Sparking a debate over how to fix Los Angeles’ crumbling roads and buckling sidewalks, the city’s top analyst on Tuesday recommended a tax hike to pay for thousands of miles of repairs.

City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana issued a report recommending that city leaders place a half-percent sales tax on the November ballot. If approved by voters, the tax would raise about $4.5 billion to help fix the city’s failing streets and sidewalks, officials said.

Nearly a third of the city’s network of more than 28,000 miles of roadway needs major repairs, officials say, and federal and state funds that once paid for the repairs have dwindled.

Funds raised by the tax would reverse years of neglect, and potholes from San Pedro to cracked thoroughfares in Sylmar would see improvements. “There are enough bad streets to go around that every council district would benefit,” Santana said.

The tax would raise an estimated $3.86 billion to fix the streets and roughly $640 million to repair sidewalks. The tax would sunset after 15 years, officials said.

Asking Angelenos to tax themselves is politically risky for City Hall leaders, and comes after voters shot down a proposed Los Angeles tax hike, Proposition A, last year. Proposition A was intended to fill a budget deficit by raising the sales tax to 9.5 percent, but after it was defeated, officials conceded the city’s finances weren’t as a dire as predicted.

The tax to repair roads would need two-thirds support to pass.

On Tuesday, City President Herb Wesson said he that the “time is right” to have a discussion about fixing the roadways.

Mayor Eric Garcetti declined to take a firm position on Tuesday on the tax hike, with mayoral spokesman Yusef Robb saying the mayor will study the proposal. “Mayor Garcetti is committed to improving L.A.’s infrastructure and will continue assessing a range of options to determine the best way forward,” Robb said in a statement.

City Councilmen Mitch Englander and Joe Buscaino hatched the idea to fix the roads, and originally proposed a bond to pay for the street repairs, but pulled the idea last year. Under the proposed tax, the city streets with the worst two grades — “D” and “F” — would be eligible for repairs.

That means about 8,700 lane miles of roadway could see repairs. All 15 council districts have failing streets, Englander said, and repairs would be equally allocated throughout the city.

The average driver spends about $800 a year on damages caused by broken streets, Englander said. With the new tax, households would pay $91 annually, Santana’s report states. “There is a direct cost savings,” Englander said.

Less is known about the sidewalk plan, and Santana’s report states the exact cost and scope is “in the early stages of development.” Disability rights groups have filed numerous lawsuits over the city’s buckled sidewalks, and widespread fixes would help with that issue, Santana said Tuesday.

The City Council must vote by July to put to the measure on the Nov. 4 ballot.

The first public hearing on the plan will occur in two weeks. South L.A. Councilman Bernard Parks said Tuesday he was concerned about whether the sidewalk costs should be paid by property owners, rather than by a sales tax.

“There’s a lot of people who don’t own sidewalks,” Parks said.

Encino resident Gerald Silver, a member of the Encino Neighborhood Council, said he didn’t believe city leaders would use the new tax money effectively, and said he’d vote against the measure.

Silver griped about the new transportation trends coming out of City Hall, such as more bike lanes, and “parklets” — mini-parks created out of parking spaces.

A new tax would “shift the drivers’ costs to a sales tax,” Silver said, adding that he was speaking for himself, not his neighborhood council. “That’s not appropriate.”