State’s Highway Construction Plan Crumbling

The 105 members of the Idaho Legislature don’t like to raise taxes, especially in an election year.

That’s why the Legislature’s best-laid plans to raise cash for highway and bridge construction are running off the rails - even with the added impetus of trying to deal with North Idaho’s flood damage.

For Rep. Joan Wood, the Rigby Republican who was co-chairman of a hard-working interim committee, it’s frustrating.

The committee held 15 meetings across the state and worked for months before coming up with a plan to increase vehicle fees and add 4 cents a gallon to the state fuel tax. That would generate about $34 million a year for a special fund guaranteeing that all the new money goes for road and bridge construction - not administration, Idaho State Police operations or equipment purchases.

Adding to the urgency is the state’s need for large sums of money to help repair flood-ravaged North Idaho. Transportation Director Dwight Bower said $6 million would help, and legislation is in the works to divert that amount off the top of any new revenue raised for roads.

But the House Transportation Committee remains stalled. As members worked this past week on different approaches, Wood said the compromises that went into the interim committee’s bill were falling apart.

“You’ve unraveled everything,” the committee chairman told the members. “Opponents will come out of the woodwork now.”

Wood hoped to have revised legislation ready last Thursday. But all the paperwork couldn’t be completed.

Now it will be at least Monday, so prospects of getting lawmakers to approve a tax increase seem to be fading.

“To put all that work into it,” Wood said. “I’m just sick.”

Some lawmakers want higher fuel taxes and higher registration fees separated. At a hurry-up meeting of the House Ways and Means Committee, those separate bills were introduced.

But other issues complicate the discussion as well.

Dale Tankersley, retired after 23 years with the Department of Transportation, urged lawmakers to look into what he called a cozy relationship between contractors, truckers and the state.

Tankersley said the department keeps allowing bigger and heavier trucks that wear out the roads faster. He claimed their economic impact on road repair costs is five times that of cars and light trucks, but they pay only a third of the taxes collected for highways.

Then there are the off-road vehicle enthusiasts, mainly snowmobilers, who seem to have convinced lawmakers they should continue to get some of the revenue from fuel taxes for such things as snowmobile groomers.

That’s only $700,000 per year, but diversion of even that much serves to further sidetrack the main plan, which was to put money into road construction.

There was a sign months ago that it was going to be tough. The interim committee wasn’t united when it tried to come up with a package. It managed to put one together only by considering all the contentious issues individually and resolving them with a shifting majority.