Bridge funding

Last year, the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) was given and spent about $4.6 billion of taxpayer money on the construction and maintenance of Missouri roads, bridges, and other transportation assets that MoDOT manages. This $4.6 billion comes from your gas tax, diesel tax, license and registration fees, and federal matches on some of that money.

Since I have been in the legislature, MoDOT has said that $4.6 billion is not enough. Last year, during the 21^st Century Missouri Transportation Task Force meetings, MoDOT said they needed an additional $800+ million to do everything they want to do in transportation.

A few years ago, a sales tax increase to send more money to MoDOT was on the ballot, but it failed with the voters. Last year, a gas tax increase — which also contained language about highway patrol funding and Olympic medals that some voters found confusing — was on the ballot, but it also failed. So in this legislative session, several ideas have been floated on how to get MoDOT more money without raising taxes.

The first idea came from Gov. Parson. His idea was to borrow $350 million dedicated to fixing about 250 smaller-to-medium sized bridges around the state, which would free up $350 million that would have gone to those projects to be used in other ways by MoDOT. The $350 million would be paid back $30 million per year over 15 years out of general revenue, for a total of $450 million spent.

Some in the legislature are concerned about the governor’s plan because they don’t like the idea of expending $100 million in taxpayer money on interest to pay back what we borrowed. They are also concerned about using general revenue for roads and bridges, which has never been done. General revenue is the non-earmarked pot of money used to pay for schools, ag, corrections, and other government services.

A small group of Senators has proposed a second idea of dedicating 50% of excess general revenue for bridges. While this would still use general revenue, it would only dip into what is left after all other departments have been funded, and would not include borrowing and so would have no interest.

Then, this week the House budget chair Cody Smith included a budget line item of $100 million in his budget plan to dedicate to roads and bridges, which is a third idea for additional MoDOT funding. This would come from the main pool of general revenue – not the excess – but would also be free of loan interest payments.

Session wraps up in mid-May. Whether we go with the governor’s plan, the Senate’s plan, or the House budget chair’s plan is difficult to say at this time. Or we may just say $4.6 billion is enough for MoDOT and leave things as they are. We shall see.