This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2006, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Just two counties - Utah and Salt Lake - have on their November ballots proposals to boost sales tax by a quarter-cent to pay for mass transit and highways.
But only Salt Lake County is asking voters to approve a measure the Legislature passed in a special session Sept. 19.
If the county's voters approve, the vote will raise sales taxes by a quarter-cent, bringing the portion dedicated to transit to three-quarters of a cent. But a good portion of the increase will be dedicated to linking Utah County commuter rail with the rest of the Wasatch Front. As a result, some of the new planned TRAX lines might have to wait.
That's because Utah County has for six years declined to tax itself for commuter rail. Now, for the system to be complete, Salt Lake County needs to build its section, too. Those in Salt Lake County who question the fairness of the situation ought to just look at the county as a progressive leader working toward a needed regional mass-transit system, said County Councilman Joe Hatch.
"Sometimes it's more expensive to be a leader and cheaper to be a follower," he said.
County Councilman Mark Crockett has a different view.
"Commuter rail to Utah County doesn't do anything for Salt Lake County," he said. "So what is it we're really doing with this county's money?"
Thrashing it out: The councilmen were among those meeting Thursday at a joint meeting of the Salt Lake County Council and the county Council of Governments, a body made up of all the mayors and some other city leaders.
The groups sought to figure out how to meet the requirements of the new tax-hike law, which requires analysis and ranking of all potential transit and highway projects.
Wasatch Front Regional Council Executive Director Chuck Chappell had the unenviable task of distilling hundreds of hours of mathematics and engineering conducted by the planning organization's staff into a briefing the mayors and council members could understand and vote on.
Sometimes, the explanations were so convoluted and bewildering all they could do was laugh. Taylorsville Mayor Russ Wall even pleaded for relief for those among them who lacked degrees in statistical analysis.
In the end, they accepted Chappell's recommendations, which still must receive approval from the House and Senate members who compose the Legislature's Executive Appropriations Committee.
The committee isn't scheduled to meet until Oct. 17. If the committee disagrees with the formula, county leaders won't be able to tell voters specifically what $50 million in potential annual tax revenues would buy, and when.
Trading taxes: The sales tax measure replaced a property tax proposal that would have committed $895 million to build four TRAX light-rail lines that would connect West Jordan, South Jordan, West Valley City, Draper and Salt Lake City International Airport with the light-rail line that parallels Interstate 15.
The Utah Transit Authority and Salt Lake County Council had backed the property tax proposal because they wanted to see the TRAX lines completed by 2014 rather than 2030 or beyond. At the time, a property tax bond was the only way to pay for the construction.
But the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce, which opposes property tax increases, instead pushed a sales tax proposal that would allow counties to increase transportation-related sales taxes to three-quarters of a cent instead of the half-cent allowed since 2000. The quarter-cent sales tax increase would raise more money than the property tax and would be more acceptable to voters, chamber representatives said.
The County Council, when it put the property tax measure on the Nov. 7 ballot, committed to swapping it out for a sales tax hike if the Legislature made it possible.
The county didn't know when it endorsed the sales tax measure what it finally would look like. Because it was crafted behind closed doors by Republican state lawmakers, only a select few saw the proposal before it was introduced.
The new law passed by a landslide - but not unanimously.
Powerful lawmakers including GOP Sens. Lyle Hillyard and Mike Waddoups spoke passionately against it, calling it bad policy. They questioned the motives of its Utah and Davis county sponsors and accused supportive lawmakers of ducking responsibility by pushing critical transportation spending onto county-level elected officials instead of taking the heat themselves.
Waddoups said lawmakers were crossing a line by using the sales tax measure to quash the Salt Lake County TRAX property tax bond. "It really looks like you're punishing them for having the guts to put it on the ballot," he said.
Privately, some who backed the property tax grumbled that its original purpose - speedy completion of the TRAX lines - had been pushed aside. Even House Speaker Greg Curtis of Draper, who helped drive the sales tax bill, admitted its passage would mean all the TRAX lines could not possibly be running by 2014.
Transit awareness: Utah County also has a sales tax increase measure on its Nov. 7 ballot. But it's not the same one Salt Lake County voters will consider. Instead, it is the so-called Alexander tax.
That quarter-cent tax option was crafted in 2003 to allow maximum flexibility in highway and transit spending. At the time, lawmakers refused to earmark a portion to commuter rail, which meant UTA couldn't borrow the money necessary to build the Utah County leg.
The Alexander tax, named for its Republican sponsor, Rep. Jeff Alexander of Provo, was on the ballot briefly in 2003, but was removed when state lawmakers from Utah County assured county commissioners that road and rail funds could be found elsewhere.
Meanwhile, the county's population exploded. In 2000, Utah County had 369,000 residents. Now, it has more than 435,000.
The Utah Department of Transportation hopes to begin rebuilding Interstate 15 through the county by 2013 if money can be found to do so.
The county has no other north-south traffic arteries. Unless it gets rail service to get commuters out of their cars, I-15 traffic during the reconstruction will slow to a near-halt, bottling up travel and commerce on one of the nation's most important transportation corridors.
On the ballot: The Utah County Commission decided to go ahead with an earmarked tax-hike proposal. If voters approve it, 87 percent of the $30 million in annual revenues would go to commuter rail, 8 percent to roads and 5 percent to other transit projects.
That would bring Utah County on par with Davis and Weber counties, whose residents pay a half-cent sales tax to pay for UTA bus service and commuter rail construction, said Utah County Commission Chairman Larry Ellertson.
Ellertson, also a member of the UTA Board of Directors, said he's optimistic Utah County residents will approve the tax.
"My hope would be that the voters would pass it . . . knowing just exactly what it would mean to them personally," he said.
Davis County is considering the new tax for the 2007 ballot, said County Commissioner Alan Hansen. But because he sees the legislation as engineered for Salt Lake County, he believes it ought to be amended.
Mostly, he doesn't believe Davis County needs to endure the kind of close supervision the Legislature is requiring of Salt Lake County.
"If there are things that need to be tweaked," he said, "we can talk to legislators about that."