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7 7 Mike Stanley: Historically, NC has been absent on committee that deals with that until now. Howard Coble is a member of an appropriating committee. That is slowly changing. Alice Gordon: There is not much you can do unless the elected officials change the local impact. Robert Peterson: What about the bill in the House to allow counties to levy a registration fee? Karen Lincoln: That was for public transportation. Alice Gordon: This was not a good year for transportation. Robert Peterson: Can you institute a tax? Alice Gordon: They have to be passed by referendums. That doesn’t apply this year. The county is not in the transportation business in a way the other states are. Robert Peterson: I have seen counties have lower sales tax. Alice Gordon: I haven’t gotten the scoop. It looks like we won’t benefit this year. The transportation process is what we need to deal with. Robert Peterson: It sounds like for the long term TIP, the federal funding has gone further down. Mike Stanley: It depends on what happens. The gas tax goes toward the maintenance. Alice Gordon: It is easier if the market raises the gas tax. When DOT is doing forecasts, they end up with a different forecast later. What happened? Mike Stanley: They use a model. They look at the markets and trends on the state side. On the federal side, we don’t have many tools to work with to get a solid projection. Alice Gordon: This group was working on a priority list and the money went down. Mike Stanley: The MPOs have to have a long range plan that is financially constrained. We don’t get good numbers for projected future costs of projects. Alice Gordon: There were two conferences; they are saying that there will be less money coming from the federal side for transportation and other local needs. Nancy Baker: When you are speaking, I think of pots of money. How much money should we keep in mind when we think of prioritizing?