Otter pushes for more road funds

BOISE – Gov. Butch Otter is still working on his plans to increase funding for roads, and he’s unmoved by arguments that lawmakers won’t support a gas tax increase in the coming session because it’s an election year.

“I don’t know how we’re going to raise it – all I know is it’s $200 million a year that we’re going to need,” Otter said Tuesday.

“My idea is to say, ‘Look, folks, I admit that we need $200 million in additional highway monies – you tell me where to get it.’ “

Otter’s press secretary, Jon Hanian, said, “I don’t know when is a good year to propose any kind of a tax increase, especially for a governor who has earned his stripes for being very conservative.

“Nobody that knows this guy could ever call him a tax-and-spend liberal. So when he’s saying, ‘Folks, we have a problem, we need to do something about it,’ when Butch Otter says it, especially about raising taxes, you can take that to the bank.”

Otter hasn’t yet decided on how to increase funding, but he is pointing to a $200 million-a-year shortfall in Idaho’s funding for road and bridge maintenance and construction.

“We want to do this in collaboration with some of our partners in the Legislature,” Hanian said.

“When he talked about raising taxes, he knows no matter how you go about it, none of it’s going to be easy.”

In last spring’s legislative session, the Idaho Transportation Department proposed a package of fee and tax increases totaling $200 million a year. They ranged from dramatically increasing vehicle registration and permit fees to a 7 percent surcharge on gas, fees on rental cars and more.

The bills were introduced just for discussion last year, but a similar package has again been submitted to the governor for his review.

“We’ve identified the problem, and we’re open to any solution that anyone can put on the table,” said Darrell Manning, chairman of the Idaho Transportation Board.

“We’re grossly underfunded to do what we need to do to take care of the additional growth in the state and the demands of the transportation system – so much so that we could spend 100 percent of our budget in any one of the six districts for about 10 years and not meet the … needs that people have identified.”

Rep. Frank Henderson, R-Post Falls, agreed. “There is no question they need significantly more money than they get right now annually,” he said.

Last week, Henderson addressed the Transportation Board and said he’s been gathering input from groups about the legislative proposals submitted last year.

Proposals such as higher fees for rental cars and vehicle registration have been winning widespread support, partly because Idaho’s current registration fees are lower than most other states. But he said he’s heard little enthusiasm for increased gas taxes.

Idaho’s 25-cent-per-gallon gas tax hasn’t changed since 1996. It’s the main state funding source for road work, but because it’s charged per gallon, rather than as a percentage of price, it doesn’t rise with inflation.

At the same time, gas mileage has risen for most vehicles, resulting in fewer taxes collected. But there are more cars and more roadway needs, and construction material costs are skyrocketing worldwide.

Henderson told the ITD board, “The acceptance of a higher state fuel tax will be hard to achieve. In my opinion, ITD will have to mount a significant promotional program to have a winner on this issue during this next legislative session.”

He suggested a possible legislative strategy: propose the “easiest” pieces of the legislative package in the coming year, such as vehicle registration fee hikes, car rental surcharges and increased administrative fees. Then, after educational efforts, propose the gas tax piece – a 7 percent surcharge on gas sales – the following year.

“What I suggested to them was, this next year being an election year, they’re going to have a hard time finding a legislator to carry a bill,” Henderson said.

But he added that doesn’t mean the gas tax increase would never pass.

He noted that he was just giving his opinion, though he has sought input from an array of groups on the issue in recent months, from chambers of commerce to automobile dealers.

Henderson told the board, “Leave the most difficult battles for a non-election year.”

Manning said he’s open to Henderson’s ideas.

“Anything we can do to start catching up would be beneficial to the state and to the economy,” he said. “There are 105 legislators and 105 different opinions. These things take time to gel, and it is an election year, as Frank pointed out. So we’ll do whatever we can.”

He added, “I think we have to do some incremental steps to start solving the problem. To do less would be devastating to the economy of the state.

“You have to get goods to market, and you have to be able to travel.”

The Transportation Department submitted its proposals to the governor’s office last week, and they’re now being analyzed by the state Division of Financial Management.

Hanian said Otter will review them in the coming months.

“Our roads and our highways and bridges are deteriorating, and he feels that it’s going to be difficult, but it needs to be done,” he said.