WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Montgomery residents and workers commuting into the county could face yet another tax increase after a County Council panel recommended Thursday that leaders consider a local gas tax or vehicle registration fee to fund infrastructure improvements.

Local business and public policy leaders in October suggested five options, including the two advanced by the committee, to close a $135 million shortfall for planned transportation projects, storm drains, recreation centers, police and fire stations, libraries, etc. Recent moves by the council to adopt some of the suggestions, including raising the recordation tax rate on homes worth more than $500,000, increasing transportation impact taxes and increasing the use of bonds to finance projects will generate $28 million, but that’s only about a fifth of the total gap.

Council members are searching for ways to come up with the remaining $107 million.

“There’s a preference for the gasoline tax, at least on this committee at this moment,” Council Member Roger Berliner told the Examiner after Thursday’s meeeting. “If you combine what I perceive to be an environmental imperative with our infrastructure needs and Montgomery county needs for more mass transportation, I think a local gasoline tax option would be the single best means of addressing both the environmental and the infrastructure needs.”

The report estimated the county could raise $75 million through a 15-cent-per-gallon motor fuel excise tax, a motor vehicle registration fee of $100 or a 6 percent motor fuel sales tax, but the county would need state authorization.

Montgomery residents are already bracing for a hike in income tax rates for Maryland residents making more than $150,000 a year, many of whom live in the county, additional taxes on new development and the possibility that property taxes could be raised in order to cope with both state and budget holes.

Council Member Duchy Trachtenberg, chairwoman of the Management and Fiscal Policy Committee, said council members will have to “look for some kind of a balance.”

“As we look at a deficit and growing needs in the community, coupled with the lack of funding from the state, we obviously have to grapple with how do we pay for what we need to have and how much are we willing to make in the way of cuts to services,” Trachtenberg said. “This afternoon’s conversation was just about some creative solutions that might be out there.”

kmiller@dcexaminer.com