Prescient Neanderthals
City officials are again conceding, this time in writing, what all us ignorant cavemen knew way back during the half-cent sales tax repeal vote: Charlotte’s transit system is wholly unsustainable. So naturally, the braintrust behind the plan wants “new long term revenue sources for transit.”
That’s government-speak for new taxes and/or fees and city officials are asking for authority to pursue such as part of their 2011 State Legislative Agenda, which will be rolled out during Monday night’s city council meeting. Specifically, the city wants to “explore alternate sources of revenue to supplement the local one-half percent sales and use tax for transit.”
The new “alternate sources of revenue” are absolutely essential, or so the argument goes, because the existing half-cent tax has cratered, leaving a projected shortfall of some $400 million over the next 10 years.
“The one-half percent sales and use tax is now unable to sustain the advancement of the 2030 Transit Corridor System Plan,” reads a draft copy of the city’s state legislative agenda wish list. “The Charlotte-Mecklenburg region needs additional sources of income in order to advance the 2030 Transit System Corridor Plan on a reasonable and foreseeable schedule.”
Note the use of “needs additional sources of income” language, when the more appropriate phrasing, of course, would be “wants additional sources of income.”
In any event, it’s a new tax that the city wants to feed its insatiable appetite for all things transit, most notably the kind that goes choo-choo and is sparkly and cool. Legislative authority to go after a new local tax, though, might be tough to come by, what with the state facing its own $3-billion funding gap and a new, supposedly more conservative and fiscally sane GOP majority in charge of both chambers of the General Assembly. We shall see.
Other goodies included in the city council’s state legislative agenda, which was developed by the council’s governmental affairs committee, chaired by Democrat Nancy Carter, and requires council approval before advancing include: support for additional funding for the criminal justice system, with a recommendation that allocations be based on an area’s proportion of the state’s crime problem; authorization for the city to use the design-build construction process for financing, operating or maintaining infrastructure; retain a 50-percent funding commitment from the state for any non-federal match of transit projects; adding public sidewalks to the city charter’s list of purposes that can use the “quick-take” process of eminent domain to acquire property.
The city also wants to preserve its existing form of the business privilege license tax, which last year dumped about $17 million into the city’s coffers. If the license tax is eliminated or changed, city officials argue it would be equivalent to a property tax hike of 2.5 cents to replace it.
The full state legislative agenda, which will be presented to the city council on Monday night, can be found here.
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