Future of County’s Transit Is Riding on Fiscal Solutions : Finance: Shortfall is expected to reach $1 billion over next 20 years. Voters may be asked to consider a half-cent sales tax.

In the battle pitting Ventura County advocates for roads and buses against defenders of commuter train service, both sides agree on one thing: There is not enough transportation money to go around.

California’s budget problems have forced funding cutbacks and project delays in transportation programs throughout the state.

And as cities and counties implement strict federal mandates to cut down on traffic and smog, gas tax revenues that make up the lion’s share of transportation budgets are dwindling.

Strapped for cash and hoping to stave off choosing between buses, trains and roads, Ventura County is scrambling to come up with new funds for transportation. And county residents are being asked to fork over a larger share of the cost.

In Ventura County alone, the transportation funding shortfall is expected to reach $1 billion over the next 20 years.

As the county spends an increasing amount of money on Metrolink trains and countywide buses, and as the cost of road repairs returns to pre-recession levels, that funding will continue to shrink.

“We’re in a situation where we just don’t have the money to support all the transportation services in this county,” said Thousand Oaks Councilman Frank Schillo, who also serves on the county’s Transportation Commission. “The whole lineup is like dominoes.”

Chris Stephens, planner for the Ventura County Transportation Commission, agreed. “Financially we are in a very tight spot right now,” Stephens said. “We’re down to the basic programs and, without more funding, we’re looking at not being able to fill potholes or run buses.”

Ginger Gherardi, executive director of the Ventura County Transportation Commission, said unless residents shoulder more of the financial burden, transportation services will be lost.

In November, voters may be asked to consider a half-cent sales tax that would raise more than $500 million for transportation projects over the next 20 years.

The Transportation Commission later this month will decide whether to recommend that the measure be placed on the ballot. The final decision is up to the Board of Supervisors and the cities. At least half the cities representing half the county’s population must agree to place the measure on the ballot.

*

If approved, the measure would boost the county’s current sales tax from 7 1/4 cents to 7 3/4 cents.

“We need to somehow get the message across,” Gherardi said. “Either we are going to take charge of these things ourselves or continue to be at the mercy of state and federal sources that are out of our control.”

But while transportation leaders agree that more funding is needed, many doubt that residents still reeling from the recession will agree to pay more taxes.

“This is not the right time to be asking people to pay more,” said Bill Davis, a transportation commissioner and Simi Valley city councilman. “Yes, we need the dollars, but we’ve yet to show people that we’re going to put them to good use.”

If last week’s election is any indication, however, voters may be reluctant to spend more money on transportation. Voters rejected Proposition 1A, a statewide, $750-million bond measure to pay for seismic retrofitting of bridges throughout California, including 27 bridges in Ventura County.

Voters did approve a countywide initiative that will allow Ventura County to dip into a state transit fund worth up to $1.5 million a year and more.

*

But passage of Measure X does not require the expenditure of any additional funds. Rather, money from an existing statewide gas tax fund will now be available for transit projects in Ventura County.

Those funds can be tapped only if they are matched by local money, but county transit leaders say without a new source of revenue the county will not be able to gain access to the money.

Supporters of the sales tax measure say the tax would provide those needed matching funds and make the county more competitive for a host of statewide funding programs.

“The biggest problem with not having the sales tax is that we’re not on a level playing field with all the other counties who have them,” said Ken Gilbert, Moorpark’s public works director. “We pay out money in gas taxes, but when grants come up, we don’t have the matching funds to go out and compete for them.”

Ventura County is the largest county in the state and the only county in Southern California without a local transportation sales tax.

More than 80% of the state’s population lives in the 17 counties that have approved such a tax, and Los Angeles County has approved two such taxes. But Ventura County’s voters overwhelmingly rejected a similar measure placed on the ballot in 1990.

*

Besides Los Angeles County, other counties with a half-cent sales tax are: Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Sacramento, San Francisco, Contra Costa, Alameda, Santa Clara, Fresno, San Joaquin, San Benito, San Mateo, Imperial and Madera.

