Vance Smith: Statewide Sales Tax Hike For Transportation Won't Fly

(3/4/08) Advocates of increased funding for transportation have been pushing several tax options during this session of the Georgia Legislature, but now one of them apparently is off the table.

House Transportation Chairman Vance Smith, who had favored a statewide sales tax increase for addressing the state’s massive backlog of transportation needs, said it is now apparent the measure - a proposed constitutional amendment - can’t get the super-majority of 120 votes it would need to pass the House.

“I haven’t dropped the idea, but I’ve come up with another concept,” he said Monday.

The new proposal - also a constitutional amendment requiring voter approval in November - would allow the state’s Regional Development Commissions to look at transportation needs in their regions and then seek voter approval in a referendum to raise the sales tax in participating counties by up to one penny.

RDC’s are regional agencies composed of elected officials from the counties they serve. There currently are 16 RDCs, although pending legislation would reduce the number to 12.

The new proposal is somewhat similar to a transportation-funding measure approved in the Senate a few weeks ago. That measure, also a constitutional amendment requiring voter approval in November, would allow one or more counties to ask permission from their voters to impose a local or regional sales tax increase for specific transportation projects for specific periods of time. The measure is now in the House.

Smith said he believes the Senate proposal wouldn’t produce the kind of money or results the state needs but that widening the geographic area to RDC boundaries would enable the program to touch smaller counties in addition to the bigger ones.