City quashes gas tax rumors

Chatter on local social media and reader contact with The Nugget recently raised the specter of the City raising the existing 3 cents per gallon municipal tax as a means to fund the installation of EV charging stations on city property. That is not the case.

City Manager Jordan Wheeler was clear in his response to The Nugget’s inquiry: “The City has no plans to propose an increase to the gas tax. This is the first I’ve heard of that idea. The only informal conversations about EV charging station funding that I know about is whether the city should and how much the city should charge users of the stations.”

The City currently has two Level 2 EV chargers at City Hall, free to users. They are among a dozen chargers available in the city and the only ones currently free of charge. This disturbs some citizens, who demand to know why one class of drivers is subsidized over others, especially as gas has hit pocketbooks and wallets hard the last three years.

Prices reached nearly $5 per gallon last year and only recently fell below $4.

The original intent, according to then-City Manager Cory Misley, was to add benefit to the tourist experience when only two or three public chargers were available.

The 3 cent tax which generates about $180,000 per year in revenue to the city is added to the 18.4 cent federal gasoline tax and the 40 cent Oregon state tax which was increased January 1. In total, drivers filling up in Sisters pay 61.4 cents per gallon, a figure that experts say is bound to increase.

The state and federal portion are collected effectively as a road use fee, the monies dedicated to funding road, bridge, and tunnel building and repair. In Oregon, despite its heft, the tax is not enough to keep ODOT solvent.

On June 4, Oregon lawmakers began a statewide listening tour designed to learn what voters and taxpayers think about the state’s highways and how to pay for their upkeep.

The bipartisan Joint Committee on Transportation held the first of an eventual 12 statewide hearings at Portland Community College’s Cascade campus. Members of the public were asked to testify following a presentation from Chris Strickler, ODOT’s director.

Strickler has been telling anyone who will listen that the agency does not have enough money and needs help. Tolling was supposed to be a shot in the arm for ODOT’s improvement projects, but Gov. Tina Kotek effectively put a damper on the idea last year — and even that wouldn’t help with the agency’s maintenance budget.

Strickler displayed slides showing both lawmakers and the public where the agency’s money is coming from and where it’s going. According to Strickler, the agency is looking at a significant shortfall.

“The gap that we currently experience is $1.7-1.77 billion,” Strickler told the gathering. “So, roughly two-thirds of what we’re putting in front of you is a gap. And that is a sign for where we sit in our transportation system and our ability to maintain and keep pace with the needs that Oregonians are looking for.”

Indeed, there was concern this just-ended winter that ODOT in Sisters might not be able to keep the roads plowed at the same level. A combination of budget shuffling and the spacing and intensity of storms kept the roads open.

Deferred maintenance as a means of funding the department is catching up, ODOT says. The gas tax, its only source of revenue, is declining. Overall fuel economy means less gas used, and all-electric cars, about 10 percent of the Oregon market and growing, albeit slowly, pay no gas tax. That’s good news for those drivers, but a gut punch to ODOT.

Rumors of an increase to the City tax may have arisen from reported discussions within the budget committee. Wheeler dismisses the rumors.

“We are not considering or have discussed increasing our local gas tax,” he said. “The state legislature will be working on a transportation package next session, perhaps that is what generated the question?

“The only thing I can think of that would be tangentially related is the recent presentation of the proposed budget. There might have been a question about the future/long term sustainability of a gas tax as a funding source for road maintenance vs. other types of funding that would need to be considered at some point if trends continue with fuel efficiency, electric vehicles, etc.

“Also, you may already know that any new local gas tax or increasing a local gas tax in Oregon requires voter approval.”