LANSING – Governor Rick Snyder’s proposal to increase the gasoline tax and vehicle registration fees is not likely to see any traction the Senate, but the idea of an increase in those areas in a different form is still open for debate.
Snyder has proposed increasing the fuel tax to 33 cents per gallon from the current 19 cents for regular fuel and 15 cents for diesel as well as a 60 percent hike in vehicle registration fees on light vehicles and 25 percent boost on those for heavy trucks.
“With regards to the specific increases, (Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville) is not supportive of that form,” said Amber McCann, Richardville’s (R-Monroe) spokesperson. “He thinks it’s a non-starter. He’s still open to talking about how we resolve the issue of road funding.”
Asked if Richardville’s position on the governor’s proposal is representative of the entire Senate Republican caucus, she said, “that is not representative of the whole caucus, but overall this is a non-starter in our caucus.”
Though Rep. Wayne Schmidt (R-Traverse City), chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, had not heard about the statement by Richardville, he said after committee that nothing is off the table in the House and that is the way it will likely continue.
“I want to review his comments and see and talk with the speaker before I really issue any statement on that,” he said.
Sen. Roger Kahn (R-Saginaw Township), chair of the Senate Infrastructure Modernization Committee (which held a joint meeting with Schmidt’s committee Thursday), was in about the same position.
“There’s more than one way to skin a cat I’ve been told. The point is that at the end of the day, we have to have good roads in Michigan,” Kahn told reporters. “We want to save lives, save money and create jobs.”
Kirk Steudle, director of the Department of Transportation, seemed more uneasy about taking anything off the table at this point, noting that the state essentially has four categories by which it can collect revenue for transportation and all-out eliminating one or two leaves you with that many fewer options to spread the funding hole among.
“At the end of the day, to fund transportation is going to take some form of revenue or change or something. So while I understand people not liking one or the other, the fact of the matter is … we have to pay for the roads that we’re using today and we’re not,” Steudle said. “That’s really it. We’re passing a huge deficit on to the next generation of road users that are going to be stuck with a huge bill.”
Some other suggestions were made at the joint committee hearing on Thursday as to ways to help fill the hole, including phasing in a transportation overhaul and changing the definition of a lien to instead reflect a tax, ideally allowing locals to vote on and fund their local maintenance issues, for instance.
Rep. Michael McCready (R-Bloomfield Hills) suggested somehow phasing in the funding overhaul so as to at least get the ball moving on transportation funding.
“Sometimes when you set a goal, that goal isn’t always achievable in that first year, but if you did things incrementally we might be able to get there,” McCready said.
But that didn’t entirely fly with Mr. Schmidt or Steudle.
“That’s some interesting points, the phase-ins, the demonstration projects,” Schmidt said. “There’s certainly a need for it, but I think we’re going to have to move ahead. Some of the other studies already show the longer we delay and we’ve seen that time and time again, delaying is really not an option.”
And Steudle said that would put the state “further down the curve” in a deepening debt needed to fix roads.
Another idea in the works comes from Sen. John Pappageorge (R-Troy) and McCready by using special assessment district bonds.
“We have a system now whereby if a local neighborhood wants to fix the street or the curb in front of their house, they can form a special assessment district bond for it and it becomes a lien for your property,” Pappageorge said. “To do that you have to have a petition and enough people have to sign up to say it’s a good thing to do.”
He said the difficulty with that comes when a person signs on to such a petition, but then moves after two years while the petition was for, say, 10. But if the Legislature changes the definition of a lien to a tax, the people who are present in the home at the time would pay their share and the next incoming owner would still be paying theirs.
“(McCready) says in his area, it represents millions. Is it going to be easy to change a lien to a tax?” Pappageorge said. “I doubt it. But nevertheless it’s going to be something that the two of us are going to pursue.”
Schmidt found merit in the idea, but Kahn was a little apprehensive.
“That’s not a bad idea. I know as a former neighborhood president and as a (member of the) county commissioners, that’s a pretty good way to go,” Schmidt said. “I remember selling my first house and we had a lighting assessment for neighborhood lighting and had to deal with that issue, and it was part of the closing deal. So I’m willing to look at it.”
Kahn said it was unclear how that aspect could be turned into part of this discussion, though.
“It could be part of the discussion that the governor has had about an additional $300 million of local option money,” he said. “But even there it’s tenuous and difficult because it requires you to buy into the notion that if we make this change that they will pass road funding at a local level.
Kahn said he didn’t mind making changes to make it easier for people to be able to do things but was uncomfortable making a judgment that such an avenue was “new money.”
Rep. Marilyn Lane (D-Fraser) has also continued to suggest increasing the penalties and enforcement for overweight trucks, an idea in which Sen. Jack Brandenburg (R-Harrison Township) has also expressed interest.
Whatever does or does not happen, Steudle said he regards all ideas as part of the process.
“This is legislative stirring of the pot. This is legislative stirring of the soup. And it’s not soup yet,” Steudle said. “There’s a solution that’s going to pop out, I’m confident of that. It will probably have pieces of this and it could have something completely new, but that’s what this process really is for.”
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