Transportation panel favors user fees over tax boosts

DENVER - A statewide transportation planning panel decided Thursday that most of the additional $1 billion-plus that members say is needed for state roads each year should come from user fees rather than general tax increases.

The Blue Ribbon Transportation Panel appointed by Gov. Bill Ritter is one of several task forces looking at increasing funding for areas such as health care, education and developmental disability services.

Though it has not recommended a specific plan for how to find more cash, the transportation panel became the first of the commissions to say that it wants to charge more to the people who use the service rather than the general population.

The effect on motorists could be significant — proposals to quintuple the annual vehicle registration fee and double the state gas tax were among those discussed at the meeting at the Colorado History Museum.

Members also debated the idea of including in any funding package some sort of general revenue increase, such as increasing the state sales tax or the severance tax that is charged to companies that take minerals and oil and gas from the ground in Colorado.

But the firmest decision made in the panel’s next-tolast-scheduled meeting before it pitches a plan to Ritter was to get at least 60 percent of any new funding for roads from sources directly connected to the use of those roads.

The proposal was offered by Dan Stuart, a former Colorado Transportation Commission member from Manitou Springs.

State Treasurer Cary Kennedy, a panel co-chair, noted that a technical advisory committee had gone so far earlier this week as to recommend that no new road money come from general taxes.

“User fees are more fair,” said panelist Will Toor, a Boulder County commissioner.

Transportation experts agree that a new funding system is needed to maintain state roads that are becoming more congested and falling into disrepair more quickly. The rise of fuel-efficient and alternative-fuel vehicles has sent the gas-tax revenues that have funded roads for 75 years into decline, and the 22-cent state gas tax has not been increased since 1991.

One of the most popular ideas among panelists is not only to raise the gas tax but to index it for inflation so that it does not lose buying power as it has over the past 16 years. Proposals to hike it anywhere from 6 cents to 22 cents per gallon were considered Thursday.

Also popular is raising the annual vehicle registration fee, which now averages less than $30 (only a portion of what motorists pay when they renew their license plates), and dedicating new proceeds to roads. Some members suggested raising it by $120 — essentially increasing the current fee fivefold — but most discussions had the hike at $60 to $100.

Panelists, who will try to determine specific funding packages to recommend to Ritter at their Nov. 15 meeting, also discussed hikes of about a halfcent to the state sales-tax rate and increases of various levels to the severance tax rate, an idea popular among several task forces. Many panelists spoke favorably of creating a visitors’ fee of $3 to $6 per day that would be charged on hotel rooms and rental cars, generating as much as $200 million.

Members have discarded earlier ideas to raise the state income-tax level and to seek a statewide property tax for roads. They also have set aside alternative funding methods such as increasing toll lanes or developing a system to track drivers’ mileage totals and charge them based on that, though the advisory committee recommended undertaking a pilot program on the latter.

In addition to recommending funding formulas, the panel must suggest how much to spend to make significant changes to state roadways. A number of members backed the idea of asking the Legislature and voters to give the state $1.5 billion more a year, more than doubling the current budget for highways.

Some outside observers believe that number to be politically unrealistic, with health care advocates expected to seek a similar funding infusion and other groups likely to try to take tax hikes of various forms to the ballot. But Limon Town Administrator Joe Kiely, a panelist, said it would be useless to seek a more palatable increase if it does not greatly improve state roads.

“Are we going to make decisions based on political expediency or on our vision for transportation?” Kiely asked Thursday.