By Michele Fuetsch, Staff Reporter This story appears in the Aug. 11 print edition of Transport Topics.
Missouri voters last week defeated a proposed constitutional amendment that could have raised as much as $6 billion by increasing the state’s sales tax to pay for infrastructure improvements.
The Aug. 5 ballot measure asked voters to raise the tax to 5 cents from 4.225 cents for 10 years, during which the state would have been prohibited from increasing its 17-cents-a-gallon fuel tax or tolling roads.
The losing vote (59% to 41%) was disappointing for the trucking industry and other transportation advocates who have tried for years to find more funding for the state’s transportation network.
“Without any changes in the foreseeable future at the state or federal level, we’re going to be below the number that we need to maintain the system that we have currently, so it’ll be a challenge,” said Tom Crawford, president of the Missouri Trucking Association.
The state needs $485 million a year to maintain the system, said Department of Transportation spokeswoman Holly Dentner.
Crawford said he went to the state Highway Commission meeting the day after the election “and the challenges they had yesterday are the same challenges they had today. They just know now that they’re not going to get any additional funding to meet those challenges.”
State spending on transportation has been dropping for years, as costs outstripped Missouri’s ability to improve its roads.
The budget, which averaged $1.3 billion annually between 2005 and 2010, is only $700 million this year, and by 2017, without new revenue or federal aid, will drop to $325 million, state officials said.
Voters, however, are tax adverse even when the issue is roads, Crawford said.
In 2002, more than 70% of voters rejected a transportation funding plan that would have increased the fuel tax by 4 cents and the sales tax by a half cent.
This time around, in an attempt to win voter support, the state listed 800 road projects that would have been paid for by the new revenue had the sales tax measure passed.
The projects included the widening of parts of Interstate 70, a major freight route, and replacing a bridge on Interstate 25.
Crawford said Gov. Jay Nixon’s opposition to the sales tax measure presented a challenge.
Nixon’s press secretary, Scott Holste, told Transport Topics by e-mail on Aug. 6: “Missourians spoke clearly yesterday that they are not willing to shoulder a $6 billion tax hike while special interests are being showered with special tax breaks, and the heaviest users of our roads are given a free pass.”
Shortly before the Republican-dominated state Legislature voted to put the transportation tax question on the ballot, the lawmakers voted to reduce taxes on the wealthy and corporations, a plan Democrat Nixon vetoed.
When lawmakers overrode his veto, Nixon accused them of shifting the state’s tax burden from user fees and the wealthy to those least able, such as seniors, to pay higher sales taxes.
Nixon then put the measure on the August ballot rather than the November ballot, which may have helped defeat it, Crawford said.
