Transportation issues challenged Legislature

SANDPOINT — Transportation funding was the legislative hang-up this year.

That was the message from state Sen. Shawn Keough, who was in Sandpoint Wednesday to address the Bonner County Area Transportation Team, or BCATT, about the recent passage of House Bill 312, a $94 million transportation budget Band-Aid passed by the Legislature this month.

The final outcome of HB 312 was a compromise, hashed out during a rare, last-minute conference committee comprised of just a few members from each legislative body.

Introduced in the state House of Representatives, the original bill proposed to generate $20 million in additional transportation funding by increasing vehicle registration fees and bumping up Idaho’s gas tax by 10 cent per gallon.

The bill passed the House, and was handed off to the Senate, which amended it to generate $127 million in highway funding. The Senate then passed it back to the House, which rejected the Senate’s revisions.

The two chambers formed a rare conference committee of select members from each legislative chamber to pound out a compromise.

An agreement was finally reached by the committee, literally at the eleventh hour, and was quickly approved by both chambers. The legislative session ended minutes later.

In its final amended form, HB 312 increases annual registration fees for personal vehicles by $21. Depending on the vehicle’s age, registration fees will rise from $24 to $45 for an older car or truck, and from $48 to $69 for a newer vehicle. Motorcycle fees will rise from $10 to $19 annually. Commercial truck registration fees will increase by $25.

Low or carbon-free vehicle owners took the biggest hit. Hybrid vehicles will be charged a $140 annual registration fee, hybrids $75.

The bill also raises the current gas tax 7 cents to 32 cents per gallon.

The changes take effect July 1.

Asked what mechanisms were in place to ensure the money would be used exclusively for its intended purpose, the Kootenai Republican said the law is clear about where the money was to be spent — road and bridge maintenance only, including existing bridge replacement, if necessary. No new projects are authorized to be funded.

Keough said she is comfortable with oversight processes and reporting systems currently in place, from the local to the state level, she told the group. Those checks and balances, and “the threat of the Legislature having a conniption fit,” would, she felt, serve as a sufficient deterrent.

HB 312 also has an additional reporting requirement: all transportation agencies explain to the Legislature what they did with their state transportation dollars.

Transportation agencies like cities and counties, and the Idaho Transportation Department, will be back in Boise asking for more money in the future. Even if they lack the money to maintain all their real roads and bridges, they will be working hard to maintain the political bridge to their funding source.

“I doubt seriously that transportation jurisdictions want to upset what relationship they have with the Legislature,” Keough said. “Particularly since the $94 to $96 million that’s generated by (HB 312) falls far short of the need.”

That shortfall is getting larger each year. The tab for highway and bridge maintenance — not new highway projects, but simply keeping existing infrastructure from falling apart — continues to climb at an annual rate of $262 million.

But that’s just maintenance. As reported by the Idaho Weekly, Idaho Transportation Department Director Brian Ness said the state’s roads and highways are actually underfunded by $543 million annually.

Of the money generated by the increase in taxes and fees, 40 percent will filter down to be divided among counties, cities and highway districts around the state. The other 60 percent will go to ITD.

Keough was also asked about the dynamics in the House of Representatives during the legislative session.

She noted there are 70 elected officials in the House — 46 of whom were new this session, and on a steep learning curve. Most, she said, may not understand Idaho’s big transportation picture “in terms of the backlog, funding streams and how it all works,” she said.

Keough is herself in the thick of both legislative transportation and budget issues in her role as the vice chair on the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, and is a senior member of the Senate Transportation Committee.

“Some folks from their view, from their district, felt like we don’t have a problem, or that the jurisdiction spends inappropriately or wastefully,” Keough said of new House members. “Or that Idaho is raking in tax dollars from its citizens hand-over-fist, and we have plenty of money if we would just spend it better, and we could fund roads out of what we have today.”

In the end there were not enough votes for $260 million, but enough for what passed, she said.

Keough noted that she had received positive feedback from transportation officials in her legislative district, people who understand the need, like those attending the BCATT meeting. Others, however, outside of transportation circles who do not understand Idaho’s transportation needs are “really mad” that the gas tax and registration fees were increased.  

“They think I made the wrong decision,” she said.

BCATT is a composed of local and regional elected officials and transportation professionals who meet regularly to discuss and coordinate transportation issues.

First elected to office in 1996, Keough holds the title for the longest serving female senator in Idaho history.