Commissioner Steve Novick is hustling to prove he’s serious about making heavy trucks pay for Portland roads. And trucking companies showed yesterday they’re serious about pushing back.
As Novick’s plan to reap $2.5 million from trucking outfits that operate within city limits came before Portland City Council for the first time, council chambers swelled with business owners who say the mechanism—considered the fairest of two options floated by the city—is still too unfair. And lots of them made a fairly compelling case.
The plan before council would slap a 2.8 percent surcharge on the weight-mile taxes trucking companies pay to the state for their use of roads. It would apply to freight companies who already pay for a Portland business license because they pick up or deliver goods here.
But owner after owner went before council yesterday to argue the surcharge is deeply flawed, because it assigns a tax based on all the miles their truckers drive even though many of those miles might not be on city streets.
“We literally use five miles [of Portland road] every trip—that’s it,” said Shelly Boshart, who works at a company based south of Albany.
Another trucker, Ron Bowers, told council that “less than one half of one percent” of his company’s miles are in Portland, but that he’d be charged based on the more than 600,000 miles his fleet travels within the state—an overall charge, he said, of $2,902.33. “I don’t use that much Portland road.”
“This tax is going to put a burden on us versus a smaller carrier who’s in the market,” said Keith Wilson of Milwaukie-based Titan Freight Systems. “That is uncompetitive.”
Some truckers made a plea that the city hold off on a charge until 2018, when all freight operations will be required to use GPS units that can track their miles in the City of Portland. And those arguments clearly held sway with some members of council—enough that the ordinance, when it comes up for a formal vote, will include provisions that explore an appeals process for trucking companies, and would reconsider the four-year revenue mechanism once universal GPS use begins.
“I have heard some compelling testimony today that there might be a better way of doing things,” Commissioner Amanda Fritz said.
Novick, a main player in the push for a (Mercury-endorsed) 10-cent gas tax on the May 17 ballot, believes it’s crucial to enact a charge on heavy trucks sooner than later. They’re excluded from the gas tax proposal (for fear that the city’s lone truck stop could be imperiled), but supporters are keen on showing they won’t get off for free—especially because opponents of the gas tax are using the lack of a tax on trucks as an argument against the measure.
According to city calculations, the $2.5 million generated each year by the proposed heavy vehicle surcharge would account for the proportion of damage trucks cause to city streets. The gas tax will generate an estimated $16 million a year. Both would last four years.
One thing to note about the truckers’ opposition to Novick’s plan: It’d likely surface with any scheme the commissioner came up with. Oregon Trucking Associations, Inc., the lobbying body for the state’s freight haulers, has said it opposes any local taxes on its members. As we’ve reported, Jana Jarvis, the organization’s president, recently called on members to oppose the gas tax, reasoning that the city would balk at a tax on big trucks if there weren’t a corresponding gas tax for cars.
“I am even more convinced that the only way to stop this nonsense is, in fact, to kill the gas tax,” Jarvis wrote.
Novick countered he’d actually look to charge truckers more if the gas tax failed, but Jarvis’ reasoning resonated with one city commissioner: Dan Saltzman.
Toward the end of yesterday’s hearing, Saltzman proposed an amendment that any tax on trucks be contingent on the gas tax passing on May 17. No one seconded the proposal.
Update, 11:30 am: The Mercuryjust spoke with Novick about the arguments that surfaced at yesterday’s hearing. He says nothing that was floated yesterday raised “a better alternative’ than the surcharge he’s proposed.
“There are very few taxes that you can argue are totally fair,” Novick says. He gives an example of a Tigard resident who works in Portland, but doesn’t pay local property taxes that pick up much of the tab for Portland police. “People who commute from Tigard benefit from having a police force.”
Still, Novick says he’s open to exploring “that it might be possible for some of these companies to prove they barely touch Portland streets at all. If they do that, then we can exempt them.”
The issue there: That could affect the city’s revenue calculations, and result in a higher surcharge. “Then we’d have to raise the rate on everybody,” Novick says.
God Novick is dumb.