Mill levy expected to help cover expenses

The Libby City Council expects to pass

a mill levy next week in order to help cover costs associated with

Monday’s flood, as well as to become eligible for state emergency

funding.

The city is allowed to pass a two-mill

levy for emergencies one time per year, Mayor Doug Roll said, which

he estimates will amount to $5,500-$6,000.

“You have to exhaust all your resources

as far as the emergency levy goes,” Roll said, “before you can ask

the state for more funding.”

It’s too soon to put a dollar amount

incurred by the city, but Roll believes the biggest costs will come

in the form of equipment – such as contractor excavators used to

break up the ice on Flower creek – and manpower.

Because the flood occurred on a federal

holiday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, city workers will be paid

considerable amounts. Those who came into work – emergency

management officials and the city road crew – will receive holiday

pay, as well as over-time.

The city may incur some other costs,

said Vic White, director of Lincoln County Emergency Management

Agency, such as repairing damaged roads and street signs.

The last time the city passed an

emergency two-mill levy was three or four years ago, Roll said, to

pay for the cost of extra snow removal. The levy raised about

$5,200, he said.