County and town weigh in on proposed statewide bill

Local voice necessary in statewide transportation discussion

By Crystal Kotowski

To mitigate the $9 billion gap in funding for the state’s transportation system, Colorado lawmakers introduced the bipartisan House Bill 17-1242, the New Transportation Infrastructure Funding Revenue on March 8, 2017. The Board of County Commissioners and the Crested Butte Town Council discussed the bill at a recent joint meeting.

As the Denver Post notes, the top priorities are the expansion of Interstate 70 through the mountains and the widening of Interstate 25 north and south of Denver. Local commissioners and councilmembers are trying to ensure a rural, local and Western Slope voice remains in the discussion.

“We want to make sure that if this sales tax passes in November it doesn’t go to fund more interstates solely on the Front Range. We want to make sure that funds get brought back into our communities,” said Crested Butte mayor Glenn Michel.

The legislative deal would ask voters in November to pass a 0.62 percent state sales tax increase, to 3.52 percent from 2.9 percent, to raise $677 million a year for transportation, including bike paths and transit.

If approved by the voters, the tax would start in January 2018 and remain in place for 20 years—accruing $3.5 billion. The new revenue generated is allocated solely for transportation infrastructure funding purposes.

Specific projects to be funded are required to be included in the 2017 ballot information booklet provided to voters.

“One of the things we’re aware of is that the increase in sales tax would put Crested Butte’s sales tax at over 10 percent. We don’t know where that tipping point is… that’s something we want to remain aware of,” said Michel, noting the Crested Butte Town Council had not yet taken a position on the bill. “Our one solace we had as a group in the past was that every municipality would have the increase—it wouldn’t be like, ‘Oh, Crested Butte has such a high sales tax.’”

Gunnison County commissioners attended the hearing for the bill before the House Transportation and Energy Committee, and county commissioner Phil Chamberland noted that 79 people testified.

“We’ve been talking about this for years. All of us on the Western Slope in resort communities have all kept saying there’s no nexus between sales tax and highways,” Chamberland noted, explaining the county’s position on the bill. “To which some people have countered there is, because everything you buy had to get to a store on a highway. The issue we’ve all pushed for is an increase in the gas tax, because we feel there is a good nexus there. But they polled the VMT [vehicle miles traveled], sales tax and gas tax and the only one that comes close to 50 percent [support] in the polls is the sales tax.”

“I’m definitely a bigger fan of a fuel tax than a sales tax,” said county commissioner Jonathan Houck. “But one thing I noticed that is of benefit to our communities is that the sales tax is a much easier pitch so as to make a substantial amount of the funding go to transportation. With a fuel tax, it’s easier to narrow that window and say that as fuels are for vehicles, it should be all about roads… We don’t want to lose the opportunity to have a statewide solution transportation.”

The transportation bill cleared the second House reading on March 31; it will receive a third hearing in the House before moving to the Senate.