Lea Schuster: Sales-tax hike shouldn't be used to fill transit-funding shortfall

The current gap needs a permanent solution, not a short-term one.

By LEA SCHUSTER

Last update: March 27, 2008 - 7:30 PM

Tough economic times bring tough choices for state investments, but the Star Tribune editorial board was right in saying that now is not the time to cut transit service (Editorial, March 25). However, diverting more money from the funding that the new 0.25 cent sales tax will provide to keep the buses running is a serious mistake.

Before the 0.25 cent sales tax was passed, government officials, the business community and transit supporters outlined a need for a bare minimum of an additional $100 million per year for transit to maintain current service and meet the needs of the region's growing population. When the bill passed, the Legislature required a one-time transfer of $30 million in sales tax dollars to help support buses because revenue from the motor vehicle sales tax was down this year. This need was articulated before the governor outlined a plan for transit to take a $30 million cut from the general fund -- making the hole for bus funding even deeper. This cut would force transit to take a greater share of the budget cuts than any other state program.

As Metropolitan Council Chairman Peter Bell has stated, both today's bus service and tomorrow's hoped-for rail lines are now threatened if the governor (Bell's boss) continues to call for general fund cuts to transit.

The sales tax was not designed to fill a governor-imposed budget hole -- it was designed to address Minnesota's growing transit needs. This investment will more than pay for itself by attracting new development and reducing traffic delays and pollution. County officials, who are courageously initiating the new sales tax for critical new transitways, should not have to prop up the bus system. Rather, legislators -- and county commissioners -- should tell the governor to stop threatening to cut bus funding and stop putting our future transit system at risk.

Lea Schuster is executive director of Transit for Livable Communities.

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