The Keys received a total of $4.3 million in gas tax revenues in FY2013. About $2 million of that went to Monroe County. There are three gas taxes. They include the ninth cent fuel tax, 1 to 5 cents fuel tax, and 1 to 6 cents fuel tax. The ninth cent fuel tax is distributed to the county and the county may share that with the municipalities by interlocal agreement. Monroe County does not share this tax with the municipalities.
The 1 to 5 cent and 1 to 6 cent gas taxes are distributed to the county and then to the local governments by interlocal agreement. Here is a link to that agreement.
The distribution of the five cent tax is outlined in the agreement as follows.
- City of Key West…………………31.21%
- City of Key Colony Beach……..1.09%
- City of Layton……………………..0.26%
- City of Marathon………………..13.17%
- Islamorada, VOl………………….9.06%
- Monroe County………………….45.21%
The distribution of the six cent tax is outlined in the agreement is as follows.
- City of Key West………………..36.5% of the taxes distributed
- City of Key Colony Beach……..2.0% of the taxes distributed
- City of Layton……………………..1.0% of the taxes distributed
- City of Marathon………………$273,733.38 per annum
- Islamorada, VOl……………….$294,500.00 per annum
- Monroe County…………………Remainder
To simplify things, I’d like to assume that the gas tax would be distributed to incorporated Key Largo based on the percent of roads within its municipal boundaries. Using a file downloaded from the property appraiser’s website I came up with the following estimates.
When I compare the actual amount of gas taxes distributed and compare those percentages to the percentages of roadways within each area, the following table is the result.
In most cases, the amount of gas tax distributed is close to the percentage of roads within each area. The only areas where this is not the case is Key West and unincorporated Monroe County. That could be because my calculations are way off. Or there might be some side agreement where Key West takes care of certain roads in the unincorporated area. Or maybe there’s an updated interlocal somewhere. I don’t know. In any case, I’m really only concerned with what incorporated Key Largo would receive. So I’ll base the revised distribution on the actual distribution. I’ll simply deduct the percentage of roads within Key Largo from Monroe County’s share and go from there. When I do that, here’s what it looks like.
Looks like incorporated Key Largo would have received $750,680 in FY2013. As for how much is generated I’ll go with my usual assumption based on proportion of sales tax/business activity. For Key Largo that would be 15%, which works out to be $643,579. For the Cudjoe area its around 5% or $214,526. If I recall correctly, the Cudjoe Regional area would actually have more roads within its boundaries than Key Largo would. So if they incorporated they would also receive a substantial portion of the fuel taxes.
The updated revenue table looks like so:
The Real Poop 