County to get bigger share of gasoline tax

Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2003 | 9:09 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Clark County will get a bigger share of the local gasoline taxes next fiscal year. An advisory committee on local government taxes and finance agreed Monday that Clark County has the responsibility of maintaining 375 miles more of roadway than in past years.

Scott Hansen, principal civil engineer in the Clark County Public Works Department, said an audit showed that the county is maintaining state roads, many in rural areas on federal land, but the county is not getting credit when the local gasoline tax is divvied up to help pay for that work.

The gasoline tax is collected by the state and part of it is divided based on population and road miles maintained by local governments. This year Clark County was credited with 1,688 miles. But next fiscal year it will have 375 miles more, so its share will be higher when the distribution is made.

Some of these additional miles are on paved roads and some are on gravel roads, Hansen told the advisory committee.

Russ Law, NDOT chief operations analysis engineer, said Clark County will likely get as much as $200,000 more because of the change in the formula, which affects about 4 cents of the 24-cents-per-gallon state portion of gasoline taxes.

Bobby Shelton, Clark County Public Works spokesman, said the county has taken over some of the formerly state roads such as portions of Las Vegas Boulevard, but more importantly the county has for years taken care of many of the federal roads in rural areas.

Both urban and rural roads are maintained on a regular basis as they are evaluated by Public Works, Shelton said.

Marvin Leavitt, vice chairman of the advisory committee, said: "I've driven some of these roads and I wonder if some are maintained."

Hansen answered that some of the gravel roads are washed out in a rainstorm but then are repaired. He said some of these roads to Good Springs and Sandy Valley and others go to communications facilities on mountain tops.

Under the formula approved by the 2003 Legislature, all local governments will receive at least the same allocation they received this fiscal year, if there is enough money to go around. Then the population-road miles calculation kicks in to split the rest of the funds.

The Nevada Department of Transportation examined the 375 miles and agreed they could be classified as being maintained by Clark County. Steve Jackson of the transportation department said his agency will do a final audit but there may only be a difference of a mile or two from the earlier number.

With this addition, Clark will have the largest number of miles to maintain followed by Nye County with 2,037 miles and Pershing County with 1,875 miles.

Outside the meeting, Hansen said Clark County wants a bigger slice of the pie.

"We just want what is fair," Hansen said.

He noted the measurement of miles is down the center of the highway. It does not take into account whether it is a two-lane road in Pahrump or eight lanes in Las Vegas.

In other business, the advisory committee re-elected Guy Hobbs of Las Vegas as its chairman and Leavitt as vice chairman.