County must come to terms with road funding

Thurston County commissioners are reckoning with a road-repair funding problem that afflicts many local jurisdictions around Washington. To keep up, the commissioners want to raise more money than what flows into its road funds from a share of state gas taxes and other sources.

A proposed $20 car tab fee on vehicle owners in unincorporated areas of the county would raise an estimated $1.8 million yearly to help keep roads from deteriorating.

At a recent public meeting, it became clear that some county voters hate paying more for their roads — or perhaps for anything else. Unfortunately, there’s nothing free about keeping up highways, streets and rural roadways.

That’s a financial lesson learned by some 90 cities and a few counties that have already created Transportation Benefit Districts. Many cities have raised local car tab or other fees under authority provided by state legislators in 2007.

The financial squeeze felt by local jurisdictions is the same fiscal reality faced up to by the Legislature in 2015. Lawmakers had grappled for years with the growing cost for maintenance and expansion of the state highway system. In a bipartisan agreement, lawmakers approved a $16 billion transportation funding package that raised the state gas tax by 11.9 cents and enacted other fees to generate an estimated $16 billion through 2031.

Locally, the Olympia City Council imposed a $20 car tab fee a few years ago and may double it soon to pay for local road work. Tumwater voters agreed to raise the city share of the sales tax last year for the same purpose — sidewalks and potholes. And Lacey is looking at a ballot measure in February that would add $20 to the fee for yearly vehicle licenses.

The Thurston County proposal is to impose the fee on vehicle owners in unincorporated areas, using the funds for maintenance, according to Ramiro Chavez, interim county manager. County Commissioner Cathy Wolfe said the county road fund is simply not keeping up and won’t.

Options are limited. Commissioners could enact an impact fee in the industrial areas of the county. But the county already has traffic impact fees, and an additional fee would not raise much, said Chavez. Alternatively, commissioners — acting as the county Transportation Benefit District board — may impose a $20 fee this year and another $20 two years later, if needed, by a simple majority vote. Or they could go to the ballot.

The alternative is to do less preservation work. That is a bad idea. Repairs are cheaper if carried out when roads are showing wear, more costly when paving crumbles.

Thurston County would become first county to raise fees to pay for a TBD, according to the Municipal Research and Services Center.

Raising revenue to fix roads makes sense. Commissioners could help allay public fears by offering more specifics about how funds are likely to be spent.

This story was originally published September 6, 2016 at 9:30 PM with the headline "County must come to terms with road funding."