Funding transportation infrastructure in California is becoming increasingly difficult, as diminished gasoline taxes and other state and federal funding sources continue to be insufficient to provide fully for burgeoning capital improvement needs and critical infrastructure gaps resulting from extended deferred maintenance of existing facilities.

Highlighting this issue, on January 22, 2016, the California Transportation Commission (CTC) slashed its transportation funding availability projections by $754 million over five years—the largest such reduction since the current funding structure was established almost twenty years ago. CTC Chair, Lucy Dunn, noted that such reductions would mean “that almost every county in California that relies on this source of funding for projects that improve traffic and air quality will have to cut or delay projects indefinitely.” One way to increase the availability of funds for transportation projects locally is for California county transportation commissions and authorities (“transportation authorities”) to enact ordinances authorizing the imposition of an incremental sales tax within the county. Residents of the county must then approve the proposed sales tax measure and the proceeds of such sales tax are made available for projects specified in the expenditure plan approved in connection with the measure.