The county board is trying to send a message to Minnesota Legislature: You need compromise and fund infrastructure projects.

After months of discussion, the county board voted unanimously Tuesday to approve a half-cent sales tax for roads — but it did it with a twist. The board voted to wait a year and start the tax on Jan. 1, 2018, as a way to send a message to the state that it must work past its gridlock and approve more funding for roads and bridges.

The vote came after the board spent several minutes discussing the pros and cons of the half-cent sales tax and came away essentially split. After that discussion, the board first voted down a motion to approve a half-cent sales tax starting Jan. 1, 2017, with Commissioners Tim Gabrielson and Polly Glynn voting to approve the tax, while Commissioners Mike Ankeny, Jerry Reinartz and Tony Bennett votied no.

Commissioners saw waiting a year as a good way to meet in the middle.

“I think it’s a nice compromise,” Board Chairman Polly Glynn said.

Board members saw it as a way to send a message to the Legislature that it needs to pass comprehensive transportation plans. But commissioners said it can’t come from just them — the public needs to speak up too.

“It can’t just come from the county board, it has to come from the public,” Gabrielson said. “They use us for the voice, but we’re evidently not enough.”

Should the state enact new highway funding, Ankeny, who proposed the motion to start the tax in 2018, said the county could rescind the motion within the next year.

The half-cent sales tax proposal will fund more than 40 specific road and bridge improvement project in the county over the next 10 years with the help of sales tax dollars, should the board eventually vote to approve the tax.

However, the sales tax will only slim the county’s projected annual funding shortfall to $5 million a year, but it wouldn’t completely eliminate funding shortfalls.

Look for the full story in Wednesday’s Austin Daily Herald