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Show Increased bus costs could raise Resort Sales Tax rate The Park City Transit System sits at a crossroads while the city council contemplates the municipality's munici-pality's 1985-86 Operating Budget. Bud-get. At stake are benefits for full-time employees, service to Silver Lake and Main Street and perhaps an increase in sales tax locally. Among the most difficult problems the council will have to solve in balancing its $8 million fiscal budget is how to staff its mass transit system. Currently only two of 30 drivers are offered full-time benefits. While bus driving has traditionally tradi-tionally been seasonal employment employ-ment in Park City, at least a half "''V ' ( dozen drivers had worked full-time full-time without benefits for 12 months before being furloughed for the month of May. Neither Transportation Department Depart-ment Director Kae Draper nor City Manager Arlene Loble approves of the practice of employing drivers year-round without the benefits received by the rest of the municipality's employees. Loble contends it is unlawful, but in the last year's budget there was no provision for such benefits. According to Draper and Loble, the phenomenon occured because Park City only recently developed summer service. Additionally, last year buses ran during the months of October and May when usually they do not. Because the October and May schedules were added piecemeal, no budgetary provision was made for the drivers. Loble maintains that whether or not the drivers are furloughed for two months, they should receive benefits. Draper argues she needs to keep full-time bus drivers to maintain the system's quality. The council, however, is faced with a $60,000 bill that would fund eight drivers's benefits. The staff would then stand at a 10 full-time employees, reducing the seasonal driving force to 20. In April, the city council adopted its annual Capital Improvements Im-provements Budget, which outlines out-lines expenditures for new projects. Among the items adopted was a $67,000 lease-option lease-option package to fund two four-wheel drive buses to serve the Silver Lake area in Deer Valley and a trolley to run up and down Main Street. , The question now becomes, where will the funds to operate the additional buses come from? Draper estimates the trolley will cost $82,000 annually to operate. The Silver Lake buses will cost $39,000 to operate on an hourly schedule. The mass transit operating budget outlines $715,570 in expenditures, up almost $100,000 from last year. But according to Loble, the expenses of the bus system have outstripped revenue sources. The council is now left with a choice of raising the Resort Cities Sales Tax or increasing business license fees. Currently, business license fees are applied to the bus system. Loble contends business license fees are already expensive. expen-sive. The Resort Cities Sale Tax, however, can be be raised 14 of :.:'!V:''',v.: 'V . - X:;:; '' 'Xv'v-v ' : w::.:::; . y:iVWi:y one percent from the present Park City rate of 34 of one percent. General sales tax in Salt Lake City 1 : is 5 34 percent. In Park City the rate is 6V2 percent. The increase would raise the tax to 6 34 percent here. ; Loble said the tax is useful in making tourists help pay for the bus system without charging - ridership fares. She maintains that a pay bus system is inconvenient and slow. The council will address the j transportation budget again to- , day, May 23. The Operating i Budget will go to public hearing ' June 6 with adoption slated for June 13. I |