The Bonney Lake City Council on Tuesday was expected to pass a resolution opposing Pierce Transit’s Feb. 8 sales tax increase vote.

The vote seeks to increase Pierce Transit’s portion of the sales tax by 0.3 percent, or 3 cents per $10 purchase, as a way to help meet a growing budget gap.

Pierce Transit officials have said that without the increase, drastic reductions throughout the system could follow if the measure passes while the reductions would be less, though some changes and cuts would still be necessary (see corresponding story on the front page).

Officials in Bonney Lake are unsure of the benefit to their city of a tax increase.

“You lose either way,” Mayor Neil Johnson said Thursday.

Johnson, who represents the small cities on the Pierce Transit Board, personally opposes the increase because even if the tax passes, it would not provide enough of a fix to the system to make it worth Bonney Lake’s while.

“Why pass a tax to Band-Aid your owie when you may need to look at a treatment alternative?” he said. “We need to do business differently for the small cities.”

The city of Sumner has not taken a position on the vote and is not expected to do so.

“We’re going to let the voters decide,” Sumner City Administrator Diane Supler said.

But Johnson said he does not think Pierce Transit has done everything it can to scale back and be more efficient before asking for additional money and believes that if the vote fails, the county’s small cities will be able to negotiate a better deal than the one portrayed in Transit’s “reduction plan,” which Johnson said has not been approved by the Pierce Transit board.

“If the tax doesn’t pass it forces everyone to keep working together to find a solution,” he said.

Johnson said Pierce Transit is a great alternative for those living along Interstate 5 and state Route 167, but for the population living in the East Pierce County, the services they are getting now are not necessarily worth the money they are paying into the system.

According to the resolution to be considered by the city council, Bonney Lake contributes an estimated $2 million into Pierce Transit and Johnson said it does not receive nearly that much in return. Johnson said it was time to re-assess the needs and costs involved.

The resolution speaks to the same issues.

“Bonney Lake wants to seek transit service to small cities in outlying areas of the county improved before committing additional resources in the form of a sales tax increase,” it reads. “Pierce Transit has not yet done enough to re-invent an efficient and effective public transit system using current funding sources.”

Pierce Transit has reduced costs during the past several years, including cuts of more than $70 million. As of this past summer, the authority has reduced its workforce by 5 percent – including a 22 percent reduction in management, delayed or eliminated capital projects, reduced service by nearly six percent and increased regular adult fares by 25 cents.