Jindal seeks boost in funds for roads

• By WILL SENTELL
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: Mar 1, 2008 - Page: 4A

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Gov. Bobby Jindal’s team is talking with lawmakers on ways to boost state aid for roads and bridges by reshuffling the state budget, Transportation Secretary William Ankner said Friday.

“The administration is still exploring with several members of the Legislature options to provide more recurring revenues for the Department of Transportation,” Ankner said.

A bill that would have boosted state spending on roads by $456 million per year won lopsided House approval last year but died in the Senate.

However, highway advocates say they expect a turnaround on the issue this year because Jindal has said he backs key parts of the bill that died.

“There is a recognition that there is a critical need not being addressed because we don’t have sufficient revenues,” said Ankner, a member of the governor’s cabinet.

The issue surfaced during a meeting Friday of the Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget. The committee heard details of Jindal’s spending plans for the financial year that begins July 1.

Commissioner of Administration Angèle Davis, who led the presentation, told the panel that the Jindal team is considering the use of a “significant amount” of the state’s $1.1 billion surplus for roads and ports during a two-week special session that begins March 9.

Davis also mentioned, without elaborating, the possibility of moving state tax revenue into the transportation fund.

Barbara Goodson, deputy commissioner, told reporters that a phase-in of certain road-related tax revenue from a fund for all state services to one for roads and bridges only is under review.

The key feature of the bill that died last year would have moved sales tax revenue on car and truck sales — nearly $400 million per year — from general revenue to the transportation fund.
Opponents charged that such a move would have caused a giant hole in the budget. Backers suggested a phase-in as a fallback option but the measure died in the Senate Finance Committee amid opposition from former Gov. Kathleen Blanco and others.

Any such reshuffling of the state budget is controversial, and triggered criticism from LSU System President John Lombardi in November. Dedicating more tax revenue to roads would hurt higher education and health-care funding, Lombardi said then.

Highway backers who hoped to hear details on Friday of a Jindal plan to boost state aid for highways said they remain optimistic that help for their cause is on the way.

“I have no reason not to believe that the governor is moving forward,” said Derrell Cohoon, a consultant with the Louisiana Association of General Contractors, which backed the bill that died last year.