Questions about taxation versus participation in the intercounty bus program have led the Surry County Board of Commissioners to question whether the county benefits from further participation in the Piedmont Authority for Regional Transportation.
A lengthy conversation was held Monday night between the board and Scott Rhine, president and CEO of PART, in which he sought to allay the concerns of the commissioners and keep Surry County as a contributing member.
PART is the regional authority that runs bus service between counties and has been touted since its inception as a novel way to move people from where they live to where they work. The plan advertises benefits of savings for the driver in gas, convenience of not driving, and the environmental impact of fewer cars with a single rider making a commute.
On the road again
PART asked the board for their approval last fall to apply for federal funding to increase Route 6 service to Surry County. In 2014 Rhine had also sought a specific grant to expand the rural services being offered, to no avail. “We have not gotten the federal funds to expand rural service, that is why we wanted this grant.”
Rhine said that the model for bussing people from rural to urban areas is different than that of moving people between two urban areas for work. “Choice” riders are ones who have a vehicle of their own but for economic or convenience reasons are opting to park their car and use the public transportation options.
Commissioner Van Tucker has for months been pointing out that ridership for PART on Route 6 is down and was trending down before the pandemic. Rhine countered that ridership data over the past five years or so was skewed by the long-term Business I-40 project in Winston-Salem that led to more people using PART services during that time.
Due to COVID-19, ridership dropped 50% but Rhine noted those levels have climbed back to within 25% of pre-pandemic levels.
From his perspective, Rhine sees low ridership as something that can be addressed by adding more options and services, not eliminating them. “The frequency of service is where you give people the opportunity to make a choice to get on the bus. We want to expand the service to increase ridership.”
Rhine feels PART has seen and been able to show a need for their service in rural areas and reminded the board that there is more that PART offers than just the Route 6 bus service.
Van pool services are facilitated by PART as well, although the number of active van pools have plummeted across the state from 57 to 12. There are still van pools operating out of Surry County, these are paid for by the riders themselves, or in what are now rarer instances, employers may subsidize van pooling.
Declines have been seen in ridership numbers in all forms of public transportation across the state and the country. According to Rhine the trend of working from home contributes to this. “I don’t have a crystal ball,” Commissioner Tucker observed on this trend, “so many people stay at home for work. I wonder if they’re ever going back to work?”
“I have some van pools groups that are coming back because employers are not liking the remote work,” Rhine told the board. “I do have some though that will never change,” he tempered.
Taxes and fees may apply
“My main thing is I want what’s best for the people of Surry County, and I don’t see being a member of PART at this time serves the citizens of the county,” Commissioner Larry Johnson said. He has been asking similar questions about PART and has been vocal about his desire for the county to exit the partnership.
Johnson has stated he likes to rent cars, but he is no fan of the 5% rental car tax in the county that is being used to fund PART. There is no membership fee to be in the authority so the rental car tax, a tax on license plate registration or a sales tax increase were listed as the three ways the county could fund their share.
The commissioners previously balked at the license plate fee, Rhine recalled, and he said the sales tax is being used for schools. That leaves a 5% tax on cars rented within the county to fund the county’s participation in and the services yielded from PART which include the busses themselves as well as the physical bus stops built to accommodate the park and ride.
Surry county’s tax was estimated to yield $90,000 in revenue to PART’s collective coffers. What the board may not have been aware of was the fact the county was getting a little slice of that car rental tax pie as well, which Rhine slid into the conversation subtly by asking the commissioners how they would recoup the lost revenue from the county’s part of the rental car tax.
No quick exit
PART consists of ten counties that work together in a regional partnership that all the constituent members agreed to. When Surry’s commissioners agreed to enter into the authority, they entered into a special tax zone that the regional authority manages.
Rhine and County Attorney Ed Woltz have been in conversation with one another for a few months now about how Surry County can remove itself from PART, and the answers are not straightforward.
Rhine said there is more to it than just exiting the authority on paper and having to deal with assets purchased or built with federal funds will be complicated. “Dealing with federal assets is more painstaking than trying to get federal funding to increase ridership, which was the course of action I was taking versus looking at dismissing and dissolving.”
Davie and Yadkin counties are no longer receiving the benefits of being a member of PART while still seating a member of their authority’s board. Their commissioners also passed the rental car tax but could not raise it and did not pursue another funding source.
If a county cannot or does not contribute to the regional authority, they cannot be the beneficiary of the services that other counties are paying for. For that reason, PART had to terminate services to those counties, except for the user paid for van pool program.
The board passed a resolution Monday to request the county be removed from PART. The request will now go to the regional authority board for further consideration, but the intent has been made clear from the commissioners that they are seeking to fully withdraw from the regional transportation authority, the bus lines, and to no longer collect the sales tax on rental cars.
Commissioner Eddie Harris elicited a chuckle from his fellow board members and the crowd as he summarized the discussion, “So, this is either going to be a nice divorce, or a messy one.”
Rhine agreed, “Just like life, yes sir.”
Source: https://www.mtairynews.com
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