The Missouri Senate passed a revised transportation sales tax increase bill yesterday with a roll call vote of 22 to 10. However, the Senate lowered the penny sales tax proposal to a sales tax of three-fourths-cent-per-gallon.
Over a ten-year period, the original one-cent-per-gallon sales tax was expected to bring in $720 million annually. The Senate’s revised three-fourths-cent-per-gallon sales tax proposal would yield $534 million per year to fund transportation improvement projects throughout Missouri.
Senator Mike Kehoe (R-Jefferson City)—the Senate sponsor of the bill— said that the new version of the bill “doesn’t cure all the problems, but it does take care of a lot of issues…it’s a compromise.”
Moving forward, both state chambers will need to pass the same version of the bill in order for the transportation funding proposal to be placed on the November 2014 ballot.