TRANSPORTATION TAX: Cagle: Consensus must pave the way

Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle said Monday that the Legislature could consider a bill in the first week of the legislative session that starts in January to address transportation funding shortfalls —- if interest groups could come to a consensus first.

Cagle said transportation problems like congestion were the issue most often holding back the state, and he was a “strong supporter” of a 1 percent sales tax to address it.

Details of what that bill would fund and how the process would work are still under discussion. Questions such as whether and when a county can opt out of a region that’s voting itself a tax have stymied the issue in the past. Cagle said interest groups need to come to consensus in the next few weeks.

“When we talk about opt-in or opt-out … that sometimes is difficult in the legislative process,” Cagle said. “But we are committed.”

State transportation officials spoke at a lunch held with the Get Georgia Moving Coalition, a big-tent group that has been trying to raise funds for transportation.

Last year, the coalition brought together interest groups, from mass transit advocates to asphalt companies, and united them around a transportation tax that voters could approve in a referendum. It failed in the state Senate by three votes.

In panel discussions after Cagle’s remarks Monday, state Transportation Commissioner Gena Evans and Georgia Regional Transportation Authority director Dick Anderson cited the findings of a state study on transportation just completed.

It found that the state may forgo 320,000 jobs and $515 billion in economic benefits over the next 20 years if it doesn’t reverse funding shortfalls.