News

Task force looks for ideas to generate road money

by Walter Pierce

Lawmakers launched their latest effort Wednesday to try to chip away at a $12 billion backlog of road and bridge repair and improvement work across Louisiana, seeking ideas to raise new transportation dollars in an anti-tax environment.

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - Lawmakers launched their latest effort Wednesday to try to chip away at a $12 billion backlog of road and bridge repair and improvement work across Louisiana, seeking ideas to raise new transportation dollars in an anti-tax environment.

An eight-member task force created by the Legislature opened its work by hearing about the current state transportation budget, along with details of financing mechanisms used by other states to upgrade infrastructure.

Louisiana, like many states, is struggling with a stagnant gasoline tax that hasn't kept pace with construction inflation and a disinterest from the governor and lawmakers to raise new taxes to fill the gaps in roadwork.

Lawmakers instructed the Transportation Funding Task Force to look for enterprising ways to tackle the backlog. The panel includes lawmakers, Louisiana's transportation secretary and construction and engineering industry representatives.

"This is not anything on the books we did to make people feel better. This is real," said Rep. Karen St. Germain, D-Pierre Part, chair of the House Transportation Committee. "We have to get innovative."

Task force recommendations are due Jan. 15.

The panel faces a difficult job, since ideas from past study groups have gone nowhere.

Despite the track record, Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Robert Adley, R-Benton, said he expects the task force to come up with ideas that can pass the Legislature and add new dollars to highway work.

State transportation secretary Sherri LeBas said her department is spending $750 million for highway construction and engineering work this year.

Sujit CanagaRetna, a fiscal policy manager with the Council of State Governments, suggested the problem in Louisiana is no different than around the country. He said the federal gas tax is worth 30 percent less than in 1993, while an increase in alternative fuel vehicles and a drop in miles that Americans drive cuts into the tax revenue.

In Louisiana, Gov. Bobby Jindal's administration and lawmakers have been steering millions in transportation dollars to instead pay for state police operations, cutting into dollars available for roadwork.

Meanwhile, a list of 16 major highway and bridge projects that voters approved in 1989 ballooned from a $1.4 billion estimate to $5.2 billion, requiring a significant slice of annual state gasoline tax revenue to pay off that construction.

CanagaRetna said states like California, Vermont and Maryland have raised their gasoline taxes in recent years. He said Arkansas voters in 2012 passed a 10-year, half-cent sales tax increase to pay for highway upgrades. Other states assessed special fees for alternative fuel vehicles, borrowed money and partnered with private businesses to drum up cash.

In 2008, Louisiana lawmakers dedicated vehicle sales tax money to road and bridge work, but the state hasn't hit the financial trigger to shift the estimated $400 million. The state transportation department estimates the dollars could start to flow within six years, but Adley questioned the assumption.

"The general public would believe that we're going to have plenty of money, and I disagree with you. I don't think that's going to happen," Adley told LeBas.