Drafter
Clerk 10/09/2024
Title
A RESOLUTION of the King County transportation district, fixing and imposing a one-tenth of one percent sales and use tax within the boundaries of the district to finance costs associated with Metro transit department public transportation improvements, as authorized by RCW 36.73.040, 36.73.065, and 82.14.0455.
Body
WHEREAS, Ordinance 17746 established the King County transportation district with the authority to fund, acquire, construct, operate, improve, provide, maintain and preserve transportation improvements, as authorized by chapter 36.73 RCW, within the geographic boundaries of King County, and
WHEREAS, RCW 36.73.065 authorizes the district to fix and impose up to a one-tenths of one percent sales and use tax for a period of up to ten years within the district in accordance with RCW 82.14.0455 upon a majority vote of the governing body of the district for the purpose of financing transportation improvements of the district, and
WHEREAS, King County's Metro transit department ("Metro") is the largest public transportation agency in the Puget Sound region, providing mobility opportunities each day throughout King County through a combination of fixed-route, contracted, shared, and flexible transit services, and
WHEREAS, in 2019, Metro served more than one hundred twenty million riders each year, with an average of five hundred thousand boardings each weekday, and
WHEREAS, the financial, operational, and public health impacts of the pandemic required Metro to reduce transit service levels beginning in March 2020, and
WHEREAS, due to a combination of changing ridership patterns and ongoing efforts to rebuild operational capacity, Metro currently provides approximately eighty-seven percent of pre-pandemic transit service levels for approximately sixty percent of pre-pandemic ridership, and
WHEREAS, to continue to provide transportation operations in a safe, reliable, and convenient manner by efficient use of a qualified and responsible workforce, and to respond to local and national workforce trends and wages, as well as the ongoing shortage of qualified employees, Ordinance 19668 approved a collective bargaining agreement between Metro and the Amalgamated Transit Union, Local 587, which will provide for wages, hours, and working conditions through October 31, 2025, for approximately three thousand seven hundred Metro operations, vehicle maintenance, transit facilities, and customer service employees, and
WHEREAS, the fiscal impact of the new collective bargaining agreement is estimated to be one hundred eighty-seven million dollars through October 31, 2025, and more than three hundred fifty million dollars over the next ten years, and
WHEREAS, King County is continuing to grow, with a projected population of approximately three million people by 2050, and
WHEREAS, the Metro Connects long-range plan, which was adopted in 2021 by Ordinance 19367, outlines a vision for responding to population growth and increased transportation needs through an expanded public transit network that could serve up to 200 million riders each year by 2050 by providing the transit services, fleet, and supporting capital infrastructure needed to accommodate regionally forecasted growth throughout King County, and
WHEREAS, the King County Metro Service Guidelines, which were also adopted in 2021 by Ordinance 19367, provide the criteria and methodology to develop, modify, and evaluate transit services to achieve the goals set in Metro Connects, based on the performance of each transit route and the needs of the communities served by Metro's mobility services, and
WHEREAS, the 2023 system evaluation report, which is required by Ordinance 19367 and evaluates the performance of Metro transit service each year based on the criteria prescribed by the King County Metro Service Guidelines, identified a need for an additional one million six hundred eighty-nine thousand transit service hours by 2035 to address overcrowding and transit reliability and to provide transit service levels that would achieve the expanded transit network described in Metro Connects, and
WHEREAS, the Metro Connects long-range plan, as adopted, is not fully funded, with approximately forty-nine percent of 2050 annual service costs currently unfunded and sixty-three percent of 2050 capital costs currently unfunded, and
WHEREAS, Metro also plays a crucial role in King County's response to climate change, reducing carbon emissions by reducing the number of single-occupant vehicles on the road, a strategy that relies on providing the expanded transit network described in Metro Connects so that residents throughout King County have easy access to safe, fast, reliable mobility services, and
WHEREAS, Ordinance 19052 set a goal that Metro would further reduce emissions by transitioning to a zero-emission transit fleet by 2035, a process that will require converting each of Metro's bus bases to support vehicle charging infrastructure and purchasing battery-electric or other zero-emission fleet vehicles to replace the existing diesel-electric hybrid fleet vehicles, and
WHEREAS, restoring and rebuilding the transit network following the service reductions necessitated by the pandemic, providing the wages and working conditions necessary to attract and retain a qualified workforce, achieving the expanded transit network described in the Metro Connects long-range plan, and supporting the transition to a zero-emission bus fleet will require additional resources, and
WHEREAS, the public transportation and mobility services provided by Metro are eligible, under chapter 36.73 RCW, to use revenues imposed by a transportation benefit district within the boundaries of the district for transportation improvements, and
WHEREAS, given the need for additional revenues to fund acquire, construct, operate, improve, provide, maintain, and preserve Metro public transportation improvements, including mobility services, transit fleet, and associated capital investments, it is appropriate for and in the best interests of the district to authorize funding for transportation improvements, including public transportation and mobility services countywide;
BE IT RESOLVED BY THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS OF THE KING COUNTY TRANSPORTATION DISTRICT:
SECTION 1. Imposition of sales and use tax.
A. The board of supervisors of the King County transportation district imposes a sales and use tax of one-tenth of one percent under RCW 36.73.040(3)(a), 36.73.065(4)(a)(v), and 82.14.0455, to raise revenue to fund transportation improvements, including to acquire, construct, operate, improve, provide, maintain, and preserve Metro transit department public transportation improvements, including mobility services, transit fleet, and associated capital investments, and therefore imposes such sales and use tax.
B. The sales and use tax shall be imposed for a period of ten years.
C. The sales and use tax shall be in addition to any other taxes authorized by other jurisdictions and shall be collected from those persons who are taxable by the state under chapters 82.08 and 82.12 RCW, as amended, upon the occurrence of any taxable event within the King County transportation district's boundaries, which are the geographic boundaries of King County.
SECTION 2. Distribution of revenues.
A. The sales and use tax imposed in section 1 of this resolution shall first pay any administrative costs incurred by the King County transportation district, including for any administrative costs to the state Department of Revenue.
B. The King County transportation district intends to contract with King County to expend the remaining revenues.
C. All remaining revenues shall be used to acquire, invest in, construct, improve, provide, operate, preserve, maintain, or fund Metro transit department public transportation improvements, including mobility services, transit fleet, and associated capital investments, consistent with the policies, criteria, and methodology in the King County Metro Strategic Plan for Public Transportation 2021-2031, the King County Metro Service Guidelines, and the Metro Connects long-range plan, as adopted by Ordinance 19367, or future council-adopted policies.
SECTION 3. Accountability. Each year, the board of supervisors of the King County transportation district shall review the projects and programs carried out by the Metro transit department with these sales and use tax revenues for consistency with this resolution. To inform the review, the Metro transit department shall identify and evaluate services, projects, and programs carried out with these sales and use tax revenues in the annual system evaluation report required by Ordinance 19367, or its successor.
SECTION 4. Severability. If any provision of this resolution or its application to any person or circumstance is held invalid, the remainder of the resolution or the application of the provision to other persons or circumstances is not affected.
SECTION 5. Effective date. This resolution takes effect immediately after passage of this resolution, but the additional sales and use tax imposed by section 1 of
this resolution applies only to taxable events occurring from January 1, 2025, and December 31, 2034.