The Arkansas Highway Commission and the independent state agency it oversees has been building a case for a modified funding approach for years. Based on their estimates, the state's highway system -- the nation's 12th largest, believe it or not -- is on the road to destruction.
Decades ago, the die was cast as state government took on more and more, then more again of the responsibilities for roads. It's insane that this small state would have such a huge network of state-maintained roads and highways to maintain, but back then, the state was the one with the money to do it. That's changing. No, scratch that: It's changed.
What’s the point?
The needed efforts to find more funding for Arkansas bloated state highway system cannot come at the expense of other state programs and services.
Fuel taxes are a dedicated source of funding for roads, but they aren't the mother lode they once were. Cars are far more fuel efficient, requiring less gas per mile while the per-mile costs of maintenance and construction have grown significantly. The highway department and its government body needs more cash to meet its responsibilities. On that, there is no dispute.
Arkansas roads and highways are critically important. Their slow slide into disrepair will make life worse for Arkansans and the millions of drivers who pass through the state. It will also hurt Arkansas' efforts to build its economy through recruitment of companies to employ its residents.
Already, because money is short, the commission a while back prioritized spending on the half of the 16,000 miles of most heavily used state highways, interstates and U.S. highways. Shifting more money to maintenance work means millions less each year for construction. Voters backed a bond programs of $3 billion in 2011 and 2012, but that money will affect only about 4 percent of the state highway system.
The solution, of course, is money. Where to get it is the challenge.
With the General Assembly in session, the Highway Department and its governing body are working lawmakers hard in pursuit of new funding. Ideas are getting bounced around almost as much as a pickup truck load on many of the state's roads.
Last week, a bill to shift nearly $2.8 billion in general state revenue to road construction over 10 years won a recommendation from the House Public Transportation Committee. Its author is Rep. Dan Douglas of Bentonville. If adopted, it would be the first time, at least in modern times, that general state revenue was committed to the highway department.
Under the bill, a portion of the money from the sale of new cars and trucks and some road-user items would gradually be shifted from the state general budget to the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department. The shift would be small at first, but would grow to more than $500 million a year by 2025.
Here's the problem: What Douglas and the commission have proposed would drain money from other government agencies and services. Nobody can suggest those are flush with cash.
The secret to getting legislation like this passed in Little Rock is giving enough lawmakers enough concessions to wet their beaks a little. Douglas' bill would shift money from the severance tax on natural gas, about $53 million a year, from highways to community colleges and workforce training. There are a lot of lawmakers who would like to vote for supporting those local and regional programs.
Without a doubt, the Highway Department is in a tough rut. It needs more money to maintain and improve the state's highway system we all use. Dollars spent there are rarely wasted investments.
Nonetheless, Arkansas saw fit in 1952, in the wake of corruption in state highway contracts, to create a separate Highway Commission with a goal of keeping politics out of highway planning and funding. Shifting general revenue to the commission will pierce that veil, and Douglas' bill would permanently set up the diversion of revenue now going into general government services. Those services, critical to various parts of the state's population, do not generally have their own dedicated source of revenue. The Highway Department does.
Critics suggest the Highway Department -- if it is to tap general revenue at all -- should have to come asking the Legislature for its share of the budget pie every budget cycle, just like other state agencies do. Highways are important, but should they get an ongoing priority on state funding? No.
That would make the Highway Department's path to the future rougher, but when it comes to general revenue for state government, no agency should get its own fast lane to funding. There are too many other needs in Arkansas to set the Highway Department up for priority funding.
Commentary on 02/26/2015