DENVER BUSINESS JOURNAL — Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce leaders will wait until after the end of the current legislative session to choose which transportation tax-hike initiative they will seek to put onto the November ballot — and will consider whether to move forward with a plan at all if the Legislature does not dedicate a sustainable stream of revenue from the general fund to roads and transit, president and CEO Kelly Brough said Thursday.
The move is being in part to keep pressure on legislators — particularly House Democrats — to pass Senate Bill 1, a proposal that dedicates $495 million in one-time funding toward transportation, allocates $250 million annually from the general fund toward that area going forward and seeks to ask voters in 2019 to approve $3.5 billion in bond sales for transportation projects. The 2019 question becomes moot, however, if a group such as the chamber and its transportation coalition passes a funding measure at the 2018 ballot.
The chamber has filed five potential ballot titles that would seek everything from a 1-cent sales-tax hike to a 0.35-cent sales-tax boost that would direct money only toward local and regional projects, rather than arteries like Interstates 25 and 70. But before it knows how much it will ask state voters to open up their wallets, it must know how much the Legislature is willing to dedicate in existing tax revenues toward a solution.
Brough acknowledged that in one sense, the choice between measures is purely a practical one, as her coalition needs to know how much money is truly needed after the state antes up to put a major dent in the $9 billion funding backlog identified by the Colorado Department of Transportation.
Read more at the Denver Business Journal: https://bit.ly/2qOoAY7
