Jacksonville City Council President Bill Gulliford said he’ll introduce legislation Tuesday to extend the local-option gas tax.
“Even though the tax does not expire until 2016, the Jacksonville Transportation Authority has no bonding capacity for highway improvements without that extension,” Gulliford said at a JAX Chamber-sponsored lunch of elected officials Friday.
State law permits local governments to levy the 6-cent per gallon tax on motor fuel in order to raise money for transportation expenditures.
The JTA is poised to let over $140 million of road projects that can move forward quickly if the local option gas tax is extended, Gulliford said. Extending the tax would also allow some unfinished Better Jacksonville Plan projects to be completed.
Gulliford said his legislation would also provide for the JTA to assume operation and funding of the St. Johns River Ferry.
The fate of the ferry has been uncertain since the Jacksonville Port Authority, which was operating it at a loss, last year decided to transfer operations to the St. Johns River Ferry Commission.
The JTA board of directors voted Thursday to contribute $200,000 to the ferry next year.
Gulliford on Friday said he believed the JTA would become the “proper conduit for ultimate operational funding from the state of Florida.”
“It’s a moving bridge on State Road A1A,” Gulliford said. “Enough said.”
Gulliford said other issues the council will address in the coming months include pension reform, Hemming Plaza, Downtown redevelopment and a review of consolidated government.
In Florida politics, state Rep. Charles McBurney, chairman of the Duval County legislative delegation, said he expects lawmakers will hotly debate how to spend an estimated $845 million budget surplus.
Gov. Rick Scott has already said he’d like to return most of the money to taxpayers, in the form of a $500 million tax cut.
But, the Legislature will also consider closing deficits in the departments of Corrections and Juvenile Justice, as well as increasing education funding. The debate over Medicaid expansion will also likely return next year, McBurney said.
Duval County School Board Chairman Fel Lee praised his colleagues for crafting a $1.7 billion zero-based budget that put art, music and physical education back into every school.
The school system, through a $32 million bond, has put one-to-one technology devices (iPads) in 40 of 186 schools, Lee said.
This year, Duval schools will ask for restoration of state PECO (Public Education Capital Outlay) funds. A quarter of the money would be spent on bringing technology devices to the rest of the county’s schools, Lee said.