Some residents in the town of Wolf Creek are looking to change their tiny hamlet north of Helena into a resort. Or, at least, they are hoping to set up a resort tax.
Wolf Creek area resident Pat Hunter said the community needs extra money to clean up groundwater.
“The people in Wolf Creek would not be asking for a resort tax if they weren’t faced with the burden of putting in a sewer system that, quite frankly, they can’t afford,” Hunter said.
Hunter predicts the three percent resort tax would earn the community about $30 thousand dollars a year.
That would be split among the 40 or 50 full-time residents to subsidize some of their long-term payments for the sewer system.
The Montana Department of Commerce said there are eight Montana communities or areas that have resort taxes.
Each has to meet certain population and land area guidelines set by the legislature and the majority of the economic base within the area has to rely on tourism.
Wolf Creek is now submitting their tax plan to the Commerce Department.
If approved, it eventually goes back to the people within the resort tax area for a vote.