Urgent Call for Action on HR 168

16 February, 2006

If you care about the future of public transit in Athens and across the state, please act now! HR168 is stalled in committee, and we need to get it to the House floor for a vote.

What is HR 168?

Introduced by Georgia State Representatives Keith Heard and Jane Kidd, HR 168 is a resolution “proposing an amendment to the [state] Constitution so as to declare the acquisition, establishment, operation, and administration of the system of public transportation of passengers for hire in any city, county, or consolidated government to be an essential governmental function and a public purpose and to authorize the creation of a public corporation or authority for such purpose.” (http://www.legis.state.ga.us/legis/2005_06/fulltext/hr168.htm)

Why is HR 168 important?

Athens Transit is chronically underfunded, and thus unable to provide an adequate level of service. In the fall of 2002, ACC commissioners asked Athens Transit staff to research alternate funding sources for transit. An excellent suggestion was to levy a local sales tax specifically to fund transit. If there were a tax of just a quarter of a cent on the dollar, and that money all went to Athens Transit, we could have more frequent service AND night service. Further, money from the ACC general fund would no longer be needed for transit, so that money could be put to other uses.

Unfortunately, Athens cannot levy a transit-specific tax because local taxes are already at the state-mandated maximum of 2%. If HR 168 passes, it will enable communities to levy an additional small tax earmarked for transit. MARTA currently obtains funding in this way, but, until HR 168 passes, counties and cities outside of the metro Atlanta area cannot even consider such an option.

View the GTA legistlative agenda. (pdf)

Why is HR 168 stalled in committee?

HR 168 is being discussed in the Governmental Affairs Committee. Some members of this committee are uncomfortable with the creation of an authority with powers of taxation, eminent domain, etc. as would be granted by this amendment. While such concerns may be legitimate, we do not necessarily need a transit authority to have powers of taxation and eminent domain for us to achieve higher levels of bus service.

What we do need is to be able, as a community, to decide for ourselves how to fund our transit system. Rather than completely holding up HR 168, we urge the committee to work on quickly resolving the concerns and producing a resolution that would achieve the desired goal: to allow communities the option of levying a special tax dedicated to transit funding.

Is this a time-sensitive issue?

YES! The legislative session is already half over. If HR 168 doesn’t make it out of Committee soon, it will not be possible to pass it this year, and it will be another whole year before it can even be considered again. We can’t let this die in Committee!

What can I do about it?

Contact the Governmental Affairs Committee today and urge them to move HR 168 along. The Chairman is Rep. Austin Scott, and he can be reached by phone at (404) 656-5132, or by email at ascott@legis.state.ga.us.

Contact information for the other committee members can be found at this website: http://www.legis.state.ga.us/legis/2005_06/house/Committees/govAffairs/gahgaff.htm. We need a lot of people contacting the Committee to make them see how important the passage of HR 168 is to this community.

Contact Governor Sonny Perdue and request that he put pressure on the Governmental Affairs Committee. He can be emailed via this online form: http://www.gov.state.ga.us/contact_dom.shtml. Or, you can call his office at 404-656-1776.