Put RTA tax to binding vote in Madison area

Friday, July 10, 2009

From an editorial in the Wisconsin State Journal:

Voters should have the final say on whether to add a half-cent to the local sales tax to fund mass transit improvements in the metro Madison area.
Consequently, city and county officials should follow through on their pledge to put any future transit tax proposal to a public vote in a binding referendum.
Voters should hold them to that promise. Furthermore, all future officials should be held to the same standard.

The degree of control voters will have over a transportation tax was thrown into doubt by one of Gov. Jim Doyle’s state budget vetoes. Doyle struck a provision guaranteeing that no transit tax would be imposed unless voters approved in a referendum that would be binding on officials.
The veto made the referendum optional. That means officials could impose the half-cent tax without voter support.

Prospects for a veto override are virtually nil.

Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk, County Board Chairman Scott McDonnell and Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz have promised that Madison area voters will get to decide the fate of a transit tax in a binding referendum.

That’s the right approach. If regional transportation is to succeed, the public, which will pay the tax and benefit from the improvements, must be on board.
Doyle was wrong to veto the binding referendum. The measure was included in a state budget provision allowing the Madison metro area to create a regional transit authority with the power to impose a half-cent sales tax.

The tax could be used to fund bus improvements and, potentially, a commuter rail line.

The tax should have been available to fund road improvements, too. But Doyle vetoed the road provision, shrinking a transportation measure down to a transit-only measure.