MoDOT chief asks lawmakers to solve money crisis

The Trucker News Services

2/7/2008

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Missouri Transportation Director Pete Rahn is calling for state lawmakers to address the department’s looming financial crisis by finding new road construction funds.

Rahn said Wednesday that Missourians have identified $37 billion in transportation projects over the next 20 years. But the department expects to generate only $19 billion, primarily through the state’s 17-cent-per-gallon tax on gasoline.

“That means an $18 billion gap, not including inflation, between our needs and our ability to meet them,” Rahn said. “While the public has filet mignon expectations, MoDOT has Filet O’ Fish funding.”

One of the big reasons for the funding shortfall is the state’s decision to borrow against future revenue to fund transportation projects over the last four years. Those borrowed funds are expected to be used up by 2010, when the Transportation Department will have to essentially shut down its construction program to have enough money to pay off the debt.

Rahn praised legislators studying ways to resolve the funding issues through toll roads, transfers of tax money from other programs and partnerships with private companies to get projects built.

Rahn’s remarks came in his annual State of Transportation address to a joint session of the House and Senate. Lawmakers enacted a law early this decade requiring the address as a way to pressure the Transportation Department into improving the condition of Missouri roads.

With the massive influx of borrowed funds and improvement in the state’s highways, however, the speech has become something of a snoozer. Midway through Wednesday’s address only just more than half of the House’s 163 members were in the chamber and only 18 of 34 senators attended.