Commissioner Murman quoted in this Tampa Bay Times article on transportation workshop:
Is a third time — and a 15-year tax — the charm for Hillsborough’s transportation needs?
Wednesday, May 11, 2016 7:37pm
TAMPA — Is 15 the magic number?
The Hillsborough County Commission has already said “no” to a proposal to raise the sales tax for 30 years to pay for transportation needs. A 20-year tax hike was shot down as well.
Now, commissioners will consider raising the sales tax by a half cent on each dollar spent for a duration of 15 years in the hopes they’ll finally reach a consensus on how to finance much-needed road and transit projects.
After a year of twists and turns and stops and restarts, it’s anyone guess if this latest transportation proposal can pass. But commissioners voted 5-2 Wednesday to at least advance it to a public hearing. The date of the hearing is to be determined.
If it passes, voters will have a say in a November referendum.
Commissioners Sandy Murman and Stacy White, who both opposed raising the sales tax for 20 and 30 years, voted “no.”
Before the vote, Commissioner Ken Hagan advised his colleagues not to push this measure to a public hearing unless they intend to approve it. He did not want a repeat of the contentious, late-night April 27 public hearing that ended with the commission killing off the 20- and 30-year plans by narrow 4-3 votes. Commissioners Victor Crist and Al Higginbotham were the other two no votes on April 27. But on Wednesday they voted to give the 15-year option a public hearing.
Still, neither committed to supporting it. After the meeting, Higginbotham said he was undecided but added: “A shorter-term tax gives me a lot less heartburn.”
The decision to suddenly consider raising the sales tax from 7 percent to 7.5 percent for a 15-year period — which had never been previously discussed — came after commissioners scuttled other potential funding streams for transportation.
Hagan went one-by-one through some of the options and asked his colleagues to vote whether they should be on or off the table.
First, the commission voted 7-0 against dipping into $968 million in reserves, fearing it would hurt the county’s bond rating. That included leaving intact $22.7 million from the BP oil spill settlement.
Next, they unanimously decided not to touch the budget for the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office and followed it up with a 6-1 vote to leave the rest of the constitutional officers, like the clerk of the circuit court and the property appraiser, unscathed as well. Crist, who had previously called for a 2.5 percent across-the-board budget cut, voted no.
Then, they said they wouldn’t touch the fire and rescue budget.
Finally, Hagan brought up the fuel tax, a key pillar of a November proposal from Murman. At the time, Murman suggested the county could fund transportation by raising the gas tax from 7 cents for every dollar spent at the pump to 12 cents.
At this point, Murman sensed a set up. “I think what’s happening here,” she said, “is we take things off the table, we’re going to get backed into a corner and back to the referendum, and I don’t want to go there.”
But that’s exactly what happened.
After the commission voted 5-2 against a gas tax hike and 7-0 not to consider raising the utility tax, Commissioner Kevin Beckner reintroduced a referendum to raise the sales tax.
Beckner said it was the “only viable funding source” that could pay for infrastructure and transit. Raising the sales tax by a half cent would generate $117.5 million a year.
Murman contended the commission still hadn’t exhausted all of its options. “It’s premature,” Murman said. “I thought we agreed to go back into our budget.”
A 15-year surcharge would be the latest iteration of a sales tax hike to pay for roads, bridges, sidewalks and buses and other transit. The first came in 2010 when the county said a full cent sales tax increase for 30 years was necessary to pay for all the transportation needs here. That failed in a referendum.
Then, last summer County Administrator Mike Merrill recommended commissioners cut the request to a half cent tax for 30 years, insisting voters would find it more palatable. On April 27, a majority of commissioners defeated that plan.
For those keeping track at home, that means with this latest proposal commissioners are considering cutting in half what was already 50 percent of what the county said it needed six years ago.
Whether there’s support in the community for a 15-year tax is also unknown.
The Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce, the region’s largest business group, endorsed a half-cent sales tax hike but only if it was for 20 or more years. Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn, whose city can’t levy the tax on its own, said he would only get behind a 30-year surcharge because he needed a long-term revenue stream to finance a train he wants to build from downtown to Tampa International Airport.
Conservatives on the right and even some factions on the left opposed any sales tax increase.
Hagan said his exercise demonstrated that “limitations on funding options is beginning to set into this board.”
“The reality is the money isn’t there,” he added.
But Murman said the decision to move forward won’t convince the public.
“Basically we’re back to discussions on our sales tax without going into our budget,” she said.
To that end, the commission also voted to explore creating a citizens’ task force to take a fresh look at the budget.
“I think that there’s more in there (to cut),” Crist said, “and I would like to have an objective, outside perspective of it.”
Beckner responded with a challenge to his fellow commissioners:
“Step up, own what you want to cut and bring it back to the board.”
