A deep drive into the two propositions on the ballot that deal with transportation issues.
A proposed transportation sales tax on Colorado’s ballot this fall would “fund over 100 projects statewide,” as a recent TV ad says in promoting the measure, but that’s just the start.
Proposition 110’s proposed 0.62 percentage point sales tax increase also would result in a big trickledown effect for cities, towns and counties — sending upward of $300 million a year to address backlogs in road maintenance and to pay for local transportation projects. Separately, local governments would compete for tens of millions of dollars in matching grants from a separate fund earmarked for transit, bike, pedestrian and other “multimodal” projects across the state.
Combined, the local and multimodal setasides would draw in 55 percent of the new sales tax revenue, amounting to nearly $12 billion of the $21.7 billion that’s projected to be raised over two decades. The other 45 percent would go largely to betterknown state projects — the types on highways and interstates that were advertised in the recent campaign ad — with up to $6 billion borrowed up front.
Those whopping figures raise questions of accountability, as well as and concerns from some critics about the potential for waste, as Prop 110 would greenlight the doling out of substantial money to Colorado’s 64 counties and 270 or so incorporated cities and towns.
The sales tax’s backers implicitly are asking voters to place significant trust in future government decisions. Those will be spread among the state’s Transportation Commission, more than a dozen transportation planning organizations that review project priorities at a regional level — such as the Denver Regional Council of Governments (DRCOG) in the metro area — and local elected officials across Colorado.
Jon Caldara, who is behind the rival “Fix Our Damn Roads” campaign for Proposition 109, characterizes those local distributions as “slush funds.”
His smaller measure — which also is on the Nov. 6 ballot — would order the state to issue $3.5 billion in bonds for dozens of highway projects and to repay them by reshuffling the state budget. By design, it would provide no money for local governments’ projects or for transit and bikeway projects.
Caldara argues those imperatives shouldn’t be the state’s concern when its highway system has such great needs.
“People in Colorado will have a really clear choice this fall: specified road projects without a tax increase, or mystery transit projects with a tax increase,” said Caldara, the president of the conservativelibertarian Independence Institute in Denver.
But there’s less mystery in either the multimodal plans or local governments’ designs for their shares than Caldara suggests, according to interviews with local officials and research conducted by associations that represent Colorado’s counties and municipalities.
They say the money would make a real difference for large cities and small communities alike that grapple with recurring funding shortfalls. Surveys by the county and municipal associations suggest that the influx of new tax money would help cut into backlogs and project wish lists that stretch into the billions of dollars, but not eliminate them.
The Let’s Go Colorado campaign, which was established and funded heavily by business interests to advocate for Proposition 110, argues in favor of local decisionmaking.
“We tend to be in an era where we trust the government that’s closest to us,” said Carla Perez, the policy director for the campaign. “And those jurisdictions can communicate to their constituents or their residents about the types of things they’re going to spend the money on, with a greater confidence than at the state level.”
Local tax shares would favor rural areas
While Denver, its suburbs and other highly populated counties and cities stand to pocket millions of dollars a year, it’s rural Colorado that would benefit disproportionately, based on population, from the way the new money is distributed.
Not that bigcity leaders who back the proposition are complaining.
“You’ve got to recognize that rural Colorado is important to the health of the whole state, and it’s also import to the economic health of Denver,” said Denver Mayor Michael Hancock, who envisions a big boost for the city’s $2 billion Mobility Action Plan. “We need to make sure that rural Colorado is served and taken care of in this road bill. … I’m not bothered by that at all.”
The firstyear tax share estimates for municipalities range from $1,423 for Sawpit — a hamlet (population 42) in San Miguel County near Telluride — up to $29.9 million for Denver, according to calculations provided by the campaign. Among counties, the range is from $267,662 for San Juan to $10.5 million for Jefferson.
Proposition 110 specifies that 40 percent of the new tax’s proceeds would go to local governments — half to cities and towns, the other half to counties — while 15 percent goes to the new multimodal fund.
By and large, the Front Range would subsidize the state’s rural areas because the new tax law would make use of Colorado’s existing distribution formula for the Highway Users Tax Fund, which factors in vehicle registrations and miles of roads within a juris diction, but not its population. In 2017, the state divvied up $348 million between municipalities and counties from gas taxes and other vehiclerelated fees.
