Senate hears substitute on rebalancing fund transfers, accelerating tax repayments for transportation

Proposed substitute Senate Bill 5,802 would cancel several statutorily scheduled transfers into transportation accounts, accelerate repayment of sales-and-use-tax deferrals for major construction projects, and dedicate 0.3 percentage points of the state sales tax (of the state’s 6.5 percent) to the multimodal account beginning July 1, 2027.

Brian Moore, committee staff, gave a detailed table of cancellations and offsets. He said the bill would cancel Connecting Washington transfers that were part of the larger 16-year funding plan (a total assumption of roughly $518 million) and would cancel Move Ahead Washington assumptions (roughly $855 million in assumed transfers). Moore told the committee the cancellation of transfers for the current biennium represents about $112 million. He said the bill would…