Travis County Commissioners Court
March 4, 2008
Item 22
We have one other item before we complete today's work, and that is number 22, consider and take appropriate action on adding additional issues to the work plan of christopher shields and robert cam and company, the Travis County legislative advisory consultants, including the following, regional gas tax option for local governments, and indexing the Texas gas tax and I broadened the language in case there were other issues we needed to discuss today. And if we need to ratify specific items next week, we can do it. Mr. Cam and ms. Jones.
>> jarvis.
>> good afternoon, judge. Bob cam here. Chris shield hazard planned to be here. He had a meeting today with the lieutenant governor so we told him to go do that and we'd come over here. The sheet that --
>> but we're far more important, right?
>> I was going to say that, but I didn't want to say it in front of the lieutenant governor in case at late night he's flipping through the channels. We have -- we've been looking at a number of different issues on your behalf, and one of those was diversions from the state highway fund. And as we reported back to you individually -- we can try to pru vent or reduce the diversions from the state highway fund, so rather than do further work on that issue, we're going to recommend to you to look at his bill and if it accomplishes what you want it do, then to go ahead and endorse his bill and then we would work to support the chairman. And he said very much he would like to have the support of Travis County and all counties. So that issue we don't have a lot more information, so at that point Commissioner eckhardt had suggested two other topics that the court might want to look at. And we prepared a memo on those two issues, and that is the one that says legislative history local option gas tax/indexing the gas tax. And on that first half of the page we've tried to give you just a thumbnail sketch of what those two -- what those two issues are, what they mean, and then also what has happened in the legislative session during the last two sessions on these issues. And I値l start with the local option gas tax. That is in a general sense, it's an effort to give either a local area or region more control over the transportation projects that are developed in that region. And by having some taxing authority. And that was begun -- there have been bill floating around the last few sessions that do that. Senator barrientos had a bill in '05 that would have done that, and his bill would have allowed the county and/or other counties if they joined in to levee a tax on gas that's bought in Travis County or whatever the region that you might define. That money in turn under barrientos' bill would have gone to the regional mobility authority. And then the regional mobility authority could use that money for four defined purposes in the statute, those being primarily to aleve yat tolls or to alleviate lanes on highways that were going to be tolled, and instead they would be free lanes. There was the fourth permissible use of that money was for rapid trail. I知 not sure exactly the term they use, but it was for other than roads, and I think they were talking about rail, light rail or rail. So that's a typical type bill. Senator briemer from fort worth had a similar bill last session, but it was a little broader. It would have encompassed 10 counties in that dallas fort worth area. It would have created a new authority. So rather than the money going to the rma, that new authority would have had the ability to tax and then to use that money in their area to enhance and to complement what the state and federal government was doing. So the local option gas tax generally is an effort to give a county or region more control over the transportation projects in the region.
>> can you tell me the fate of each one of those? Do either one of those bills -- this.
>> that's a good question. Nothing passed on those bill.
>> well, there had to be some areas or pitfalls for these particular bills that were not successful. I don't know what trans sphierd on any of these bills. I don't remember the plight of them, if they got out of committee. I don't remember what scenario these particular bill or what category they fell in insofar as not being passed. My question, though, to you is whatever those things were and pitfalls that they fell into in the process, it would be good to know up front what they are -- what they were. And for us to maybe adjust accordingly as we go through this process. And that's the crux is how you get bills passed. What are the barriers that we have to hurdle to get there? I just feel to define what the barriers are or were at that time would be something good to know up front. And this is a new category, the latter one is, but these areas develop -- it's all new stuff. So I知 just trying to be ahead of it and try to see exactly what prohibits them -- what prohibited these bills from moving forward.
>> I need to interpret a little bit on that in terms of how I view it, but generally I think -- I mean, the answer is they did not have -- those bills did not have enough support among the legislature. The reason primarily were two. Number one, and particularly with the indexing the motor fuels, there was a large enough group of legislators that did not want to raise Texas. And the second point, particularly in these local options, they did not want to diffuse the authority of the state from road building. They weren't ready to give a county or a region the authority, at least taxing authority in that sense to go ahead with knees projects. I知 sorry, go ahead.
