Future of Lawrence public transit hinges on tax proposal

By Ryan McGeeney

Friday, October 10, 2008

Thursday morning, among about a dozen booths set up on the Stauffer-Flint Hall lawn as part of the KU Energy Fair, Jessica Mortinger, Hays graduate student, engaged everyone who came within earshot over the “clean energy” generator running on biodiesel fuel a few yards away.

“Do you need a button on that backpack?” Mortinger said, straining to maintain a conversational tone over the racket. Standing behind a table fortified with buttons, foam beer holders and literature, Mortinger, president of Students for Transit, was eager to inform as many people as possible of the importance of the tax issues that will determine the near future of public transportation in Lawrence.

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Photo by Ryan McGeeney

Jessica Mortinger, Hays graduate student and president of Students for Transit, a KU student organization focused on promoting public transportation and related issues, speaks to a student Thursday morning at the KU Energy Fair in front of Stauffer-Flint. The future of the Lawrence transit system depends on the passage of a 0.2 percent sales tax measure on the Nov. 4 ballot, which will be to sole source of funding for the bus system. Also on the ballot is proposed 0.05 percent sales tax that would support a bus replacement fund.

Because of budget constrictions, the fate of Lawrence’s public transit bus system hangs on the passage of a 0.2 percent sales tax on the November ballot. The extra 20 cents per $100 spent will fund the bus system after Jan. 1, 2009, when the city’s current contract with MV Transportation expires. Additionally, a 0.05 percent proposed sales tax would support a bus-replacement fund to maintain the city’s fleet.

“There are a lot of advantages that public transportation brings to KU students and the community,” Mortinger said. “Personally, I’m very tied to public transit. I see this issue as a social justice issue. When I fill up my car, I know how expensive it is, I know how it limits people with a lack of income and resources, in terms of their mobility throughout the community.”

Although the University’s bus system, KU On Wheels, operates independently of the Lawrence transit system, KU students, especially those who rely on the Park and Ride system, may be more influenced by the potential dissolution of the city transit system than they realize.

The Park and Ride system is in part funded by federal dollars, and receipt of that money is contingent upon the city of Lawrence receiving federal funds for its own bus system. If the city bus system disappears, so do the federal dollars allocated for that system, along with Park and Ride, Mortiner said.

“If there’s no federal funding in Lawrence, the Park and Ride buses could be sold,” Mortinger said. The Federal Transit Administration, which handles such situations, could choose to sell off the vehicles to other federally funded systems within the state or beyond.

“We’ve been told that at this point, they’re not sure what they would do yet,” Mortinger said. “One option is that the University could buy out the federal share of the buses, which is $1 million. They could take the buses and sell them. There are other cities in the state that are looking to start federally funded transit systems right now, like Manhattan, Salina and Hays.”

Additionally, the Lawrence transit system operates on weekends — the KU bus system does not — and from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m., three hours longer each day than the KU On Wheels bus system.

Lawrence’s $1 million “budgeting shortfall” is actually the result of a combination of increased fuel prices, decreasing property tax revenue, and reallocation of existing city funds to cover minimal cost-of-living raises for city employees.

Lawrence City Commissioner Dennis “Boog” Highberger said that the city’s present contract with MV Transportation, based in California, was based on a fixed fuel cost of about $1.60 per gallon of diesel fuel.

“That obviously won’t be available for our next contract,” Highberger said. “They’ve been losing vast amounts of money due to fuel for the past year.”

Presently, Lawrence’s transit system is funded through property taxes. But because of falling appraised property values resulting from the ongoing slump in the housing market, the city was faced with the prospect of either trying to manage a higher transit cost with less tax revenue or raising property taxes, Lawrence Mayor Mike Dever said.

“The increase is approximately $1 million more than the $900,000 we’re already paying,” Dever said. He said that David Corliss, the City Manager, elected to shift property tax revenue to pay for city operations and cost-of-living raises for city employees, and let voters decide whether to continue funding the transit system rather than raise taxes.

“It’s entirely dependent upon the sales tax election,” Corliss said. “If the sales taxes don’t pass, we won’t have a transit system.”

“I feel like people can’t say ‘no’ just because they don’t use it,” said Mortinger. “It’s like other public services that we pay for. Through taxes, I pay for the fire department. My house has never burned down — I’ve never used the fire department. But at the same time, I’d never say that I wouldn’t want to pay for it, because it’s a public service that we should be providing our residents.”

— — Edited by Kelsey Hayes

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