Cape fuel tax money won't go toward airport, bus projects

The Cape Girardeau City Council won't tap into motor fuel tax money to help fund airport projects. The state constitution won't allow it, city officials said Tuesday.

The council also won't seek to fund transit buses with transportation sales tax money. City staff said it would be difficult at best because of tax restrictions in state law that prevent using city tax money to help fund a transit service run by another agency, such as the Cape Girardeau County Transit Authority. Transportation sales tax money could be used to fund a transit system the city owned and operated.

Officials with the United Way of Southeast Missouri and the Community Caring Council recently asked the city council to earmark some money in the transportation trust fund plan as a local match to secure federal funding for a public transportation system in Cape Girardeau.

But council members said they want to spend transportation sales tax money on road projects as has been the practice for the past decade.

Council members last week said they were reluctant to include any funding for a fixed-route bus system in the list of projects that would be funded if voters approve a five-year extension of the half-cent transportation sales tax in August.

At Tuesday night's study session before the regular meeting, council members said their philosophy hadn't changed.

Mayor Jay Knudtson suggested last week that the city use some of its motor fuel tax money to provide the $125,000 needed in matching money to secure a $500,000 federal grant to subsidize a fourth commuter round-trip flight to St. Louis.

At the time, city staff suggested that would be a possibility.

But in a written memo to the council, city attorney Eric Cunningham and city manager Doug Leslie said that isn't legal.

"The only airport improvement expenses that could be approved are those for construction or repair of streets and roads within the airport property," they wrote.

Knudtson said he still hopes to find a way to come up with the matching money for the airport grant, just not from motor fuel tax.

mbliss@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 123