Transportation or education?: Sales-tax proposal for next year's ballot may create a dilemma

By Eric Pryne
Seattle Times staff reporter

E-mail this article Print this article Search archive

More players in the debate over a possible three-county, multibillion-dollar transportation plan are beginning to question whether next fall is the right time to put a package on the ballot.

Some of their concerns are long-standing: the region's lousy economy; widespread anti-tax, anti-government voter sentiment; ongoing conflicts over what projects and taxes to propose.

But lately something new has been added to the mix: the possibility that the November 2004 ballot also might feature a statewide initiative or referendum to raise the sales tax by up to a penny to generate more money for education.

That measure "could potentially pose an extraordinary problem" for a transportation proposal, said Metropolitan King County Councilwoman Julia Patterson, D-SeaTac.

Here's why: The sales tax also was the principal revenue source the Legislature granted the three-county Regional Transportation Investment District when it created the panel 20 months ago and charged it with crafting a package of improvements to submit to King, Snohomish and Pierce county voters.

The tax plan the district's board has tentatively endorsed includes a 0.4-percentage-point sales-tax increase, as well as new taxes on vehicles and gas. The board's adopted timetable calls for a package to go to voters next September or November.

Voters almost certainly won't approve two sales-tax increases, Patterson and others say. And if they choose one, they're more likely to pick schools.

"If I had to choose, I would probably choose education myself," said Patterson, an alternate member of the regional district's board.

The sales tax on most purchases in King County now is 8.8 percent. A 1-penny sales-tax increase for education, coupled with a 0.4-percentage-point increase for transportation, would push the total tax into double digits, to 10.2 percent.

The education initiative "would blot out the sun in terms of the sales tax," said Bruce Agnew of the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, who is among those working to resolve disagreements over the transportation package. "It's a huge concern."

Despite the concern, most transportation-district board members say they aren't ready to give up on a fall 2004 vote.

"Timing for taxes is never good," said Pierce County Councilman Calvin Goings, D-Puyallup. "The question is how long our economy can continue to suffer while we wring our hands and do nothing about our roads."

"How much money is there going to be for education if our infrastructure fails, if companies stop moving to our state?" said Metropolitan King County Councilman Rob McKenna, R-Bellevue.

The education measure, being drafted by the League of Education Voters, still is in flux and isn't nearly as far along as the transportation plan, he added.

But, to succeed, the transportation package will need money for a campaign. And representatives of the most likely sources of that money — business and labor — say the impact of an education initiative requires attention.

"Obviously, it'll complicate the situation if you have two measures on the same ballot going after the same funding source," said Sara Garrettson of the Washington Roundtable, an organization of CEOs of many of the state's most prominent companies.

"I think it would be very difficult to get the voters to support both," said Rick Bender, president of the Washington State Labor Council. "Timing is everything ... we need to have a full discussion."

Two upcoming developments might help shape that discussion:

• The regional-district board, with money from business, labor and environmentalists, has commissioned a poll to find out what voters want in a transportation package. The survey of 500 likely voters includes questions aimed at learning how an education initiative might affect the transportation plan.

Results of that poll should be known before the district board's next meeting Dec. 11.

• Pierce County and the Port of Tacoma have hired Northwest Strategies, a Seattle firm headed by veteran political consultant Ron Dotzauer, for advice on how the regional district should proceed. Pierce County Councilman Shawn Bunney, R-Sumner, another regional district board member, said that includes advice on the timing of an election.

But "I'm not ready to say that education usurps the ballot," Bunney said.

There are two camps in the regional transportation debate. Some, including a majority of the regional district board, favor an ambitious package that mostly funds roads, as the panel's authorizing legislation now requires.

Others, including environmentalists and most Seattle elected officials, say the package is doomed to defeat unless it is downsized and state law is changed to allow more spending on transit and greater reliance on the gas tax and other "user fees."

State Rep. Ed Murray, D-Seattle, who chairs the House Transportation Committee and is part of the second camp, predicted education interests will fight any regional transportation package that depends on the sales tax. "They're not going to simply stand aside and let the only tax source they have go to roads."

Lisa Macfarlane, president of the League of Education Voters, wouldn't go that far. "We're not in competition (with transportation)," she said.

But the sales tax is one of the few revenue sources available for funding education, Macfarlane added, and the league's research shows it is the option voters favor.

State Sen. Jim Horn, R-Mercer Island, who is Murray's counterpart in the Senate and helped write the regional district's authorizing legislation, said he doesn't know what other revenue sources the Legislature could give the regional panel.

But "having two issues on the same ballot related to the sales tax — I'm not sure that's a healthy situation," Horn said.

The regional district board's schedule calls for adoption of a draft project list in December. Postponing action too far beyond that date puts a fall 2004 election in jeopardy, McKenna said.

Patterson said the upcoming poll should provide the board with guidance on when — or whether — to go to voters. "We might discover that we shouldn't do anything; that people would rather put up with the inconvenience than raise their taxes," she said.

Eric Pryne: 206-464-2231 or epryne@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2003 The Seattle Times Company