Idaho Senate challenges House to act on highway bills; truck fees posed

By JOHN MILLER
The Associated Press

3/21/2008

BOISE, Idaho — The Senate Transportation Committee unanimously passed a plan Thursday for the state’s performance auditor to evaluate Idaho Transportation Department operations.

The panel then said the House of Representatives should get moving on bills that would raise money to fix thousands miles of battered roads.

Before the hearing, House leaders demanded the Senate pass the plan as a condition for House action on higher taxes on gasoline sales and car rentals, increases in car and truck registration fees and other bills.

Transportation officials say flat federal highway funding and stagnating state revenues will leave Idaho about $240 million short of what is required to meet the need for road and bridge work. Nearly all lawmakers concede something must be done, but bills to raise more money have become political kickballs.

“The Senate has done its part,” said Sen. John McGee, R-Caldwell and committee chairman, after sending the $550,000 audit bill to the full chamber. “We’re anxiously awaiting their bills for funding Idaho roads.”

Office of Performance Evaluations Director Rakesh Mohan said the audit could take up to two years. It’s modeled after a similar effort in neighboring Washington state that helped save millions annually.

In February, Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter suggested raising $202 million by 2011 for roads, largely by hiking state car registration fees to $150 from as low as $24. He withdrew the plan days later amid objections from House leaders, including Transportation Committee Chairwoman JoAn Wood, R-Rigby, who said it was too expensive.

After the Senate panel approved the audit, Wood said she was pleased.

“If the Senate accepts the audit, we’ll get together with them and see what we feel we can do,” Wood said.

Nothing the House passes will approach Otter’s original proposal, she said.

“That was totally unacceptable. We have to come up with something under that,” Wood said.

Meanwhile, several other proposals have emerged.

— Sen. Tim Corder, R-Mountain Home, a trucking company owner, and Shawn Keough, R-Sandpoint, have introduced legislation centering on a 4.5 cents-a-mile surcharge to increase revenue from commercial trucks by about $57 million.

— A slimmer competing proposal from Wood to increase registration fees for commercial trucks would raise an additional $8.5 million.

— A Republican-backed plan would add $24 to automobile registration fees, raising $30.2 million. The owner of a car built in 1993 would pay $48 in state fees, double the current cost, and on new cars the figure would jump to $72. Counties add additional fees.

— Two separate bills would charge an extra $10 each for the state’s 104,000 specialty license plates, raising $1 million a year, and assess a 4 percent tax on rental cars, raising about $1.3 million.

— Three bills introduced Thursday by minority Democrats would raise a total of $100 million — $30 million in car registration, $20 million by boosting boost receipts from commercial trucks and $50 million from a proposed 2 percent sales tax on motor fuel in addition to the existing 25 cents a gallon.

Rep. James Ruchti, D-Pocatello, said Democrats believe the GOP bills are too insignificant to make a dent in the state’s transportation needs and put too much of the burden on automobile owners rather than commercial truckers.

“We wanted to make sure that the needs of the state are met and we start meeting them this year,” Ruchti said. “We feel the proposals we made were fair and provide about half the money the governor said he wanted to get.”

The squabbling over how to raise money for highways is especially intense in an election year because no lawmaker wants to raise the burden on his or her constituents’ wallets.

For instance, Woods insisted Thursday that Corder’s figures for his truck registration fee bill are faulty, although Transportation Department intergovernmental relations manager Julie Pipal said those numbers are reasonable.

Pipal said a more accurate assessment would be available only after two years of gathering data, given that any changes in registration fees on commercial trucks will likely affect driving habits as companies seek to optimize their routes through Idaho.

Meanwhile, at a Board of Examiners meeting Thursday morning, Otter was overheard by a reporter expressing his displeasure with the House GOP proposals.

“I told them, ‘I think everybody should give up something for Lent,’ “ Otter said. “I think they should give up their registration bills.”