Vehicle fee hike may help fix roads
Registration cost would fund highway patrols
Arizona motorists could soon face a new $17 to $20 vehicle-registration fee as state lawmakers search for money to repair crumbling roads and bridges.
A coalition of Republicans and Democrats are pushing legislation that would create a new highway safety fee for motorists.
Ostensibly, the fee would pay for highway patrol operations. But, in a roundabout way, the fee is really about paying for road construction and repairs.
Rep. Noel Campbell, R-Prescott, introduced the bill that would create a new vehicle registration fee dedicated to funding highway patrol at the state Department of Public Safety.
“Nobody enjoys raising taxes, of course not,” he said during a hearing on the plan. “But you know the condition of the roads and bridges and infrastructure in this state.”
The fee, estimated at about $18 for all
types of vehicles, would bring in about $149 million per year to pay for highway patrol costs, according to the Legislature’s budget analysts.
For more than a decade, state leaders have taken funds intended for road repairs and instead used them to pay for highway patrol. The maneuver helped the state balance its budget during and after the Great Recession.
But the funding sweeps have come with consequences.
Cities, towns and counties have scaled back road construction and maintenance. According to the League of Arizona Cities and Towns, more than $1.1 billion has been swept from road projects since 2001.
Now, Campbell and other lawmakers say that must stop as roads throughout the state are cracking and falling apart.
Is the increase necessary?
Some conservative lawmakers are trying to stop the proposal, House Bill 2166, because they worry it gives bureaucrats too much power to impose a new fee on drivers.
The state House of Representatives voted 35-24 to pass the measure Feb. 20. But the proposal now faces its own rocky road in the state Senate, where a similar bill died last year.
“This could be construed as a $120 million tax to the people of Arizona,” said Rep. Paul Mosley, R-Lake Havasu City, an opponent of the fee. “I do have a problem giving a bureaucrat the power to raise our taxes without going through us.”
It’s also unclear if Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican who adamantly opposes tax hikes, would sign it. His spokesman said he generally doesn’t comment on legislation that isn’t on his desk.
HB 2166 would earmark money from the fee for highway patrol operations. That gives the state a way to pay for it without raiding the road construction and maintenance piggy bank known as the Arizona Highway User Revenue Fund, or “HURF.”
Currently, the state is using about $84 million from the highway fund to pay for DPS patrol operations, according to legislative budget analysts.
Money in the fund comes from gas taxes, which the state hasn’t increased since 1991, and vehicle-license fees.
Under the bill, one person — the director of the Arizona Department of Transportation —would have authority to set the fee amount every year, in an amount necessary to fully fund highway-patrol operations.
Drivers would pay the safety fee when they renew their vehicle-registration tags.
The bill also would eliminate the state’s license tax break for new alternative-fuel vehicles over 10,000 pounds, starting in 2020.
That would affect heavy trucks that run on natural gas.
A tax break for smaller alternativefuel vehicles would be reduced starting the same year.
Campbell said scaling back tax breaks for alternative-fuel trucks would also bring in more money to help fund road projects.
Arizona roads in ‘terrible’ shape
Advocates for cities and counties say funding cuts have left roads throughout the state in rough shape, particularly in rural communities that have smaller tax bases than cities in the Phoenix metro area.
Some local governments have enacted tax increases to pay for road projects on their own as a result. Others say they’ve put off maintenance work for many years.
Graham County Supervisor Jim Palmer said the loss of funds has caused his county to consider converting some aging roads back to dirt. He worries that bad roads could hamper the state’s economic growth.
“We’re not addressing the problem,” Palmer said. “As the years go by, we’re going to start to see the roads get worse and worse.”
He said the problem isn’t just swept funds: Cars get far better gas mileage today than in the past, so gas-tax revenues haven’t kept pace with the wear-and-tear vehicles inflict on roads.
Ken Strobeck, executive director of the league of cities and towns, said while Gov. Doug Ducey has restored about $30 million of the swept funds in the current fiscal year and proposes to do the same next year, it hasn’t been enough.
He said HB 2166 will permanently fund DPS, so the Legislature can use road and highway repair funds for their intended purpose after decades of raiding it. “You get outside of the Valley, roads are just deteriorating,” Strobeck said.