Fuel tax falls short for Carson City roads deficit due to pandemic, leads to creative funding methods
In August 2020, the Carson City Board of Supervisors implemented a $0.05 per gallon diesel tax to help fund the critical shortage in the roads budget. The original projections, which were made prior to the pandemic, estimated a $390,000 annual revenue for Carson City.
However, the current projection has been reduced to $250,000 due to the pandemic keeping less drivers off the roads.
According to Transportation Manager Lucia Maloney of the Public Works Department, the fuel tax revenue alone has fallen short as to what is needed to bridge the budget deficit.
“Although sales tax in Carson City continues to do well, unfortunately we’re still not seeing the rebound in fuel tax revenue that we rely on for critical transportation infrastructure projects,” said Maloney. “At this time we don’t anticipate meeting the projections that were made pre-pandemic.”
According to Maloney, the funding the city has received from the Diesel Tax this year was added to the Gasoline Fuel Tax revenues to support roadway projects on Clear Creek Road, Deer Run Road, and East 5 Street, among others.
“All funding is utilized and we stretch every penny as far as possible,” said Maloney. “In the last three years alone, the Regional Transportation Commission has leveraged roughly $10 million in local funding to secure and obtain state and federal grants that helped us complete over $40M in transportation projects.”
In order to address some of the critical transportation projects in Carson City, the Board of Supervisors have directed available funding from the General Fund, including $300,000 toward a roadway rehabilitation project on Center Drive.
“The Carson City Board of Supervisors have been very responsive to the decline in fuel tax revenue during the pandemic,” said Maloney. “Each step we take to address our rapidly deteriorating transportation infrastructure now, reduces long-term costs to our taxpayers.”
For fuel sold within the city, Carson City receives 14.2 cents per gallon and from the diesel fuel tax Carson receives 5 cents per gallon sold, both of which, are down.
"One hypothesis is that many of the state workers have shifted to working from home during the pandemic," said Maloney. "As those folks start returning to in-person work, there’s optimism that Carson’s fuel tax revenue will start to bounce back."
While the fuel tax was affected by the pandemic decreasing drivers on the road and, in turn, decreasing how often drivers are getting gas, the fuel tax alone will most likely never completely address the roads budget on its own.
“I do not believe that we’ll ever find a single solution to our transportation funding shortage — but by creatively piecing together many smaller, available funding sources, we continue to invest where we can for Carson City,” said Maloney.