>> I don't mind you going on, but I知 just concerned about what's been happening here as far as us trying to track a lot of things. The state wanting to know whatever those particular legislators decide to do, not giving up authority to the state. However, right now we are in a crux situation where we do not even know how much money txdot even has or have available for road projects, period. I mean, there's a big question mark about the money and trying to investigate and find out how much money there really is on the table. Right now we don't know. I don't know. And a lot of folks say --
>> bob, would you sthai the chances to such a bill have increased because of the eroding confidence in txdot?
>> I think that's one of the --
>> hold on. But that is something that I think we need to paib look at is that particular factor as far as the money. I知 concerned about that. As things come forward, the accountability of what things are being suggested.
>> maybe I need to tell you what the chairman of the transportation committee has been saying, senator core coron. And I think he's indirectly certainly alluded to what Commissioner eckhardt said, but in the urban areas across Texas, particularly you can see it here, increased -- the traffic is getting worse and worse. And it appears that we have fewer dollars coming from the state and the federal government and then you all know the experience that we've had in central Texas with toll roads. And the opposition to that. So what senator corona is telling people when he goes out and speaks, that yes, the chances are better this session coming up to address some of these issues with these type of things. And we know he's going to introduce a bill that will index the motor fuels tax. I don't know if he will introduce a local option type bill, but I知 not sure he's going to oppose something like that. So to answer your question, Commissioner Davis, I think we anticipate and certainly the senator who's chair of that committee anticipates that it's going to be a better session-- there will be more opennance to looking at these type of solutions.
>> okay. Thank you for your comments.
>> and then just a brief explanation of the index of the motor fuels tax, those bills are all very similar and what they take is the -- I believe it's 20-cent motor fuels tax, state motor fuels tax that we currently have. An they will index that on an annual basis to either the consumer price index, which was mike krusee's bill or the cost index. So you have the chair of both transportation committees already out there on those ibz and it's a matter of whether or not they can get the votes during the next session. That's the way we're seeing the issue right now.
>> and the gasoline way likely to be way north of three dollars a gallon by the time they get here in 2009. You will have the same issue.
>> that's right. I think it's a good point. Now my mother told me at lunch that there's somewhere out in california that was just over four dollars a gallon.
>> we have many moving parts here and you're absolutely right that consideration is the rising price of gas. So on one hand you have the rising price of gas and the traditional lack of will to raise taxes, but on the other hand you have a rather hefty toll tax regime being implemented, eroding confidence in the state bureaucracy to handle maintenance, much less new construction and rescissions at the federal level. It seem like there's a lot of moving parts, but since it's a local option, all the girl for a regional gas tax have been local option bill, so I personally -- my personal opinion is I don't see a big down side from us advocating for this even if we chose not to implement it.
>> has there been any history somewhere in the country that are utilizing the concepts of these particular bills that's put before us today? Is there any success stories whereby this type of structure has been a benefit for maintenance and new road construction somewhere in this country under this concept?
>> Commissioner Davis. That's a good question. Our research was limited to what we did over the weekend. We have access to the different laws around the state. We can find that out for you and provide your office with a report. We can go through some of these national bodies and they have that information already and we can compile that for you and get it to y'all.
>> I move that we add these two item to our legislative list.
>> second.
>> discussion of the motion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. There are other issues that have been -- the jp issue? It was kind of minor.
>> they weren't ready for that yet, so if we can bring that back at another time.
>> okay. Any other issues?
>> I guess, judge, the only other thing I want to bring up is I guess y'all were aware that this court voted unanimously to go forward with the public opinion land use survey and hopefully the results of all of that will be intertwined into some format that is going to go before the legislature. So we want to make sure that you all are apprised of that and tuned into what happens with that survey.
>> and joe gieselman has kept us apprised of those developments over the last six weeks or so, yes.
>> okay. Thank you.
>> thank you.
>> thank you very much.
>> thank you.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, March 5, 2008 8:09 PM