Republican Senate President Kevin Grantham said he understands the concerns of Colorado Springs taxpayers on transportation funding, but that a solution is difficult to reach.

Grantham, from Cañon City, responded to concerns raised by Mayor John Suthers, a fellow Republican, who last week told Colorado Politics that he can’t support a tax increase for statewide transportation funding after Colorado Springs voters backed a similar tax increase.

Voters in 2015 widely passed a 0.62 percent sales tax increase, bringing the city’s rate to 3.12 percent. With total sales taxes, the rate is 8.25 percent.

Colorado Springs taxpayers got $50 million per year over five years to fund crumbling local roads by backing the 2015 tax increase.

Meanwhile, the legislature is considering sending a statewide ballot question to voters that would also raise the state sales tax 0.62 percent, which would bring the statewide tax to 3.52 percent. The measure would raise about $695 million per year to fund a list of priority projects across the state.

Suthers, however, said Colorado Springs would be getting a “bad deal” out of the proposal, as the city stands to gain only about $18 million per year if the transportation funding bill passes in the legislature and is backed by voters.

Colorado Springs voters aren’t likely to repeal the 2015 municipal sales tax increase for transportation, but they’re also not likely to back an additional statewide sales tax increase, Suthers said.

The predicament also impacts Greeley, where voters in 2015 supported raising the sales tax 0.65 percent to bring in an additional $9.4 million per year for road improvements. Greeley taxpayers that year also backed reauthorizing a 3.46 percent sales tax on groceries, with part of the money going to roads.

Grantham said that while he understands the dilemma, there may not be a way to alleviate the concerns of taxpayers in those cities as  lawmakers search for a statewide solution.

“I understand his (Suthers’) criticisms and some other folks in the Springs. But we’re looking at a statewide solution to a statewide problem,” Grantham said.

“There’s been talk about, how do we separate out some of these entities, some of these municipalities and counties. You start running into some real issues I think, and we are trying to fix a statewide issue.”

Suthers said local roads should be the responsibility of individual jurisdictions. He went as far as to say that the city does not want the state to share additional revenue with the city beyond what is already prescribed by existing transportation funding requirements.

“The local taxpayers need to decide what they want to do with their local situations, and the state taxpayers need to decide what they want to do with the state situation,” Suthers said. “If we’re all in this together, they (state taxpayers) would have been paying for our roads.”

Grantham acknowledged that without Colorado Springs, the task of passing a statewide transportation funding proposal becomes more challenging. Internal polling indicates that voters don’t favor any new taxes. Grantham said opposition from Colorado Springs voters is “another bullet point on why it may not pass a statewide initiative.”

“This has an uphill climb, how can you think otherwise?” Grantham said. “It’s not surprising where the lines are drawn as far as parties go … This is going to be a heavy lift for anyone who is going to be a proponent of the measure.”