After years of being trapped in the Florida Legislature, the latest state budget proposal is revealing how the nearly $600 million in a now-defunct tax for Hillsborough County transportation improvements will be spent.
As of the last proposal, less than half of the money will go toward actual transportation projects.
Only $256 million of the $589 million collected from the tax will go toward road improvements in Hillsborough County.
The rest would be spent on legal fees from when the tax was sent to the Florida Supreme Court, a refund program for people who apply to have money spent on the tax sent back to them, and supplementing the cost of other tax holidays in the county.
Hillsborough County Commissioner Harry Cohen says while it's disappointing that such a large block of the money will go toward legal fees and refunds, the remainder can still make a difference.
“The long saga of the tax is not really a happy one. But the good news is that we can really make good use of the $256 million that will be coming to us."Hillsborough County Commissioner Harry Cohen
"Look, $250 million is not enough to transform our transportation system into something it isn't,” Cohen said. “But it is enough to make some real headway on real projects that will increase safety, reduce congestion, and ultimately make moving around a little bit easier."
In February 2021, the Florida Supreme Court found the tax unconstitutional, noting that the ways the money would be spent was restrictive and was decided outside of the county commission.
In the tax's original language, which was led by an effort of the transportation advocacy organization All for Transportation, 54% of the revenue generated would go toward roads and safety, while 45% would go toward expanding transit options in the county. The remainder of the funding would have gone toward oversight of the funds.
The tax was generated on a 1% sales surtax and collected from 2019 until 2021, when it was struck down.
Now the money will be entirely focused on road resurfacing projects, while Cohen says it will still be helpful toward clearing up some congestion.
“One could argue that this is a pretty mediocre result after so much effort was put into trying to really solve some of our transportation challenges,” Cohen said. “The long saga of the tax is not really a happy one. But the good news is that we can really make good use of the $256 million that will be coming to us … we’re very far behind in terms of both maintenance and improvement of a lot of our road network. And this will be very helpful.”
Cohen also says in his more than a decade as a public servant, he knows how hard it can be to get transportation funded.
“It has always been just an absolute uphill battle to try to fund it,” Cohen said. “Anything that relates to transit, and any kind of non-automobile centric transportation, that's been very, very challenging. That said, the more that we grow, the more that the need for those solutions reveals itself. So my hope is that, at some point, we sort of reach a critical mass and say, ‘we've got to do something.’ ”
Hillsborough County Commissioner Joshua Wostal, who sits on the Hillsborough Area Regional Transit board, says the budget proposal is a win for county residents.
“I am sorrowful that the All for Transportation initiative manipulated the voters of Hillsborough County,” Wostal said in an e-mail statement to WUSF. “I look forward to ascertaining a final damages amount created by this injustice and seeking damages. The unconstitutional tax of our county was unprecedented, as will be the recovery of damages once determined.”
