Pasco Reviews $7.44 Million Plan to Merge Its Road-Planning Agency With Hillsborough and Pinellas

Pasco County officials spent Tuesday afternoon going line by line through a plan that could reshape who decides which local roads get widened and which sidewalks get built. The Metropolitan Planning Organization held a regional merger workshop at 2 p.m. September 1 at the Historic Pasco County Courthouse Boardroom in Dade City, reviewing a draft structure to fold Pasco's MPO into a single agency with Hillsborough and Pinellas counties.

County staff put a number on it: roughly $7.44 million in combined startup and annual operating costs, plus a one-time transition cost of about $99,000. No vote happened. Board members walked through a draft Interlocal Agreement and Memorandum of Understanding, then agreed to send their findings to an upcoming Transportation Management Area meeting, where the merger could actually move toward a contract or a budget decision.

The workshop was open to the public but took no public comment. It streamed live on Pasco County's YouTube channel and aired on Pasco Television.

Why this matters for Pasco roads

An MPO is the body that decides how federal and state transportation dollars get prioritized in a region. Right now, Pasco's MPO makes that call largely on its own, weighing local projects against local needs. Merge it with Hillsborough and Pinellas, and those decisions move to a shared table, one that would also control much bigger pots of federal money for major projects that cross county lines.

The idea has been years in the making. Pasco, Hillsborough and Pinellas signed a memorandum of understanding back in 2023 to study a regional MPO after state lawmakers directed the three agencies to look at consolidating. Pasco commissioners approved a scope of work in November 2024 to hire a consultant and aim for a merger by July 1, 2027.

The vote-count fight next door

How much say Pasco actually gets once the merger happens is still being argued out. Under the draft apportionment plan discussed earlier this year, the new regional board would have 25 voting seats: 13 for Hillsborough, eight for Pinellas, and four for Pasco. Hillsborough's extra weight comes from seats tied to Tampa International Airport and Port Tampa Bay, both inside that county.

Pinellas leaders have pushed back hard on that math, arguing it hands Hillsborough 52% of the vote even though Hillsborough makes up about 48% of the region's population. The St. Petersburg Area Chamber of Commerce backed the concept of a regional MPO but asked for a revised voting model, including ideas like requiring a supermajority before any one county could steer a decision alone.

Pasco's four seats would leave the county with 16% of the vote against a population share closer to 19%. Pasco Commissioner Kathryn Starkey has told colleagues the money each county already receives would keep flowing to that county regardless of the merger, and that the point of a regional board is to team up on the big, federally funded projects, the kind that tend to start in Hillsborough and radiate outward. Commissioner Ron Oakley has pointed to widening U.S. 301, which crosses from Pasco into Hillsborough, as an example of a project that benefits everybody even if one county carries more of the roadway.

Nothing about the merger is locked in. The Transportation Management Area meeting that follows Tuesday's workshop is the next place to watch, since it is the venue where a contract or budget item could actually move forward. Pasco County has not announced a date for that meeting.

Stay connected with Pasco County Community Website for updates on this story and the region's road funding fight, and follow us on Facebook for the latest. Have thoughts on whether Pasco should merge its transportation planning with Hillsborough and Pinellas? Join the conversation in our Community Forum. For more coverage of local decisions shaping the county, visit our government and politics section.

Header photo: Jacobalexander89 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)