$320M+ transportation package OK’d

Complex and controversial transportation legislation barely squeaked through the Idaho Senate on Tuesday and then cleared the Idaho House Tuesday evening, calling for a $320 million-plus investment in Idaho’s road system.

In the Senate, the bill passed on a 19-16 vote, and lost support from some of the Senate’s top advocates of road upgrades for how it would be done. It passed the House, 51-19, not long before 7 p.m., sending it to Gov. Butch Otter’s desk.

The bill authorizes $300 million more in GARVEE bonds, a special type of financing method in which the state borrows against its future federal highway allocations to fund big projects up-front. It’s the same method Idaho’s used since 2005 to fund major road upgrades including widening and rebuilding several stretches of U.S. Highway 95 in North Idaho. It also would extend Idaho’s “surplus eliminator,” through which any unanticipated state surplus at the end of the year would be split between roads and the state’s rainy-day savings account, for two more years/ Betsy Russell, Eye on Boise. More here.