State Transportation Director Pete Rahn warns that highway construction will come to an end and some road maintenance work will go unmet if Missourians don’t approve higher taxes for transportation. He just won’t endorse any particular tax. [Read more...]

A dramatic drop-off in transportation funding is looming, but as state lawmakers consider their options they are hesitant to mention one word.

The word is “tax”. It’s a word that state lawmakers have been loathe to utter before the recession, let alone now.

State Transportation Director Pete Rahn has warned lawmakers that transportation funding will soon drop from $1.5 billion dollars to $421 million, which would end the ramped up construction the past few years which has vastly improved Missouri roads and bridges.

“What we are doing, we believe doing our job well prepares the ground well for something in the future,” Rahn has told members of the Joint Legislative Committee on Transportation.

Perhaps, a tax increase?

Sen. Wes Shoemyer (D-Clarence) tries to coax Rahn into campaigning for a tax increase.

“We’re just trying to see if you will do our jobs for us,” Shoemyer jokes when responding to Rahn. “You know, we don’t want to have to go out and do that. It’s not very popular.”

Rep. Tom McDonald (D-Independence) picks up the theme, only he does mention the word and suggests our gas tax isn’t high enough.

“I know that’s an unpopular topic with almost everybody in the state, but as technology comes along, higher mileage (vehicles) or even to the point where gasoline is not going to be a necessity, it seems to me that the (fuel) tax should be at least comparable to surrounding states,” McDonald tells Rahn.

Missouri has one of the lowest fuel taxes in the country. Of Missouri’s neighboring states, only Oklahoma has as low a fuel tax as Missouri, at 17 cents a gallon. All of the other surrounding states have higher gas taxes, some considerably higher. Missouri has been using money leveraged from Amendment Three approved by voters in November of 2004 and, lately, money from the federal economic stimulus act approved by Congress to finance road and bridge construction. The money generated from bonds issued from Amendment Three has nearly been spent. Federal stimulus money will soon end and even traditional federal highway funding is being reduced.

No one on the Joint Transportation Committee, though, seems ready to suggest a tax increase to keep road construction going, leaving the question Rahn poses in his annual report, “Where do we go from here?”, unanswered.

Brent Martin reports.

nontaxweb

Missouri’s transportation director delivers an upbeat report to state lawmakers, tempered by a question.

State Transportation Director Pete Rahn tells the Joint Legislative Committee on Transportation Missouri’s highway system has been upgraded, state highway deaths have fallen sharply and public opinion of MoDOT has improved.

“I’m very pleased to say that there is a lot of progress for us to be talking about,” Rahn tells lawmakers gathered at the Capitol for his annual transportation report. “We have come a long way. But the question is where are we going to go from here?”

MoDOT has awarded a total of $1.5 billion in construction projects this fiscal year, actually generating $1.79 billion in economic activity. Missouri has leveraged bonds issued after voters approved Amendment Three in November of 2004 and has used federal economic stimulus money to pay for road and bridge repair.

The improvements have been noticed. Truckers once rated Missouri roads near the bottom among the states. Now, in an industry publication, they rank Missouri’s highway system near the top. Public opinion of MoDOT itself has risen sharply as construction has filled potholes, replaced aging bridges and built new highways.

The funding sources, though, are running dry. Federal stimulus money will soon be exhausted. The state has done all it can with the Amendment Three funds, transportation dollars once diverted from highway construction, now re-directed back to MoDOT. Nothing has been approved to replace them, dropping highway revenue to $421 million. Rahn says that’s not enough money to maintain the system now built.

Rahn likes what he sees now, but not was lies ahead.

“Our focus, as we move forward, will be to look at the number one issue, however, before transportation in this state of Missouri and that is funding for the continued improvement of our system,” Rahn says.

He doesn’t make any suggestions to lawmakers, insisting his job is to give lawmakers information from which to make decisions.

The stakes go well beyond just roads and bridges. Currently, road construction generates as many as 22,340 jobs and that doesn’t include the estimate 9,739 jobs created from the 123 projects awarded with $357 million in federal economic stimulus funds. Rahn projects that once Missouri loses both streams of funding, the highway construction jobs created in Missouri will plummet to 6,844 a year.

Download/listen Brent Martin reports (1:20 MP3)