by the district in May and June and before the county commissioners in August.
What happens next: the district will host local public meetings (May 12 and June 16) and then bring the proposal to Spokane County. The council did not take formal action on the proposal; the request will proceed through the conservation district’s public process and the county’s rate-setting hearing.
Authorities and provenance: Carter referenced the state law authorizing rates and charges for conservation districts and the district’s historical assessment authority; the presentation and the district’s public meeting schedule were included in staff slides presented to council (see timeline entries SEG 341–SEG 734).
