Even the $650 million dollars a year a senate transportation bill might create wouldn’t be enough for all of the state’s needed road-building. So the bill’s sponsor, Jim Mathewson of Sedalia, is looking at other ways to capture money. Mathewson says about $150 million in state fuel tax funds are never used for roads and bridges or other forms of transportation. That money goes to pay for the highway patrol, or for services from the revenue department, or to pay the costs of department audits. He wants to phase out those diversions, although he does not know where the money will come from to keep troopers on the road if his plan passes.
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