Missouri seeks new plan amid road-fund shortfalls

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — The revenue generated by a 2004 voter-approved initiative in Missouri to fund better highways and bridges has not been enough to cover the bond payments it authorized for hundreds of projects, putting the state in a more precarious position for future transportation funding.

An analysis by The Associated Press also found that the amount redirected from the state road fund to the Missouri Highway Patrol has surged since passage of the amendment, which exempted the patrol from its new limits on diversions.

The combination of the debt and redirected dollars means less money is available for traditional pay-as-you-go road projects. That has left policymakers once again searching for ways to boost funding for a transportation system that has an estimated $800 million annual shortfall in its needs.

A bipartisan task force of lawmakers, executive officials and residents faces a January deadline to recommend a transportation funding plan. Among the options it will consider is whether to create a dedicated funding source for the Highway Patrol to free up more money for road construction, said the group’s chairman, Republican state Rep. Kevin Corlew.

Any plan that significantly raises taxes would have to go before voters.

The last voter-approved transportation funding plan — Constitutional Amendment 3, approved in November 2004 — gradually shifted half of the state’s vehicle sales tax revenue away from Missouri’s general fund, which pays for things such as schools and prisons, to a new bonding account for roads and bridges. (The other half of the sales tax already was dedicated to roads.)

The amendment also limited the amount of road funds that can be diverted to the Department of Revenue and other agencies. But it continued to allow money to flow to the Highway Patrol for its costs of enforcing vehicle and traffic regulations.

Sponsors of the initiative projected it would generate $160 million annually for roads and bridges once fully implemented in fiscal 2009. State budget officials were even more optimistic, anticipating an additional $187 million annually for the highway system.

But revenue still hasn’t hit state projections.

After offsetting the additional vehicle sales tax revenue with the higher transfer amounts to the Highway Patrol, the AP’s analysis found that the Missouri Department of Transportation netted a $117 million gain for roads in fiscal 2017 compared with the 2005 budget. That’s one-third less than the state originally anticipated.

The department has had to draw more than $250 million out of its regular road funds to help cover $1.5 billion in Amendment 3 debt payments because the initiative’s funding account fell short in 10 of the past 12 years. In the other two years, more than $50 million of Amendment 3 revenue was used to help cover other road bonds.

Supporters of the ballot measure said they were stunned to learn of the frequent Amendment 3 shortfalls.

“If MoDOT is not even able to sustain its current bond payments with the amounts generated, then there’s something amiss. That shouldn’t be occurring,” said Jewell Patek, a lobbyist who was campaign director for the Committee to Improve Missouri Roads and Bridges.

Initiative supporters also were surprised to learn that road fund expenditures by the Highway Patrol have grown 73 percent since the measure’s passage — from $133 million in the 2005 budget to $230 million in fiscal 2017.

“The idea was to increase money for transportation, not necessarily to increase funding for the Highway Patrol,” said Ray McCarty, executive director of the Missouri Transportation and Development Council and president and CEO of Associated Industries of Missouri.

Much of the Highway Patrol increase has been driven by salaries and benefits. That’s because the enactment of Amendment 3 coincided with a separate law raising wages for state troopers closer to the rates at Missouri’s three largest metropolitan police agencies.

Lawmakers who craft the state budget have tapped road funds for other Highway Patrol costs.

The agency gets 71 percent of its budget from road funds, said Highway Patrol Maj. Lance MacLaughlin.

Patek said he believes that the public would support another ballot measure similar to Amendment 3 “that would make it clear that transportation dollars only went to transportation funding” while creating a separate tax for the Highway Patrol.