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Financing Critical for Infrastructure
Posted 12-21-1999
1999 is winding down and it is time to look at the challenges our county and
region will face in upcoming years.
In addition to my job as
county commissioner, I will also be serving the next two years as the
Chairman of the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission (SPC). It is the
Metropolitan Planning organization (MPO) for southwestern Pennsylvania. By
federal law, SPC oversees the spending of all federal transportation dollars
that come into our region.
At SPC we have been working
for several years on a long-range plan for this region. The effort being
carried out through our Policy Committee is attempting to shape a vision for
our region for the next twenty-five years. Various planning models are being
used to provide realistic, quantifiable statistics for population and job
growth, for congestion and traffic data, and most importantly we are
attempting to make accurate projections of available financial resources.
It was important that the
composition of the Policy Committee reflect the diverse make-up of our
region. In addition to the regular members of SPC, such as county
commissioners and planning professionals from the member counties and the
City of Pittsburgh, we added a cross-section of public and private sector
folks. New Allegheny County Executive Jim Roddey has been a member as a
representative of the Allegheny Conference.
Members of the private
business community and the general public are seated, as are members from
the freight industry, public transit agencies, and representatives from both
chambers and parties of the State Senate and State House. The broad
cross-section involved in the plants creation will make it better and should
allow it to receive more acceptance.
Perhaps the most critical
issue to emerge from the plan so far is recognition that through traditional
funding sources there will never be enough money to complete every proposed
project. With the involvement of Legislators and state Senators we want to
develop a reasonable strategy for creating additional funding opportunities.
There is a clear recognition
that just raising taxes or creating new taxes is unacceptable. The elected
officials from the legislative branch have advised us what ideas have a
realistic chance of getting approved in Harrisburg.
Some of the ideas we have
discussed involve creating special transportation districts that would allow
for local funding strategies for new roads, increasing the flexibility of
Tax Incremental Financing (TIF), and creating special advisory teams that
can provide technical advice for planning and financing of projects.
I have not been overly
optimistic about the use of TIFs to finance the local share of
transportation projects. It requires the cooperation of all three taxing
bodies and too often it is difficult to convince school boards that they
should share in the responsibility of improving the infrastructure.
I understand very well the
immediate budgetary needs school boards face, but some short-term sacrifice
may lead to a long-term benefit to a school's tax base.
With the complete failure of
the Legislature to implement real tax reform, the reliance on residential
property taxes to finance education is putting a greater burden on
homeowners, particularly our older population. If we can at least create a
broader commercial tax base by attracting more investment, the burden can be
more evenly spread out.
The real challenge for us in
southwestern Pennsylvania is that we have fallen behind other regions of the
country and, if we only maintain the current infrastructure, we will likely
fall further behind. Our plan must be realistic, but it also must challenge
us to achieve more. We must be innovative in how we meet challenges and the
greatest of those challenges for the public sector is financing the major
capital projects that will allow us to attract more investment and make us
more competitive. |
