Growth adds to transit funding needs

SANDPOINT — Funding from the Local Strategic Initiatives and Child Pedestrian Safety programs has been a benefit for agencies across the state, including several local jurisdictions over the years.

“The Local Strategic Initiatives Program and Children Pedestrian Safety Program (both funded from the state’s Surplus Eliminator) provided funding for maintenance projects that could make an immediate impact to local communities,” Laila Kral, deputy administrator for the Local Highway Technical Assistance Council, said in an email to the Daily Bee. “Unfortunately, during the 2019 legislative session, the Surplus Eliminator was not renewed. It is unfortunate that the funding for the Local Strategic Initiatives and Children Pedestrian Safety programs was not continued as the funding made an incredible impact in communities of all size across the state of Idaho.”

The Local Strategic Initiatives program was part of the state’s Surplus Eliminator program that was established by House Bill 312 during the 2015 legislative session. The law states that at the end of the year, remaining funds will be split between the rainy-day fund and the Surplus Eliminator program for transportation projects administered by the Idaho Transportation Department.

During the 2017 legislative session, Idaho lawmakers voted to continue the program through Senate Bill 1206, requiring the money to be shared — 60 percent to the state system and 40 percent to the local system. The local funds included the programs administered by LHTAC.

LHTAC’s portion of the Surplus Eliminator last year was $24,262,500. With a portion of that designated to the Children Pedestrian Safety Program, about $23.6 million went toward strategic initiatives projects.

Over the two years of the program, Kral said, more than $6.5 million was distributed to local agencies within ITD District 1. Local recipients include the cities of Sandpoint, Kootenai and Priest River; Bonner and Boundary counties, and the Independent Highway District.

During a public policy panel update at the Bonner County Area Transportation Team meeting last Wednesday, Idaho Sen. Jim Woodward said the state’s projected balance earlier this year for what would be left in the budget at the end of the fiscal year 2020 was $176 million, and the projection “bottomed out” at $48 million. The most recent report, he said, indicates there will be $81 million.

“But $81 million is much less than $176 million — even if we had the strategic initiatives still in place, we would have to have above $176 to make that work,” Woodward said.

Idaho Rep. Heather Scott, who also served as a panelist during last week’s BCATT meeting along with Rep. Sage Dixon, said while she is not on the state transportation or appropriations committees, said it is important that the roads are funded in order to work on commerce in the state.

“I truly believe that the roads are critical to Idaho and we should be funding that from our general fund,” Scott said. “… There is state money, it is just how it is appropriated.”

Dixon, who is on the state transportation committee, said at the end of last year’s legislative session, an idea came up regarding a different, “more sustainable” way to fund roads in the form of an endowment. Fuels tax and registration fees are not enough anymore, Dixon said, due to more efficient vehicles, as well as growth in the state.

The idea is to create a transportation funding endowment that would continually accumulate funds, but also accumulate interest to have a “growing pot of money moving forward,” Dixon said. While it didn’t go through the Legislature last year, it will likely come up in the upcoming session, he said.

“There is still interest in going forward with this new model, because there is not really a clear path forward in other ways,” Dixon said.

Dixon also encourages everyone to fill out the upcoming U.S. Census, because he said a lot of the money for transportation is dependent on how that is answered.

“Our growth is very large … we need to capture that growth in order to get those dollars to help with these infrastructure issues that we have,” Dixon said.

Another panelist at the meeting was Damon Allen, ITD District 1 engineer, went over a number of unfunded transportation projects needed in North Idaho, primarily along the I-90 corridor, which served as a prime example of the need for funding. One example, he said, is the need for a six-lane construction on I-90, which would be a $240 million project. There are also several projects in Bonner and Boundary counties that fall into the unfunded needs category, he said, including the Highway 95/Sagle corridor and Lakeshore Drive area. The reason for these needs, he said, is to address congestion and safety, to “really” address the growth in the state.

“All of those unfunded needs and corridors, we are estimating — just here in District 1, five northern counties — we are over $2 billion in unfunded needs to address the growth,” Allen said.

Kral served as a panelist as well, and said the primary focus for LHTAC right now is on bridges, because nearly half of the bridges in the state are or will be past their service life of 50 years within the next five years. LHTAC applied for two grants and were successful in one, awarded $6.2 million to replace eight bridges in southern Idaho.

As for the strategic initiatives program, Kral said she is hopeful that some version of it will return in the future.

“With the money, we were able to make direct impact to your communities — you were able to make direct impact to your communities,” she said.

Mary Malone can be reached by email at mmalone@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow her on Twitter @MaryDailyBee.