[bouldercouncilhotline] Hotline: proposal for Aug 5th ballot discussions

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Sender: Becker, KC

On August 5, 
City Council will consider ballot items on 2nd reading. Although at first reading, we did vote to put a short term 5 year .15 transportation sales tax on the ballot,  we did not vote
 to connect this to the .15 sales tax which expires in 2019.  Concerns raised were that we shouldn't use this expiring sales tax for additional transportation funding because there might be alternatives available and because our ballot was becoming too long. 



 Suzy and I would like Council to re-consider putting the  existing .15 on the ballot this year under the following parameters:


1. It should be dedicated to transportation for 10 years, starting in 2020 and going til 2030, and 
2. It should tie to the temporary .15 sales tax for transportation which would go for 6 years, from 2014 to 2019


Here are the reasons that support this proposal:


2. Advantages to including the existing .15 this year:


There are important reasons to put it on the ballot this year. Transportation has been studying its funding issues for several years now and Council has held several study
 sessions on these issues this year alone. Council fell short of its goal to address the long term structural funding shortfall that exists for our Transportation Department.  5 years does not provide the stability, certainty or longevity that Transportation
 needs.  Transportation needs a longer planning horizon than just the 5 years which is currently proposed. There is real logic to having the temporary sales tax bridge to renewal of the existing .15 sales tax.  With only the short term tax, that logic is gone.
 Voters are left with significant uncertainty about how we are going to provide for basic transportation infrastructure.  Voters may have a harder time accepting a 5 year Transportation tax that doesn't appear connected to any other funding or action. 


Additionally, transportation advocates have committed to supporting a measure which addresses Transportation's structural funding issues this year. We should use that
 commitment to put a longer-term solution in place. 


1. A long ballot? 


We are not concerned about a long ballot: all of our ballots are long, and this is a sales tax renewal which usually is not controversial or complicated. Previous ballots
 with multiple taxes have passed (most recently, in 2010 when there were 4 tax measures).  If any measures fail, Council can try again next year without any real negative consequence. There is no evidence from Boulder to suggest that a long ballot leads to
 failed ballot measures. Also, while we don't think there is much reason to think that it would fail, if it did, it would be good to know now.


2. Other funding mechanisms for transportation?


Some council members stated that they wondered if other transportation funding solutions existed that hadn't been fully explored. Some questioned whether there were funding
 mechanisms that were tied more directly to transportation behavior. However,  transportation funding has been studied more than any other funding initiative in the last several years and behavior-modifying solutions are not easily made.  We draw Council's
 attention to the attached matrix, prepared by staff.   We'll highlight a few things here:


a. Head tax:  While  we don't think a future head tax in Boulder is out of the question,  we do think that it could only pass if it had the support of the business community.
 The business community would only support a head tax if it addressed needs specific to the business community. While we think transportation is one of those needs, it is not the only need. It is likely that a head tax that included full funding for transportation
 as one of a variety of programs would either be too costly to support or it would cut into transportation funding to keep it modest. Additionally, while a head tax does reach in-commuters (which would be a way to capture the transportation impact of commuting
 into Boulder), it fails to capture people who commute out of Boulder, school trips, people who don't work at all, and possibly people who work from home. So it essentially provides no more of a logical nexus to transportation and funding than a TMF or other
 proposals we've considered. Nor does a head tax modify behavior: it gets charged whether an employee travels mostly by bike, bus, carpool, or single occupant vehicle. If the goal of a head tax that funds transportation is to capture in-commuters, a sales tax
 does that already.  In addition, a head tax is regressive: a worker at Chipotle pays the same amount as a highly paid CEO.


b. Transportation Maintenance Fee: this idea has already been shot down by Council, so we don't think it's worth resurrecting at this point. 


c. VMT, Parking Fees and other behavior-changing funding mechanisms:  we appreciate the desire to implement a transportation funding mechanism that works to change people's
 commuting and traveling behaviors. However, these mechanisms are either too remote in time and technology, or politically infeasible.  A VMT would need to be state or region-wide. A parking fee on private property is politically infeasible and would need to
 be piloted on a small scale level. Other behavior-changing funding mechanisms are too vague to count on in the 5 year horizon that the temporary sales tax would provide. However, recognizing Council's desire to continue to explore behavior-changing funding
 proposals, a key reason for making a 10 year sunset for the .15 sales tax extension is that it is short enough to allow for new ideas or technology to emerge to replace a sales tax while being long enough to give Transportation some funding certainty. 


Therefore, we'd like to ask Staff to prepare ballot language for first reading which puts the .15 sales tax expiring in 2019 on the ballot for Transportation this year.
 This proposal would give Transportation 16 years of additional revenue at approximately $4.1 million per year