Snohomish County was one week away from leaving $340 million off a road-fixing wish list.
That’s money enough to build a bypass road around Monroe, to finish widening Highway 522, and to rebuild the 88th and 116th street overpasses in Marysville.
Until this week, those and other much-sought-after projects were likely to be left off a roads tax package that’s expected to go before voters in November 2007.
The Snohomish County Council thought it had only $1.38 billion to play with in picking the county road projects that would be paid for by the Regional Transportation Investment District, the road tax package that has been linked with a Sound Transit tax package on the 2007 ballot.
On Wednesday, County Executive Aaron Reardon surprised the County Council by presenting it with a proposed project list that included an extra $340 million – increasing the total money to spend on roads to $1.72 billion.
The additional cash comes because the county did its math wrong.
County staff initially failed to add in a number that tells them how much money they hope to borrow based on the amount of taxes they would collect.
To make the borrowing work, the taxes would be collected for a longer period than the 20 years it would take to spend the money.
Councilman Dave Gossett said he believed all along that the numbers being used included the ability to borrow.
“I depend on the experts at public works to give me those kind of numbers,” he said.
The county realized over the summer that it hadn’t accounted for borrowing.
In preparing Reardon’s Regional Transportation Investment District project list, number crunchers figured $340 million had been left out, said Steve Thomsen, public works director.
“In some ways it’s a pleasant curveball,” said Councilman Dave Gossett. “I would have liked to know sooner.”
The county councils from each of the three counties have set Friday as the deadline to winnow down a project list. The Snohomish County Council plans to hash out a new project list Monday.
Gossett said Reardon’s proposal would be considered at that time. The tri-county RTID board, made up of the three county councils, hopes to have a final project put together by April or May. The package would go to voters in all three counties next November.
Reardon, like the County Council, said widening Highway 9 and expanding the U.S. 2 trestle are his top priorities.
He also wants to build the U.S. 2 Monroe bypass, widen the middle section of Highway 522, rebuild some I-5 overpasses and widen patches of Highway 524 and Highway 531.
Herald writer Jeff Switzer contributed to this report.
Reporter Lukas Velush: 425-339-3449 or lvelush@ heraldnet.com.
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