Recently, the City of Olathe made an announcement of what might be happening in their city, because of street repairs/upgrades being back burnered for so long.
I will quote Olathe's comments here, but should someone want to verify that these are the city's comments, and NOT a blogger's opinion, please go here: http://www.olatheks.org/news/2013/07/10/council-consider-addressing-street-maintenance-funding-shortfall
Posted: July 10, 2013, 01:28:11 PM
Olathe City Manager Michael Wilkes discussed the current Olathe street
funding challenge with the City Council on Tuesday and outlined why it should be
addressed sooner rather than later. Wilkes said, “The bottom line is if we
don’t begin funding our street maintenance at a significantly greater level, in
10 years or less our taxpayers will be paying at least 10 to 15 times what is
needed today for streets.” “It is our responsibility to make sure we don’t
create that major burden for ourselves and future tax payers if we can avoid
it,” he said.
According to City staff, an additional $9.26 million per year
(average) is needed to adequately fund street maintenance over the next 10
years. Without which, the cost of repairing streets will increase exponentially
and dramatically. The City currently maintains over 1,200 lane miles valued at
over $1 billion.
Wilkes indicated that the City has been investing as much general
(operational) fund cash as it responsibly can in street maintenance despite
making significant cuts to other operations over the past several years.
However, he cautioned that diverting enough money to cover the street
maintenance shortfall would have unacceptable consequences. Wilkes said,
“Today, we are spending nearly 70% of our general fund money on transportation
and public safety because that’s where our tax payers have told us they want it
invested.” He continued, “Much of the remainder of the budget goes to programs
(IT, Human Resource, Finance, etc.) that serve in critical support roles, yet
those are the areas that have seen the vast majority of cuts. The fact is, we
simply cannot divert the revenue needed without seeing services impacted in the
areas our residents say are most important.”
Wilkes said staff has been evaluating this issue for several years,
and ultimately came to the conclusion that asking voters to consider a
sun-setting 10-year, 3/8th cent sales tax was the most
responsible approach. “The Council has the ability to increase the mil rate,
but that rate increase only applies to our property owners, not to all the
people using our streets including the many thousands who live outside Olathe,”
Wilkes said. In addition, Wilkes said he believes this is consistent with City
Council direction. “A sales tax would require voter approval, and I know the
Council believes this decision would rise to the level where Olathe tax payers
should have a direct voice.”
According to Wilkes, the funding shortfall would be adequately
addressed by a combination of the sales tax and the City’s continued commitment
to increase general fund cash contributions to the program. He said, “This
issue will not be solved by just passing the sales tax but also by increasing
City operational fund commitments and continued belt tightening.”
If approved, Olathe would join the majority of other Kansas City area
larger cities that have implemented a sales tax to fully or partially fund
street maintenance. The City Council is expected to decide whether or not to
bring a sales tax question to voters by August 6.
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