Melissa Santos at the
News Tribune has a story about eastern Pierce County suburbs that are considering seceding from Pierce Transit if the proposed service cuts become a reality. What I found really interesting was the fact-box that was included in the story showing sales taxes raised by jurisdiction. I've adapted this data into chart form using Google Docs.
Sales taxes paid to Pierce Transit in 2009 by jurisdiction:
- Tacoma $22,821,623
- Puyallup $9,485,160
- Lakewood $5,023,983
- Fife $3,133,122
- Gig Harbor $3,099,555
- Bonney Lake $1,948,673
- Sumner $1,795,137
- University Place $1,421,196
- Milton $469,804
- DuPont $453,472
- Orting $285,964
- Buckley $261,243
- Edgewood $247,360
- Steilacoom $194,591
- Fircrest $187,954
- Ruston $76,325
From my reading of this chart, it really looks like Lakewood gets a huge amount of service in comparison with the sales tax revenues it generates. Unincorporated Pierce County (within the PTBA) is not included here, but their revenues appear from 2008 numbers to be around $9.5M - about twice as much as Lakewood, but then again the numbers from the article are from 2009. I'll have to bring this up at the next CRC meeting.