The first such tax was enacted by state legislation in 1969 to help complete the commuter train system in the Bay Area. But it wasn’t until the mid-1980s that counties began seeking voter approval for local sales tax increases for transportation.

Counties saw the local tax as a reliable source of locally controlled funding, without the restrictions that usually come with state and federal money, said William Fulton, an independent Ventura-based urban planner.

“The transportation tax has become the most politically acceptable way to finance major transportation improvement projects,” Fulton said. “The key to making it work is to put the tax into a larger planning context.”

Supervisor John K. Flynn, who supports the tax measure, said he hopes its advocates in Ventura County have learned from mistakes they made in the last campaign.

“It was a terrible campaign that really turned people off,” Flynn said. “All they could see was more money for more roads, more housing and more development.”

Some local leaders oppose placing the tax on the ballot in November because there is not enough time to prepare a successful campaign.

“The shrinking funding pot is an old story that’s not going to go away anytime soon,” Ventura City Manager John Baker said. “This sales tax is going to fail because there is no time to put together a comprehensive transportation plan for the county.”

*

Steven B. Colman), a Bay Area consultant who has worked on several transportation tax campaigns in California, said that lack of preparation time may not be Ventura County’s biggest hurdle in trying to pass the tax.

“I used to think a lot of lead time would help, but I’ve seen these things passed with very little time to prepare,” Colman said. “The real problem, the reason why nobody else is looking seriously at a tax right now, is the economy.”

Gaining support for any sales tax measure in the fall would be difficult, Colman said, not only because of the lingering recession but because just last November voters passed Proposition 172, approving the use of a statewide half-cent sales tax for police and other safety services.

“There comes a point when people reach a threshold and say, ‘Enough,’ ” Colman said. “I think it might be wise to hold off and wait for a better time.”

But supporters of the measure say the county needs more money now. They also point out that many of the counties that have gained voter approval for a transportation sales tax have succeeded on the second or third try.

“After the tax was defeated here in 1990, an editorial ran in the local paper that said ‘try again,’ ” commission Director Gherardi said. “I think that’s a good message for today.”

If the sales tax measure is placed on the November ballot, there will be little the commission can do to promote it. Legally, the commission, which is a government body, cannot take an active role in any campaign.

*

Gherardi said she hopes local businesses that need to meet smog control mandates will support the measure as a way to help pay for improved public transit.

But even if the half-cent sales tax passes in November, it would not necessarily solve all of Ventura County’s transportation woes.

“If the tax is approved, it isn’t going to fix every street in every city,” transportation Commissioner Michael Wooten said. “The money will more likely go to pay for Metrolink and other countywide services.”

Indeed, every other Southern California county has both a sales tax and a transportation budget problem.

A governmental planning consortium that compiles planning data for Ventura County and four other Southern California counties projects a $5-billion transportation funding shortfall for the five-county area over the next 15 years.

In addition to Ventura County, the area includes the counties of Los Angeles, Riverside, Orange and San Bernardino.

But city and county leaders say a new funding source would ease the pressure on cities facing the prospect of spending local bus and road money on Metrolink.

“There is no doubt that a sales tax would go a long way in helping us hang on to our local transportation services,” said Samia Maximous, Oxnard transportation manager. “Without it, we are really going to face some hard times.”

Local leaders are counting on other possible funding sources to either complement a sales tax or help the county limp along without one.

In November, voters throughout the state will consider a $1-billion rail bond initiative. It is the third of three $1-billion measures designed to pay for rail and highway projects.

In 1990, voters approved the first bond measure. In 1992, they rejected the second one.

By turning back the second of the three measures, voters prompted a restructuring of the state’s transportation improvement program that delayed or scaled down dozens of highway projects.

*

Highways are affected by the rail bond measures because the state Legislature has mandated that funding for all transportation projects be divided equitably throughout the state based on complicated fund-sharing formulas.

But because projects are planned years in advance, residents have yet to witness the worst of the effects of their decision to reject the bond measure.

