Dooley proposal would benefit Metro, roads
Both Metro and St. Louis County roads would benefit if voters approve a half-cent increase in the transit sales tax, County Executive Charlie Dooley said Tuesday.
County officials have not definitely set the election date on the proposal, but voters are likely to consider it on Nov. 4. The county council must put the proposal on the ballot.
Under state law, all revenue from the transit tax must go for public transportation. Dooley would use money from an existing half-cent transportation sales tax for the roads part of his proposal.
Here’s how it would work:
> Half the money from the tax increase – initially about $40 million a year – would go to operate Metro. The transit agency would continue to receive revenue from the current one-fourth cent transit sales tax.
> The other half of revenue from the tax increase, also about $40 million a year, would help pay for MetroLink expansion.
> The county each year would adjust the shares of revenue from the transportation sales tax that would go to Metro and to county arterial roads, such as Aubuchon, Baumgartner and Hanley roads. The shares for Metro and arterial roads would vary with the needs of a particular year.
The county estimates that this year about $49.2 million would go to Metro and $32.4 million to arterial roads. In Metro’s fiscal year that begins July 1, Dooley plans to reduce Metro’s share of the transportation tax by about $8 million compared with this year.
The county’s fiscal year starts Jan. 1, complicating budgeting of the transportation sales tax money. If voters approve the transit tax increase, Dooley’s proposal would take effect in Metro’s fiscal year that starts July 1, 2009.
The county no longer can sustain Metro and its arterial roads under current arrangements, Dooley said. Had they continued, Metro would have received in the year starting July 1 about $50 million of the nearly $80 million available in the transportation sales tax, he said. “We can’t afford that any more,” he said.
The county, he said, has an obligation to residents to keep up its roads.
And Garry Earls, the county’s chief operating officer, warned: “we can’t let Metro and roads fail simultaneously.”
Dooley and Earls both noted buses depend on county roads to operate and provide good service.
The half-cent transportation sales tax was one of the few ever imposed without a vote of the people. The Legislature established it in 1973 in St. Louis and St. Louis County when the bus system was in a severe financial crisis. It provided a subsidy to operate the system and helped pay for upgrading the system’s aging buses and other equipment.
St. Louis always has used the revenue from the tax to subsidize Metro. Almost from the beginning, the county split the money between transit and highways. Officials of the Bi-State Development Agency – it then used its official name – asserted in the 1970s that all the county’s revenue from the transportation tax should go for transit. By 1980, Metro clearly lost the argument and use of the tax for roads is a settled issue.
One factor in the 1970s: most bus service was in St. Louis, while the county generated most of the money. Parts of the county, particularly its most western and southern areas, are far from a bus route.
For many years, the county provided no more than twice the subsidy of St. Louis. In 2000, the late County Executive George “Buzz” Westfall changed the formula. The county would provide the same amount as in 2000 with a yearly cost of living adjustment.
Earls, who served in the Westfall administration, said officials then assumed that revenue from the tax would increase at or more than the rate of inflation, keeping the shares of money for transit and roads in balance. But tax revenue grew slowly and Metro’s share increased.
Dooley and Earls said tax increment financing, almost entirely for shopping centers in municipalities, was a major factor. Much of the sales tax revenue generated by the new development helps retire bonds that paid for part of the construction of the shopping centers.
Dooley said the county would have received about $25 million in additional half-cent transportation sales tax money from 2003 through 2007 without a diversion to tax increment financing.
The county needs to improve access to Clayton for the heavy stream of traffic from south St. Louis County, Dooley said. The county would have to improve Hanley and other county roads so they can better handle the traffic, he said.
Recently, Dooley’s administration floated a proposal for using $5 million a year for 10 years from the transportation sales tax. Under that proposal, the money would become available if voters approved transit sales tax increase. The county’s Blue Ribbon Commission received the proposal at a meeting May 6. It will not make recommendations until this summer.
The $50 million would part of the financing for $148.4 million in transportation projects the staff suggests. Among the projects, improvement of Hanley Road at Eager and Manchester roads, the connection of an extension of Highway 141 at Olive Boulevard to an extension of the Maryland Heights Expressway and improvements to the interchange of Dorsett Road and Interstate 270 and the intersection of Charbonier, Howdershell and Shackelford roads.
Dooley persuaded the county council to put the half-cent tax increase on the ballot with the presidential primary in February, but he withdrew the proposal after Metro lost a lawsuit related to building a MetroLink extension from Forest Park to Shrewsbury and Larry Salci, the head of the agency, resigned.
Dooley is looking toward putting the proposal on the November ballot, but said he not made a final decision.
Nationally, transit proposals fare best in presidential elections which draw a very large voter turnout.
Metro declined to comment.
Tieing the diversion of $50M to road construction to the proposed 1/2 cent transit tax sound like a good way to generate support for the new tax from both transit and road interests.
I wonder how this can be guaranteed. All of the current transportation tax could be diverted to roads any time. If the new transit tax passes, the county may decide to use all of the 1/4 cent tax for roads, not just the $5M per year extra.