Published date: December 3, 2024
The Clock is Ticking on Our MVFT Exit Strategy
Jane Wall, County Road Administration Board Executive Director
Depending on the GPS you use, you could be directed off Highway 2 prematurely on your way to the Inland Northwest Rail Museum and be in for a bumpy surprise on Sunset Highway. Once a part of the historic state highway system, the 100-year-old stretch near Rearden, WA is now the responsibility of Lincoln County. Along with their fellow counties, the foundation of Lincoln County’s road system budget that maintains roads like this since 1921 has been Washington’s Motor Vehicle Fuel Tax (MVFT).
While it has been a sturdy foundation for most of the last century, vehicles have become more efficient and are moving away from internal combustion engines. The writing is on the wall for the Motor Vehicle Fuel Tax: it can no longer be the primary support for our state’s transportation system. It is a waning revenue source and Washington needs to find a replacement.
It has been over a decade since the Legislature took its first tentative steps forward to explore how to make up for losses in, and ultimately replace, the MVFT. Many solutions have been suggested, including a flat fee similar to the electric vehicle fee, a vehicle sales tax, and impact fees but none were without their challenges.
Following the lead of Oregon and other states, policy makers chose to study the frontrunner idea, a Road Usage Charge (RUC). The RUC is a per mile charge based on the number of miles driven, not on gallons of gas purchased. They tasked the Washington State Transportation Commission (WSTC) with the effort and, since 2012, the agency has studied and analyzed the issue in depth, exploring what a RUC would look like and how it would work in Washington.
The idea of a Road Usage Charge is neither new nor novel; in fact, many like it to a form of tolling. But there are still many, many questions to be answered about it. Key areas of concern are how revenues will be split and distributed, whether it will have conditions on use and, perhaps most importantly, if the RUC would have 18th amendment protections.
The controversy it stirs is real; however, many are uncomfortable with it as the potential route forward. Specifically, concerns have been raised about the higher administration costs of a RUC compared to the MVFT and the logistics of the program. It would rely on odometer readings, either through attestation or some form of virtual tracking, which brings Orwellian “big brother watching” privacy concern to mind for many.
The controversy has resulted in Legislature punting the issue forward year-after-year, unwilling to make a decision. Washington is now twelve years in and face to face with a declining fuel tax that is unlikely to rebound. According to the Washington State Economic and Revenue Forecast Council, gas consumption in Washington has been declined 9% since 2018 and is expected to do so in the coming decade, resulting in a loss over $300 million in critical transportation funding.
To say that failing to have a strategy in place by now is nearing a crisis level is an understatement. The MVFT currently provides one third of the state’s overall transportation budget and is equally critical to cities and to counties like Lincoln, where it supplies over 52% of their annual road budget. While the exact numbers vary by municipality, the fuel tax and the property tax serve as the two largest revenue sources for local governments and other sources can be quite limited for smaller ones like Lincoln with a population of under 12,000 residents.
The Road Usage Charge is not perfect, nor is it universally loved. You may not like it, your constituents may not like it. But it is my view that state agencies, local governments, and transportation stakeholders simply must be engaged in the discussion around alternatives for the MVFT, including the RUC. Too much is riding on this conversation to not be at the table and fully engaged in the debate and the solution.
This coming legislative session starting in January will likely be your opportunity as House Transportation Committee Chair Jake Fey (D-Tacoma) has indicated he will be introducing a bill for a Road Usage Charge pilot program. If you are interested in getting an early start, he is currently conducting stakeholder listening sessions that will help inform his proposed program.
To be facing a future where a revenue source as critical as the MVFT will disappear with no adopted, unified plan to move forward is alarming, to say the least. At the County Road Administration Board, three of our four grant programs are almost exclusively funded by the MVFT and our future is dependent on policy makers deciding on a solution.
But it isn’t just us; the same is true for most of our counties, cities and our economy. The future of Washington will grind to a halt without a well-maintained, and funded, transportation infrastructure. The perfect is the enemy of the good; we had twelve years and failed to come up with a perfect solution, now we need to decide, and move forward, on a good solution.