ITD says plan would save millions
BOISE – The state Transportation Department says it’s figured out how to save about $51 million on highway projects over the next five years.
A 70-page report outlining the savings was released Nov. 16, just two days after Gov. Butch Otter admonished Transportation Director Pam Lowe for not doing enough to save money – at a time when she hopes the governor and the 2008 Legislature will boost Idaho’s 25 cent-per-gallon gas tax and other fees to cover a projected funding shortfall.
The report is aimed, in part, at addressing Otter’s concerns that Lowe’s agency isn’t efficient enough. Since its release, she’s met with Otter about the projected savings in a bid to help convince him her agency is doing its best to make the most of taxpayer dollars.
“It’s a method of stretching our construction dollars as far as we can,” Lowe said Tuesday. “Even if the Legislature doesn’t approve any more revenue for us, it’s still the right thing to do. It allows us to actually put more projects on the road.”
The efficiency program, called “Practical Design,” was borrowed from a similar effort in Missouri, she said.
Some of the savings would come from reducing the thickness of some new pavement, eliminating some design elements on some projects, swapping for cheaper materials and taking advantage of new technology.
Together, Lowe projects those measures will save $50.8 million on hundreds of projects planned through 2012.
Her report also documents how even as the agency’s annual budget tripled since 1990 to about $775 million, the number of employees has risen just 4.2 percent to 1,834. Over the same period, driver’s licenses and registrations have risen 43 percent, meaning Idaho’s roads are being used more heavily.
Starting in 2005, Transportation Department officials began sounding the alarm, saying Idaho faces at least a $200 million annual highway funding shortfall over the next two decades.
To help make up the difference, the agency has proposed boosting the gas tax by as much as 10 percent, raising registration fees and imposing higher developer impact fees and rental car fees.
Lowe is asking the governor to throw his support behind that package in the 2008 Legislature.
But on Nov. 14, the Otter told those attending an Associated Taxpayers of Idaho conference in Boise that he had heard plenty of discussion about the proposed tax increase – but not enough about savings efforts.