Transit district wants to raise taxes but Daines not sure the timing is right

The Cache Valley Transit District is in no way in a crisis situation but Tuesday night officials asked members of the Logan City Council to support a bond election that, if passed, would mean a sales tax increase of a quarter of one percent to help fund operations.

Former Logan Mayor Doug Thompson, who is now president-elect of the CVTD board of directors, said if the idea is approved, the 11 cities that use the bus service would put the tax increase on the November ballot.

Councilmember Holly Daines said she understands the reasons for the request but…

“My one concern is just the increases that are coming down the road,” Daines said. “First of all, we have experienced the increase with the school bond levy and our property taxes will increase.

“With our new water treatment facility that’s coming rates will really increase. That’s going to hit some people very hard, the elderly, the fixed income. So that would be my one concern.”

The system has been operational since 1992 but CVTD district manager Todd Beutler said that federal money has been shrinking. He said that CVTD is not in a financial crisis, but the system does need more money.

On KVNU’s Crosstalk program Wednesday, Beutler said the transit district would be asking the 11 Cache Valley communities to approve the sales tax increase for operations and small service improvements.

“What’s nice about the service improvements we’re looking at now is that they are targeted,” Beutler explained. “We know that certain routes for two hours of the day, we need additional buses on there.

“So we can put those buses on in a very targeted way and it’s not as an expensive cost as doing a route all day long. So we can stretch these dollars further.”

Beutler said any or all of the cities in the district can decide whether or not to hold a November election but he said buses would be more available if they all decided to do so.

Free News Delivery by Email

Would you like to have the day's news stories delivered right to your inbox every evening? Enter your email below to start!