 |
| 4th Grade Math tools |
Hillsborough's current 2014 - 2015 budget plan is at http://www.hillsboroughcounty.org/DocumentCenter/View/10674. Page 415 states:
The Transportation Program Adopted Capital Budget for FY 14 is $19.1 million and the planned FY 15 Budget is $6.5 million.
http://www.hillsboroughcounty.org/DocumentCenter/View/12123 states on page 26 that the Transportation Program "has no new projects in 2015."
City of Tampa's 2015 budget plan at http://www.tampagov.net/dept_budget/files/FY15BudgetBook_part1.pdf includes about $12.5 million for capital in the Right of Way operations department (pg 199), where they enjoy a $4 million increase for road re-paving in 2015. It's not clear where the rest of that budget is spent. There is also another $15 million in capital in the Transportation Department (pg 209), but it does not mention any road projects. An exercise left to the reader is to figure out the real spending plans in these budgets documents.
Check out http://www.gohart.org/
HART's 2015 budget will get about $31M from Hillsborough County Ad Valorem taxes paid for by all Hillsborough County property owners, including those in Tampa.
Hillsborough County 2015 budget for roads will be about $6.5M, mostly paid from gas taxes. Total Hillsborough County budget for 2015 is about $3.9B.
HART is used by < 2% of the population... lets be generous and use 2% for this exercise.
Roads are used by nearly 100% of the population... the taxpayers, and everyone is dependent on roads even if they are not a driver....even if they are a HART rider. We will assume that roads are used by 98% of the population of Hillsborough County.
Currently there are about 1.29 million people in Hillsborough County.
Time for some 4th grade math!
| 1,291,578 | people in Hillsborough – 2014 | |
| 2.0% | HART riders as a percent of population | |
| 98% | road dependent people as a percent of population | |
| $31,843,863 | HART 2015 Ad Valorem Taxes | |
| $6,500,000 | Hillsborough County 2015 Road budget – gas taxes | |
| $12,250,000 | City of Tampa 2015 Road budget | |
| The above numbers results in | ||
| 25,832 | # of HART Riders | |
| 1,265,746 | # road riders and road dependents | |
| $1,233 | Tax $ per HART Rider - County+Tampa | |
| $5.14 | Tax $ per Road Rider – County | |
| $14.81 | Tax $ per Road Rider – County+Tampa | |
| 20% | Percent of Roads vs. HART tax budget – County | |
| 59% | Percent of Roads vs. HART tax budget – County+Tampa | |
| 0.42% | Percent of $ per rider spend Road vs. HART rider – County | |
| 1.20% | Percent of $ per rider spend Road vs. HART rider – County+Tampa | |
| $1,560,349,287.00 | Hillsborough tax $ to fund roads at same level as HART |
The above numbers are annual based on the planned 2015 budgets for HART, Hillsborough County and City of Tampa.
For 2015, Hillsborough County's current plan funds roads at 20% of the real dollars compared to HART's funding. On a per rider basis, HART is funded by the county taxpayers at $1233 per rider, and road riders are funded at $5.14 per rider.
If the county funds 1,265,746 road riders at $1233 per rider, same as HART riders,
the county would spend $1.56 BILLION in 2015 alone.
Some may state Hillsborough benefits from roads paid for by FDOT and the Feds. HART also receives money from the Feds, fares and advertising. However, this is a budget and tax comparison of Hillsborough and HART only. This will be close to what any new transportation/transit referendum budget will be based on. It will be extracting funds solely from the taxpayers of Hillsborough to pay for roads and transit at some ratio. This IS a valid comparison.
Additionally, municipalities in the county are responsible for their own roads and funding. However, Temple Terrace and Plant City are not even rounding errors, and City of Tampa is not spending $1.5B to bring parity into the equation.
If we did include City of Tampa, that adds another whopping $12.25 million in to the road spending, or about $14.81 per road rider, still minuscule compared to the $1233 in taxes spent on each HART rider every year.
Now we'll sharpen our pencils for 2040, when another 600,000 people are expected to move into Hillsborough County.
| 600,000 | Net population growth | |
| 1,891,578 | Forecasted 2040 population in Hillsborough | |
| 6% | HART riders as a percent of population (assume HART triples ridership percentage in the county) | |
| 113,495 | Number of HART riders 2040 | |
| 1,778,083 | Number of ROAD riders 2040 | |
| 512,337 | Number of net new ROAD Riders 2015 – 2040 |
Assuming HART triples transit ridership as a percentage of total population in next 25 years, which NO transit agency has achieved in the last 25 years, HART will grow from 25K to 113K riders. That will result in an increase of 512K more road riders on Hillsborough County roads in 2040 than today.
Does anyone really think we can pay for another 512,000 road riders with $5.12, or even $14.81 per rider per year in taxes spent on our roads?
This elementary math exercise shows that Hillsborough County is not serious about roads.
We need our roads fixed!
It’s incredible to think that only 6.5 million is being allocated to roads for 2014 and yet Animal Services will receive $8,340,552, an increase of over 2 million since 2012.
ReplyDelete