Sales-tax increase eyed for rail plan

Jeff Schweers

Thursday, May 28, 1998 | 10:02 a.m.

Regional transportation officials are eyeing a quarter-cent increase in sales tax to help finance a proposed $380 million public rail system linking downtown to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

The Regional Transportation Commission has received $155 million for the 5.2-mile system under a $204 billion transportation bill approved Friday by Congress.

That covers about 41 percent of the project's cost. The remaining 59 percent of the estimated cost must come from local sources. Several sources are being considered, but the sales-tax increase is a leading candidate, officials said.

"Some of these alternative sources may take a lot of legislative work and time," RTC Director Kurt Weinrich said. "The quarter-cent (increase) is probably the quickest."

Such an increase in the sales tax would lift RTC revenue from that source by about $45 million a year, Weinrich said. That money would allow the RTC to bond up to $200 million, he said, "just about what the feds aren't covering."

But Clark County Commissioner Lance Malone, who also is an RTC board member, worried that adding one more tax-increase question to the Nov. 3 ballot would create a voter rebellion.

The ballot already is loaded with a school bond referendum and an advisory question on raising the sales tax a quarter-cent to pay for expansion of the water system.

Malone was afraid that voters confronted with two sales-tax questions would reject both. At the very least, it creates a dilemma for the policy makers responsible for providing the valley's water and transportation needs, he said.

"Water is very important," Malone said. "Do we sacrifice that over transportation?"

Legislation approved in 1991 allowed the RTC to raise the sales tax up to a half-cent, but the vote on a ballot question the previous year qualified as public support for a quarter-cent increase.

"By inference, we would need another vote of the people for the remainder," Weinrich said.

The RTC would have to request the County Commission to place the tax increase on a general county-wide ballot -- the earliest of which would be Nov. 3.

"It's conceivable it could go on the November ballot," Weinrich said, "but the county would have to act by the end of summer."

Weinrich said there are several options being considered by financial consultants Hobbs, Ong and Associates for the RTC's local financing program, which also includes expansion of the Citizens Area Transit bus system.

"We expect in the next month to two months we will have a presentation to the commission of the final recommendation," Weinrich said. The consultants were waiting to see how much the RTC was going to get in the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act re-authorization.

"Knowing what the federal share was was crucial to knowing how much we'd have to come up with at the local level," Weinrich said.