LANSING – The flooding that struck the metro Detroit region last week could provide a chance for supporters of a sales tax increase for road and infrastructure funding to push for a vote on the issue, an official with the Michigan Association of Counties said Monday.
The association has backed an increase in the state’s sales tax by 1 percentage point to 7 percent per dollar, and Steve Currie, deputy director of the MAC, said that the increase could raise $1.5 billion.
It is not only the flooding that turned Detroit-area freeways into rivers and flooded thousands of buildings – and which was partly exacerbated to failures in pumping stations along the freeways – but the fact that 92 percent of the local millage issues put on the ballot for the August primary were approved by voters, Currie said.
The MAC took a position earlier in the year to call for an increase in the sales tax, Currie said, and to encourage the state to distribute the funds via the formula currently used that was established in PA 51 of 1951.
Lawmakers failed to reach an agreement on the issue of increased funding before leaving for the primary campaign. The House passed a proposal that would allocate more than $400 million to roads and infrastructure, but the Senate did not act on it and a dispute simmered last week over which side wanted to deal with a comprehensive proposal.
Currie said following the severe winter that wreaked massive damage to the roads, the flooding that struck the Detroit area and the approval of the local tax proposals, the public seems ready to accept a tax increase to deal with roads.
Increasing taxes on fuel seems a long-term losing proposition since drivers are trying to use less fuel, Mr. Currie said.
He said the group’s members support the proposed increase and the time seems opportune to encourage public support for a proposed sales tax increase.
And to criticisms that a sales tax increase would affect individuals that do not drive or use public transportation, Currie said the public uses the highway system even if they do not drive, getting goods delivered to their residences, for example.
An increase in the sales tax requires approval by a two-thirds majority of both houses of the Legislature and an affirmative vote of the public. Seeing such a proposed increase put on the November ballot would be a stretch, Currie said. The Legislature would have to act within days to make the deadline to do so.
Practically, if a proposal is moved the earliest it would likely come would be in March, Currie said, which would likely mean some action on the issue during the lame-duck session. Currie noted that the issue of transportation, along with virtually anything else, could come up during that time.
