The Fayette County Board of Commissioners is expected to consider at Thursday’s meeting a request by Commissioner Steve Brown to adopt a resolution regarding the Georgia General Assembly’s transportation funding plans.
Specifically, the issue is House Bill 170, a bill now under review at the Gold Dome which has come under fire from various local governments and some state legislators for the way it proposes to shift tax revenue to fund transportation projects.
Brown’s proposed referendum states that the state’s current transportation crisis “is not as much about funding as it is about how the funding is spent, and vague proposals with no specifics about what constitutes the state’s ‘full universe of transportation needs’ is a drawback.”
The document also cites the Reason Foundation’s 21st Annual Report of the Performance of State Highways which shows Georgia’s rural roads ranking first in the nation, urban roads ranked fourth and the state’s overall roads ranked 13th.
HB 170 in its present form “is not revenue-neutral at the state or local levels” and would have a significant impact on local tax funding, especially local schools, as alleged in the proposed referendum. This is a feeling shared in many other jurisdictions, as a number of city councils and local governments have already gone on the record opposing the current bill.
The resolution cited a recent poll that found 64 percent of respondents would not support an increase in gasoline taxes, in addition to the 63 percent of metro Atlantans who opposed the T-SPLOST when it was on the ballot in 2012. Brown was a staunch opponent of the T-SPLOST and spoke repeatedly at public forums around the metro Atlanta area in the months before it failed passage.
The poll numbers are “indicating the State should re-evaluate transportation planning and funding philosophies,” the resolution states.
If passed, the resolution would support use of the entire state fuel tax on roads and bridges, and while imploring the legislature to make transportation a priority in the state’s budget, it notes that trust is weak in light of previous programs where funds were “hijacked for other purposes.”
Also suggested is that state legislators look long and hard at how federal gas taxes are spent, with around 25 percent of that money diverted to subsidize mass transit and other initiatives that show no signs of relieving traffic congestion.
The resolution “does hereby formally request that the State endeavor to become a national leader in transportation reform by making transportation a priority in the State’s budget, adopting specific plans dictating which projects will receive funding, concentrating on road and bridge infrastructure, eliminating proposed boondoggle projects such as transit rail with no rationale for implementation or justification based on certifiable traffic congestion relief standards, avoiding cost soaring Federal mandates with the State taking over the portion of the Federal gasoline tax.
“Be it further resolved that the Board of Commissioners of Fayette County requests that the State conduct itself in a manner where there is no harm inflicted upon county governments, city governments and school boards across Georgia.”
Brown called this proposed resolution “a response to legislative action being taken regarding transportation in the 2015 General Assembly. The resolution promotes intellectual honesty and fairness on the subject of taxation relative to resolving our regional transportation issues.”
