The Arkansas Department of Transportation cannot use money raised from the 0.5% statewide sales tax devoted to road construction on any highway wider than four lanes, which includes the nearly $1 billion 30 Crossing project, the Arkansas Supreme Court said in a ruling Thursday.
Voters approved the tax in 2012 when they adopted Amendment 91 to the Arkansas Constitution as part of a $1.8 billion program aimed at improving regionally significant projects such as the Interstate 30 corridor through downtown Little Rock and North Little Rock.
At one point, nearly 70% of the cost of the project was supported by revenue from the sales tax. A mix of other federal and state transportation dollars provided the balance of available money.
But the Supreme Court said all of the money for the project will have to come from sources other than the sales tax.
“The repeated reference to ‘four-lane highways’ and the lack of a specific reference to six-lane interstate highways means the Amendment 91 funds cannot be used for the latter,” Justice Josephine Linker Hart wrote. “Certainly, if the General Assembly intended that the tax imposed by Amendment 91 be used for major improvements to six-lane interstate highways … the drafters could have expressly so stated.”