Brent Batten: Saad on taxes: Don't go down that road

Naples City Councilman Sam Saad

Tax increases are looming down the road.

The fact that the road may be congested and bumpy may even hasten their arrival.

A statewide advisory committee looking into Florida's anticipated shortfall in money to build and maintain roads is eyeing a list of ideas including a 10-cent per gallon increase in the state's gas tax and an entirely new system of taxing motorists based on the number of miles they drive.

Naples City Councilman Sam Saad III sits on the Florida Metropolitan Planning Organization Advisory Council and voted against sending the list of 13 options to a consultant so they can be turned into actionable items, like draft legislation.

Saad recognizes the state is facing a transportation funding deficit. "We're woefully underfunded," he acknowledges. But raising taxes isn't the right approach, he said.

First, the state Legislature should stop raiding the Transportation Trust Fund to plug holes in the general budget, Saad said.

Last year, the Legislature took $150 million from the fund. The year before, then- Gov. Charlie Crist vetoed a $160 million sweep the Legislature sought. In 2009, Crist allowed $120 million to be taken from the fund for other uses. With the state facing a $1 billion budget shortfall this year, another raid is possible.

But Howard Glassman, executive director of the MPOAC, said securing the trust fund alone won't be enough to meet the state's needs in the coming years.

"The shortfall is enormous. There is a decline in anticipated revenues and an increase in anticipated needs. There's billions in needs. Billions and billions," Glassman said. Make that $62 billion over the next 20 years, according to a 2008 assessment of the state's transportation requirements.

People are driving fewer miles in vehicles that are more fuel efficient, cutting into the gas tax revenue that helps fund roads and mass transit in the state. Inflation is eating away at the purchasing power of the dollars that are collected, Glassman said.

The big ticket item on the list of options is an increase in the state's fuel tax of two cents per year for five years, resulting in a 10-cents per gallon increase once the escalation is complete. The would yield about $852 million a year, MPOAC documents state. Some members of the advisory board noted that the price of gas goes up or down 10 cents in a week under current conditions. People would barely notice a tax increase of that much spread over five years, the thinking goes. "That's not the point," Saad said. "It's a tax increase."

Increasing vehicle registration fees, indexing gas taxes to keep up with inflation and adding tolls to more roads are also on the list of alternatives.

One particularly sensitive option is a vehicle miles traveled tax. The thought of it conjures up images of transponders in cars with government tracking their movements. But Glassman said it doesn't have to work that way. The tax could be calculated by motorists annually reporting their odometer readings, much like they do when they register a vehicle today.

With the move toward higher fuel efficiency and electric cars, the gasoline tax becomes less and less reliable as a funding mechanism, Glassman said. At the same time, people are reluctant to embrace the idea. "A lot of my members are nervous about that one," he said.

None of the ideas in the MPOAC revenue study will be ready for the Legislature to consider this year. The goal is to have specific proposals in front of lawmakers when they meet in 2013. Even then, they may not be ripe for passage.

But eventually, the state is going to have to face its transportation funding shortfall. "At some point, the Legislature is going to have to take the bull by the horns and make some tough decisions," Glassman said. "It may take years, but at least we need to get the ball rolling."

On that point, at least, he and Saad agree. "The Legislature needs to make transportation a priority," Saad said.