This November, Madera County residents will have the option to approve or deny a proposal to renew Measure T, the county’s half-cent sales tax for improving and maintaining streets and roads.
However, this year’s effort to renew Measure T has drawn fierce criticism from residents in rural parts of Madera County, as well as advocates for the county’s disadvantaged communities.
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Although the Madera County Transportation Authority brought forward a renewal proposal on June 6, political action committee Moving Madera Forward brought forth a citizen’s initiative just four days later.
Much of the language in the citizen’s initiative mirrored the language in the original renewal proposal. However, the main difference was the renewal’s approval threshold.
Instead of needing 66% approval, the latest version of Measure T only needs a simple majority over 50% according to the citizen’s initiative proposal.
Here’s what you should know about the Measure T renewal.
Will Measure T add to my taxes?
Since 1990, Madera County residents have been paying into a transportation half-cent sales tax. If voters approve the renewal, it would keep Measure T around for another two decades, from 2027 until 2047.
According to the renewal’s expenditure plan, Measure T is expected to generate $22 million a year, for an estimated $440 million in the next two decades.
What will happen to local transit or road funding if we don’t renew Measure T this year?
If the Measure T renewal fails this year, local transit and infrastructure programs will not lose funding. That’s largely because the current iteration of Measure T reserves until 2027.
This isn’t the first time a Measure T renewal will end up on the ballot years before its current iteration expires. A Measure T renewal campaign in 2022 failed.
The renewal would keep Measure T around for two decades, from 2027 until 2047. That means if the renewal fails, there’ll be another opportunity to renew the measure in 2026.
However, Kendall Flint, a consultant hired by the Madera County Transportation Authority, said Chowchilla and Madera city officials will likely put their own version of Measure T on the ballot in 2026 and go their separate way from the county on a local transportation sales tax.
What is a citizen’s initiative and why is it on the ballot?
A citizen’s initiative is a process for voters to get an ordinance on the ballot, but first they need to demonstrate public support in the form of a petition with signatures. In this case, the Moving Madera Forward political action committee obtained 5,872 signatures, well above the 3,735 signatures required, in order to get a Measure T citizen’s initiative on the ballot this November.
Madera County Clerk-Recorder Rebecca Martinez told Fresnoland that she has never before seen a citizen’s initiative seek to renew a local sales tax measure before.
“I have to say that there isn’t a time in my memory that that has happened,” Martinez said. “Citizen initiatives are rare.”
Martinez’s office undertook a vetting process by verifying a sample of total signatures. Of the 500 her office verified, 402 signatures were found to be sufficient.
What’s in the expenditure plan?
$352 million (80%) for local streets and roads, with a carve out for disadvantaged communities
Of all revenue from Measure T under the citizen’s initiative, about 80% — roughly $352 million — would go toward local streets and roads, subject to the discretion of local jurisdictions: the cities Chowchilla and Madera along with Madera County.
Local jurisdictions would receive Measure T funds based on population “adjusted annually based on Census Data from the State Department of Finance,” according to the expenditure plan.
In addition to road repair and maintenance, Measure T would continue to fund everything from upgrading local intersections and installing traffic signals to “programs that reduce transportation demand” and stormwater construction management.
However, local officials also have the discretion to use funds in the local streets and roads category for regional or transit projects.
Additionally, about 10% of the $352 million would be set aside for disadvantaged communities, which do not have an exact definition in the expenditure plan. Instead, local jurisdictions are supposed to identify disadvantaged communities using screening tools from the federal Council on Environmental Quality, California Climate Investments CalEnviroScreen, or others they deem worthy to use.
$63.8 million (14.5%) for regional projects
Another $63.8 million would go toward regional projects, subject to the approval of the Madera County Transportation Authority Board. This chunk of funds cannot be used for anything other than “planning, project development, right-of-way, and/or construction of major corridor capital projects,” according to the expenditure plan.
Regional projects must be part of the county’s regional transportation plan. A project list is available on the transportation commission’s website, and includes projects like wildfire evacuation route projects and widening some parts of Highway 41.
This is on top of local jurisdictions having the discretion to use funds from the local streets and roads category for regional projects.
$17.6 million (4%) for transit
An estimated $17.6 million would also go toward “public transit operations, maintenance, and infrastructure improvements,” and supplement local, state and federal funds in competing transit projects.
The expenditure plan states that the allocation of these funds will rely on population size.
This is on top of local jurisdictions having the discretion to use funds from the local streets and roads category for transit projects.
$6.6 million (1.5%) for administrative costs
The $6.6 million for administrative costs include everything from staffing and travel reimbursements to maintaining the Measure T website and contracting with auditors to review how Measure T dollars are spent.
No more than 1% of annual gross Measure T revenue would go toward staff salaries, wages, benefits and overhead, according to the expenditure plan.
What will oversight look like?
An oversight committee made of citizens to “ensure that the financial integrity and performance of the program(s) are maintained,” will remain in place, according to the expenditure plan.
Oversight committee members are selected by the oversight committee’s current chair, the transportation commission’s finance officer and a “third mutually agreed upon individual preferably with a background in accounting and/or citizen oversight,” according to the expenditure plan.
Will Measure T renewal help disadvantaged communities’ roads?
Much of the criticism surrounding Measure T has to do with how funds for local streets and roads — estimated to be at least $17 million a year — can be used for regional projects at the discretion of local jurisdictions.
Residents have said local streets and roads need priority, and funds meant for those purposes shouldn’t be diverted to pricier regional projects.
Additionally, the carve out for disadvantaged communities does not have a precise definition and instead relies on local governments using a screening tool of their choice to identify disadvantaged communities.
