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HART Seeking Alternate Funding

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By RICH SHOPES, The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 6, 2007

Related Story: County Plans System Of High-Speed Buses

TAMPA - The county's transit agency is looking for an alternative to property taxes to fund - and potentially increase - its budget.

Ricardo Roig, chairman of Hillsborough Area Regional Transit, on Monday suggested creating a task force to explore funding strategies, including a sales tax.

The task force would report back to the agency's governing board in February.

Increasing the 7-cent sales tax by a half-cent would bring in $110 million a year, more than double the agency's $54 million operating budget, but the move would need voter support, Roig said.

"I think we put it to voters and ask them whether they want to support mass transit in Hillsborough County, yea or nay," Roig said at Monday's HART board meeting.

The earliest a referendum could be held is next November.

The agency faces cuts as deep as 10 percent if voters in January back a referendum to slash property taxes statewide.

Officials are bracing for layoffs, fewer bus routes and shorter hours of operation on remaining routes.

"There could be a curtailing of the least productive routes," Executive Director David Armijo said last week, adding that HART might have to look to fundamental changes "to do what we need to do with less resources."

The agency just weathered a 3 percent reduction imposed by the Legislature.

The move forced HART to eliminate two routes and trim service on a dozen others. Those changes go into effect Nov. 18.

If voters support the Jan. 29 ballot measure, the reduced flow of tax dollars to local governments wouldn't begin until after the next fiscal year starts Oct. 1.

Nearly all of Florida's transit agencies rely on sales taxes or gas taxes to supplement their operating budgets.

Hillsborough, Pinellas and Volusia counties are exceptions, getting the bulk of their funding from property taxes.

The Jacksonville Transportation Authority, for example, gets $24 million yearly from sales tax collections. Broward County Mass Transit gets $39 million from gas taxes.

About one-third of the Miami-Dade Transit's $362 million operating budget comes from a combination of gas and sales taxes.

Roig would be joined on the task force by Hillsborough County Commissioner Mark Sharpe, Tampa City Councilman John Dingfelder and Temple Terrace City Councilman Ron Govin.

Reporter Rich Shopes can be reached at (813) 259-7633 or at rshopes@tampatrib.com.

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