The rising cost of vegetation management is taking more out of Mill Valley’s municipal service tax, officials said.

The City Council received an annual report on the tax at its meeting Monday. The tax enables the city to provide vegetation management and street rehabilitation services. In fiscal 2024, the tax generated about $1.92 million in revenue, and expenditures were nearly $1.59 million.

Voters approved the special tax, along with a community facilities district, in 2016 as a source of funding for fire prevention and street rehabilitation services. It was set at $266 per occupied single-family residence, and includes an annual inflator of 2%. The tax has a 10-year sunset and will expire after fiscal 2027.

Approximately $550,000 is spent on vegetation management. Around $1 million is earmarked for street improvements, and $4,900 is spent on administrative costs.

Streets improved using the funds have included East Blithedale Avenue between Sunnyside Avenue and Amicita Avenue; Monte Vista Avenue between Marion Avenue and North End; Longfellow Road between Kipling Drive and Roque Moraes Drive; and Buena Vista Avenue between West Oakdale Avenue and Buena Vista Avenue.

Southern Marin Fire Protection District Deputy Fire Marshal Marshall Nau said costs related to vegetation management, specifically the cost of fuel and labor, are on the rise.

“Moving forward, we want to be more efficient with how we’re doing things but also how we’re capturing that data, how we’re presenting those metrics, so that we can be a little bit more on point with how that’s evolving over time,” he said.

For fire prevention, the tax helped facilitate chipper projects at 168 parcels, clear 96 streets of flammable vegetation that was encroaching the road, and chipped 340 tons of vegetation.

An additional 18 areas across the city were cleared of vegetation. The fire district said they needed extra maintenance because of heavy winter rains that fueled greater vegetation growth.

City Manager Todd Cusimano said tonnage can be a misleading metric because as the work is done annually, less tonnage gets removed every year. He said that in recent years, the vegetation management work alone costs around $500,000, compared with five years ago when the average cost was closer to around $200,000 to $300,000.

“We’re still doing that work consistently, and it’s also becoming more expensive,” he said. “But when you look at the amount of work that is being done, it’s getting better and better every year.”

He said a lot of the cost increases are going toward one-off projects, such as removing dying eucalyptus trees in a neighborhood. He suggested fine-tuning the tax’s budget to leave more room for such instances.

Nau added that weather-related events, such as trees falling down during windy storms and heavy winter rains, also need to be considered. He said that data, as well as post-treatment efforts such as erosion control, is being collected at the countywide level.

“We’re looking at implementing that within MST projects as well,” said Nau, referring to the municipal service tax.