“In a way it’s too bad,” Gherardi said. “Because if people could see what damage it is doing not to have the funding, they might be more willing to vote for the third bond measure in the fall.”

Whatever the outcome of the November election, the county and some cities are raising money for road projects another way: by charging developers fees based on the effect they predict new homes and business will have on traffic.

Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley, Oxnard, Ventura and Camarillo already charge traffic impact fees. The fee for a single-family house ranges from $224 in Simi Valley to $5,200 in Ventura.

A proposed countywide program would levy a fee in unincorporated areas, ranging from $1,500 to $21,000 per house, depending on the extent of road improvements county officials decide is needed.

The county is also seeking to work out agreements with each of its cities to come up with a standardized countywide fee formula.

But transit officials said it is not likely that such a fee would come close to covering the costs of maintaining and upgrading roads and public transit in Ventura County.

“Unless we get some more money in here one way or another, there are going to be some very unhappy people,” Gherardi said. “Everyone is going to suffer.”

Where Transportation Money Comes From. . . Each year, Ventura County receives about $64 million in state and federal funding for transportation. Contributions from each source varies from year to yea, but totals remain the same. State gas tax: 31% State & federal gas tax: 28% Federal gas tax: 19% State sales tax: 22% . . . and where it goes Streets and roads: 53% Planning**: 2% Public transit: 17% Highways: 28% *Includes Metrolink, VISTA, city bus services ** Includes studies etc. Source: Ventura County Transportation Commission

Transportation Milestones From stagecoaches to Metrolink, here are some significant transportation events in Ventura County history: 1878: Casitas Pass Road completed. Stagecoach drivers reject the route, saying the old coastal roads are faster. 1887: Southern Pacific railroad passenger trains roll into Ventura County, linking the county by rail to Santa Barbara and Los Angeles. 1893: Horse-drawn streetcars transport passengers along the unpaved roads of Ventura and Ojai. 1895: First automobile rolls into Ventura County. 1908: First speeding ticket issued in Ventura County. A Ventura man is fined $50 for going 40 m.p.h., 20 miles over the speed limit. 1910: In the county’s first reported fatality from an auto accident, a Camarillo man dies early Christmas morning. 1913: Bond money helps pay for construction of wooden Rincon causeway, connecting Ventura to Santa Barbara. 1916: Ventura Highway constructed through the Conejo Valley into Camarillo and Ventura, roughly following El Camino Real, the original trail used by Spanish priests to travel between missions. 1924: California 118 paved through Saticoy, Moorpark and Simi Valley. 1929: Pacific Coast Highway completed in Ventura County. 1933: Maricopa Highway (California 33) completed, after decades of planning. 1954: Ventura Freeway completed from the Conejo Grade to Camarillo. 1962: Ventura Freeway completed through Ventura County. 1992: Metrolink commuter trains roll into Moorpark and Simi Valley. Source: Ventura County Historical Society

How Transportation Funds Are Spent Every transportation dollar that Ventura County receives from the state and federal governments comes with designated uses for which it must be spent. Here are the categories: Funding source: State Gas Tax Purpose: Streets and roads Amount: $20.0 million *Funding source: State Highway Account Purpose: Gas tax funds for highway projects Amount: $18.0 million *Funding source: Transportation Development Act Purpose: State sales tax funds. Must first be used to meet public transit needs; remainder may be spent on streets and roads. Amount: $13.3 million *Funding source: Surface Transportation Program Purpose: Federal gas tax funds for highway projects and road safety improvements. Amount: $5.7 million *Funding source: Federal Transit Administration Purpose: Federal gas tax for developing and operating public transit. Amount: $3.6 million *Funding source: Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program Purpose: State and federal gas tax funds for projects that help reduce smog, including public transit, bike paths, car-pool lanes and park-and-ride lots. Amount: $2.8 million *Funding source: State Transit Assistance Purpose: Special levy on the state gas tax. Funds are to be spent on public transit. Amount: $0.6 million *TOTAL: $64.0 million Source: Ventura County Transportation Commission