Transportation tax heads to voters Aug. 5

Proponents say the sales tax is a key pillar of support for economic development. Opponents say it isn’t focused on pulling money from those who use the roads most, and it would hurt the poor. On Aug. 5, Missouri voters will have their say.

Becky Baltz, the Southwest District engineer covering the Springfield area for the Missouri Department of Transportation, has helped assemble a statewide project list valued at $4.8 billion that would be held up by the proposed 3/4-cent transportation sales tax.

In MoDOT’s Southwest District, the tax would support some 219 projects worth $640 million over its 10-year life.

According to legislation calling for the vote, the proposed tax is expected to generate $480 million annually for the state’s Transportation Safety and Job Creation Fund and $54 million for local governments. It also is designed to shore up dwindling state transportation funds, which MoDOT estimates could drop to $325 million a year by 2017 without the tax. Between 2005 and 2010, the transportation department’s annual construction budget averaged $1.3 billion, falling to $685 million this year.

The measure is supported by business groups, such as the state and Springfield chambers, and it is opposed by organizations including the Missouri League of Women Voters and by Gov. Jay Nixon.

Locally, the largest jobs would add lanes on U.S. Highway 65 south of James River Freeway to Highway CC, as well as on James River Freeway between Kansas Expressway and Highway 65 – both roughly $25 million projects. The new funds also would extend Kansas Expressway south of Republic Road to Plainview Road, a $19.1 million job. “If the tax doesn’t pass … all of the big projects would definitely not occur,” Baltz said, noting MoDOT still would have funding for smaller resurfacing and bridge replacement jobs.

Developing the project list was an extension of MoDOT’s long-range planning process, which wrapped up with the help of the public and regional groups last year. Baltz said the project list is diverse.

“We have projects that cover a lot of road and bridge needs, but we also have projects improving airports, sidewalks and a couple of safety projects that will help us with our railroad crossing areas and ones that realign curvy areas in certain locations,” she said. “We really have a lot.”

While the tax would provide a boon to heavy highway designers and contractors, Dave Roling of Emery Sapp & Sons Inc. said the economic reach is broader than those industries. “It could have a dramatic effect on the growth of our region and our ability to entertain economic development for the people and businesses that would choose to locate here or do business here,” said Roling, Springfield division manager for the infrastructure contractor.

He said a 1/2-cent sales tax passed in 2012 in Arkansas is fueling economic growth today in northwest Arkansas. “We really should look at this as an investment in the future,” Roling said. “We live in a growing regional area with hubs in industries like health care, education and manufacturing.”

Opponents campaigning as Missourians for Better Transportation Solutions recognize the need for infrastructure improvements, but they object to a blanket sales tax as the funding mechanism.

The Missouri League of Women Voters, a member of the campaign committee, has been outspoken to ask trucking companies and others that use the roads the most to bear the brunt of the costs.

“The problem is that, once again, the solution is looked at as a sales tax,” said Elaine Blodgett, the state League of Women Voters president. “We call it a regressive tax, but I never know if people really understand what regressive means. It just means that the guys down the line making $12,000 a year still have to pay – for the most part – higher sales taxes.”

Other members of Missourians for Better Transportation Solutions include Consumers Council of Missouri, the Missouri Association for Social Welfare, the Missouri Sierra Club and the Transit Action Network.

If the measure passes, Blodgett said sales taxes would approach an alarming 10 percent in some municipalities, including Columbia, where she resides. “For me, honestly, it isn’t a problem. I am happy and lucky, but when I was growing up, that would have been a big deal. It would have kept us from getting certain things because we had to really count our pennies,” she said.

Associated Industries of Missouri President Ray McCarty said AIM isn’t used to supporting tax increases, but the group determined this proposal is necessary.

“Often, we are trying to lower the tax liability on employers in the state. That’s what we do,” McCarty said. “In this case, we see a very strong need for transportation in the state. Without a strong infrastructure, we have no way to move goods in and out of the state, and we have no way to move people and goods in and out of our facilities.”

McCarty said more than 90 percent of AIM’s members are manufacturers that daily depend on transportation infrastructure to support growth.

“We understand that it is a core need of business, and that’s why we support this particular tax increase,” he said.

Blodgett suggested the funding come from either an increase in the state’s gas tax or a bump in income tax rates. “I think what we have to do is cut the rhetoric and the ‘I have to win,’ and sit down and really look at those issues together and see where that money could come from,” she said.  

McCarty said AIM has worked with legislators in Jefferson City over the past couple of years to identify ways to fund infrastructure improvements, and ultimately, lawmakers determined the best option was a sales tax, formally proposed as Constitutional Amendment 7.

According to a recent Associated Press report, the campaign committee for the transportation sales tax has received over $2.3 million in the weeks leading up to the vote. Funding to Missourians for Safe Transportation and New Jobs has largely come from highway contractors and engineers, heavy equipment dealers, concrete and asphalt producers, and labor unions, according to the AP.

The last time a new statewide sales tax for transportation was on the ballot – dubbed Proposition B in 2002 – it failed by a wide margin. Voters shot down the 1/2-cent proposal by a 3-1 ratio, but it also included a 4 cent per gallon gas tax, according to Springfield Business Journal archives.

AIM’s McCarty said motor fuel taxes have proven to be unfavorable at the polls.

“Even though gas can jump 10 cents a gallon and we hardly blink anymore, if you put a 10 cents per gallon tax on the ballot, you can imagine where that would end up,” McCarty said, adding, “As prices go up, people tend to drive less.”

Toll roads also are not a popular option, he said, because they could encourage drivers of big trucks and other vehicles to avoid interstates and drive more frequently on smaller highways. In the end, he said everyone utilizes the state’s infrastructure.

“If you eat, you use the roads,” McCarty said. “The food that you’re eating was brought to the store by a truck. And probably to the truck by rail car. People who eat food are using the roads whether they actually drive a car or not.”

Editor Eric Olson contributed to this report.[[In-content Ad]]