With their report due January first, the Governor’s Task Force on Transportation Infrastructure Investment is finalizing their suggestions for reducing the state’s $13-billion backlog of road work.
“I’ve been asked by friends, ‘What’s the number?’, and I’m like, we need to ask what’s the need, not what’s the number,” Baton Rouge Area Chamber board president Ann Trappey remarked.
DOTD Secretary Shawn Wilson, the task force chairman, says there’s one number everybody’s been asking about.
“People say, ‘How much is the gas tax request?’.”
But the group has decided not to set a so-many-cents-per-gallon increase in the gasoline tax. Instead, they’re combining a variety of suggested increases in fees and fuel taxes to aim for an overall revenue target.
“We are saying that the number that we would like to see and need is the $700-million annually,” Wilson explained. “And however you craft that, Governor and Legislature, that’s what we’re asking for.”
The proposals include raising commercial truck registration and permit fees, upping sales tax on aviation fuel, and advising that each additional penny of gasoline tax will raise about 30-million more dollars per year.
In addition, they’re asking that any tax or fee hikes be indexed to inflation, and that the new funds be distributed categorically, rather than dedicated to specific projects.
“New revenues should be categorically allocated in the following manner: preservation - 35%, operations – 7%, safety – 3%, capacity – 42%, non-highway – 6%, and local programs – 6%,” task force coordinator Chance McNeely read out from that resolution.
The task force meets again December 13th to go over the draft of their final report. In the meantime, Secretary Wilson says details and public comment opportunity is on DOTD’s website.
“All of these resolutions will be placed online, and we’ll be happy to receive any comments that folks will have,” Wilson announced.
Copyright 2016 WRKF