Andrea Uribe, a policy advocate with Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability, told Fresnoland the way the expenditure plan is written, some affluent communities in southern Madera County could be identified as disadvantaged.
“Some of the communities like Riverstone or Tesoro Viejo just simply do not have the same struggles and issues that disadvantaged unincorporated communities have,” Uribe told Fresnoland.
Uribe has been engaging residents in Fairmead and La Viña, who say their roads have not been fixed for decades and they want to see county officials take their infrastructure seriously.
The renewal of Measure T would impact the next two decades of infrastructure investments in Madera County, upping the stakes on how important it is to get its expenditure plan right, Uribe said.
She added that she is not against a transportation sales tax. She said that what’s ended up on the ballot this November is a proposal that does not set strict boundaries for Measure T revenue being used for local streets and roads, and also does not precisely define disadvantaged communities with infrastructure in greatest need of repair.
Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability and members of the Measure T Steering committee came out with a statement in opposition of this year’s renewal.
What do the proponents of the Measure T renewal say?
Supervisor Robert Poythress, who supports the Measure T renewal, said Madera County is in dire need of funds to repair roads.
“We need the money for maintenance,” Poythress told Fresnoland. “I mean, the costs are just exponential now. They just keep rising, rising and rising.”
While other transportation sales tax expenditure plans have a set aside category just for road maintenance, the expenditure plan for this year’s Measure T renewal does not do that.
In terms of the provision in the local streets and roads category that allows for funds to be used for regional projects, Poythress said that would happen only under a specific emergency situation.
“Let’s say something catastrophic happened to Highway 41,” Poythress said as a hypothetical example, “and the state did not have funding and our mountain communities are cut off from the world.”
But across the board, Poythress said local jurisdictions would not take funds from the local streets and roads category to use on regional projects. He said it’s absurd for anyone to say that local officials would do that, other than in an emergency situation.
Flint, the consultant with the Madera County Transportation Authority, said that in order for Measure T revenue to go toward a regional project, it would have to be connected to a local street or road and have local significance.
Flint added that a regional project would also have to be in the county’s regional transportation plan and get the approval of the county’s transportation authority in order to receive Measure T funding.
Poythress also said that many of the people opposing the Measure T renewal have lost previous bids to serve on the Madera County Board of Supervisors.
“It’s made up of many people who have an ax to grind,” Poythress said of the opposition. “The reality of it is these funds are not going to be taken away from street improvements and put into regional projects.”
He added that he is very disappointed in the groups and residents who are opposed to Measure T and said their opposition makes little sense to him.
What do the opponents of Measure T say?
Although the Madera County Transportation Commission has said a steering committee of citizens devised the expenditure plan for the Measure T renewal, some steering committee members say that is not the full truth.
Mark Reed, an Oakhurst resident who had previously run to represent the county’s fifth district, was part of the Measure T Steering Committee and told Fresnoland that the expenditure plan’s language was written by the transportation commission staff and its consultants.
The steering committee members did give some feedback on versions of an expenditure plan, but Reed said they were not able to discuss many components of it in-depth. He said one example was the part of the expenditure plan about local jurisdictions being able to shift funds to regional projects from the local streets and roads category.
“The local streets and roads right now are in sad shape,” Reed told Fresnoland. “They need maintenance. They need repair and replacement.”
Flint, the Madera County Transportation Authority’s consultant, told Fresnoland that there were extensive talks among the steering committee on the actual language of the Measure T expenditure plan.
“We went line by line through every inch of the expenditure plan and wordsmithed based on input from the committee,” Flint said, “which included Mr. Reed — who specifically was responsible for the 80% set aside for local streets and roads, and 10% for disadvantaged communities.”
Reed said that money for local roads should not be used for regional projects instead. Additionally, he said developers have sway with local officials deciding which transportation projects should be prioritized.
“If Measure T is passed, the decision making will continue on as it has in the past, which is heavily influenced by developers’ needs or improved infrastructure around their developments,” Reed said.
He added that residents in Oakhurst have long needed expansion to local roads which serve as escape routes during emergency situations. He said those improvements still haven’t been made.
Madera County’s Deputy Public Works Director Jared Carter told Fresnoland that he understands the concerns that Oakhurst residents have, but said the county does not have all the money it needs to maintain its roads.
According to a 2019 report, it would cost $165 million to keep the county’s roads in the same condition. To improve the county’s roads to good or very good condition, It would cost at least $433 million.
“Don’t get me wrong, we would love to fix every road,” Carter said, but the county has a shortfall of funds to be able to do so, he added.
Carter said that no Measure T revenue has been used for transportation infrastructure projects near new developments in southeast Madera County, like Tesoro Viejo and Riverstone.
“Not only do they build their infrastructure and complete it with their own money, but they also pay road impact fees to the county,” Carter said, adding that impact fees can be used by the county on a number of infrastructure projects.
Endorsements
Yes on T
- Supervisor Jordan Wamhoff
- Supervisor Robert Poythress
- Supervisor Leticia Gonzalez
- Chowchilla City Councilmember Waseem Ahmed
- Madera City Councilmember Jose Rodriguez
No on T
- Bruce Gray of the Madera Oversight Coalition
- Measure T Steering Committee Member Mark Reed
- Measure T Steering Committee Member Patsy Mejia
- Measure T Steering Committee Member Tomas Chairez
- Ahwahnee Resident Tony Ward
- Michael Harris, Director of the Veterans Memorial Museum
- Madera County District 4 Resident Derek Robinson
- Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability
Who is funding the campaign for Measure T?
The Chukchansi Tribe is the largest contributor, but Newport Beach-based FrontPoint Partners, LLC, contributed over $85,000, funding the signature gathering campaign.