The proposed sales tax would mean an estimated $307 million more for local governments in the first year.
Which kinds of local projects would benefit?
City and county officials say they’re ready for that money. For years, as gas tax revenue has declined, they have backburnered growing lists of projects. And at the regional level, planning organizations including DRCOG have priority lists for both road and transit projects that cross jurisdictions.
Those plans aided the Colorado Department of Transportation in drawing up a list of 19 projects that are primed to receive $400 million from the new multimodal fund — plus an equal amount from local matching funds — right off the bat.
If voters approve the new tax, Hancock plans to direct Denver’s initial local shares to pedestrian safety upgrades on Federal Boulevard and other priority routes, and to fully fund the addition of a centerrunning bus rapid transit system on Colfax Avenue from I25 east to the Aurora line.
CDOT’S multimodal project list already includes $55 million for that project, matching early funding approved by Denver voters in a bond package last year. But tens of millions more likely would be needed.
Here is a sampling of other local needs the new tax money could help address:
• Aurora’s $12.3 million annual share would help the city cut back a shortfall of $18 million or more a year for road maintenance and repaving, Councilman Bob Roth said.
• Kit Carson County on the Eastern Plains would receive $2.1 million a year, allowing it to pave more of its 2,100 miles of dirt roads and replace deteriorating bridges, according to its response to a survey by Colorado Counties Inc., a nonprofit association.
• Fruita, a city near Grand Junction, could use its $441,000 annual share to step up repaving operations and save for three bridge re placements over Little Salt Wash, said Ken Haley, the public works director.
• Summit County, home to several ski resorts, could apply its $887,000 annual share to reconstruct Boreas Pass Road (and add bike lanes) as well as catch up on surface treatments of dirt roads, according to the CCI’S survey.
• Arapahoe County, which would receive $5.4 million a year, could apply that money toward largescale road improvement projects in parts of the east and south metro areas, according to the CCI’S survey. Those include stretches of Gun Club Road and Arapahoe Road.
Colorado Springs mayor bucks colleagues
Among local leaders across the state, there is one notable — and vocal — dissenter: Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers.
In part, he worries that his city’s tax rate would shoot too high if Proposition 110 passes, since voters already approved a local sales tax that happens to be the same rate. Colorado Springs has used it for 700 miles of paving and 467,000 feet of curbs and gutters in three years, he said.
But he has also endorsed the Fix Our Damn Roads initiative.
“I start with the unfortunately alltoonovel theory that local governments ought to pay for local roads, and state governments ought to be concerned with state highways,” Suthers said.
That idea receives pushback from Gini Pingenot, legislative director for the counties association, which hasn’t taken a formal position on Proposition 110. She argues that smaller counties and towns lack the tax base for Colorado Springs’ local approach and need state help.
“It’s just not a viable revenue stream to pay for these multimilliondollar projects that are needed,” Pingenot said.
Transit centers and enhanced bus routes
Proposition 110 also has faced flak from some transit and bike advocates, since the multimodal component would be wrapped into an overall measure that’s heavy on money for road expansions.
The 19 multimodal projects on the state’s early list — to be supported by bonds — include several new or renovated transit centers in mountain communities and Colorado Springs. Bus rapidtransit projects and enhanced bus routes are on it, too, including Denver’s Colfax project and as part of a larger road rebuild of Colorado 119 between Boulder and Longmont (in lieu of the metro area’s underfunded northwest commuter rail line).
But others see the varied package as a significant boost for equity, including Morgan Cullen, the legislative the Colorado Municipal League, which has endorsed 110.
“If you’re paying a 0.62 percent sales tax increase,” Cullen said, “that … is going to be paid by everybody in the state, and it doesn’t matter if they drive or not.”
The state would use the first $30 million from the multimodal fund’s share of the tax each year to repay bonds for those early projects.
Of the fund’s remaining $85 million a year, 85 percent would go to local projects and 15 percent to state priorities — such as expanded Bustang regional bus service, new Parknrides along Interstate 25 and Interstate 70, and new bikeways along highways, CDOT says.