TAVARES, Fla. – Lake County is considering a plan to add a 5-cent tax per gallon of gas to help fund transportation projects.
The state of Florida lets counties impose gas taxes of up to 12 cents per gallon - right now, Lake County is at 7 cents, which is the same as neighboring Sumter County (Orange County is at 6 cents). Two weeks ago, Seminole County raised its gas tax to 12 cents; that new tax goes into effect on Jan. 1.
County officials believe an increase of anywhere from one penny to the full 5 cents will help offset maintenance costs and could add up to $4 million to their yearly maintenance budget. That extra cash could help keep roads healthy and sustainable before they fall into an unrecoverable state of disrepair.
County Commissioner Anthony Sabatini, representing District 1, told News 6 he was against levying any more taxes on residents and that he feels Tallahassee should look to developers to help offset rising road maintenance costs.
“I’m opposed to it, because I think that the most hard-working class voters are the ones who are going to get hit the hardest with this, and I think that’s wrong,” Sabatini told News 6. “I don’t want to put any more of a tax burden on the majority of constituents, especially those who are in the car driving to work every single day.”
Lake County resident Rick Newcomb said he sees traffic problems every day, and the gas tax could be beneficial.
“I don’t have an issue if it goes to road structure,” Newcomb said. “I think there’s a lot of backlog, and we bottleneck in areas. Everybody just wants a better way to get from here to there.”
With the majority of the county board of commissioners voting yes in Tuesday’s meeting to advertise the additional gas tax idea to county residents, the next steps will be either the commissioners voting for (or against) additional gas taxes, or letting voters decide the issue through a ballot referendum.
The county’s next public meeting on this subject will be on Sept. 23.