PORT TOWNSEND — The Board of Jefferson County Commissioners will form a Transportation Benefit District in the unincorporated areas of the county. Yet to install its funding source, the district could bring in more than $1 million annually for county road work.
“I moved to Jefferson County so that I could live rurally and connected,” Commissioner Greg Brotherton said. “The roads allow us to do that. If we let them go, we’re not going to have them again.”
The board of county commissioners (BoCC) also will make up the Transportation Benefit District (TBD) board. The BoCC will deliberate on funding source options at a future hearing, likely in February.
An initial discussion took place during a board workshop on Sept. 23, when Public Works Director Monte Reinders outlined a dire need for increased roads funding. The program has suffered losses in funding and failed to keep pace with inflation in recent years, Reinders said.
“The Transportation Benefit District would allow us to make up for some of those losses and keep from cutting our program further,” Reinders said at Monday’s meeting. “The road fund is spending down reserves to the tune of about three-quarters of a million per year, so in two years, we’ll be bankrupt. To keep us from going bankrupt, we’ll have to make some drastic cuts if we don’t form a transportation district.”
The board has discussed two main options to enact the funding mechanism; it may pursue revenue through annual licensing fees or another through a sales tax. Each can be adopted without a public vote.
The license fee and sales tax can be used together, Reinders said.
State law regulates that a $20 annual licensing fee may be enacted, which may be raised to $40 after two years. After another two years, the fee may rise to $50.
A document accompanying the staff presentation noted 2021 data from the state Department of Licensing which showed 26,384 cars in unincorporated Jefferson County. That number could generate $527,000 for roads annually at the $20 fee rate.
A sales tax of one-tenth of 1 percent can be leveraged without a public vote. That could bring in $600,000 annually, based on a comparison with the already existing one-tenth of 1 percent tax for county criminal justice.
Steeper fees and taxes can be considered, but they would require a public vote.
The City of Port Townsend formed a TBD in 2023, collecting three-tenths of 1 percent. The larger percentage required a vote, which passed heartily.
Other sources, insufficient
The main sources for funding county road maintenance come from a portion of property taxes and the Motor Vehicle Fuel Tax (MVFT), Reinders said. Both have seen only minimal annual increases as costs climb steadily.
The MVFT has been more or less flat over the last 10 years, Reinders said. The tax has grown at a rate of about a half-percent per year, he said.
Reinders named increased remote work, fuel-efficient cars and electric vehicles as possible sources for the slow growth of revenue generated by the tax.
Jefferson County road maintenance previously relied heavily on dollars from the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act, Reinders said, which replaced funding generated from federal timber revenue.
Reinders said the program was slashed in 2011, resulting in an annual revenue loss of $1 million.
“So, in the last 14 years, we’ve lost $14 million that would have gone towards road maintenance,” Reinders said. “That’s why we cut back on our chip seal program and our staff. I currently have the job that three people used to have; Erik (Kuzma, deputy public works director) has the job that two people used to have.”
The county also has cut back its road crew, Reinders said. An agenda document read that the road crew has been cut by 18 percent. Also, road crews have cut back on things like road striping.
Reinders said the first priority for allocating new funding would be the chip-seal program, which has been cut in half in recent years. The 320 miles of paved roads in the county should be chip-sealed every seven to 10 years. The county is closer to a 15- to 20-year pace, he said.
The hearing saw both opposition and support during a public comment period.
“Whatever this will cost me in a tax cannot possibly compare to the damages that I incur driving on poorly maintained roads,” said Jean Ball of Quilcene.
To learn more about TBDs, see the Municipal Research and Services Center webpage on the topic at https://mrsc.org/explore-topics/finance/revenues/transportation-benefit-districts.
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Reporter Elijah Sussman can be reached by email at elijah.sussman@sequimgazette.com.
