Tax dollars:

Residents pay more in gas taxes than they get in road improvements.

Ohio contributes a bigger share to the federal fund that pays for roadwork than it gets back.

COLUMBUS — Ohio might not face such lengthy delays in sorely needed highway upgrades if the state received a better return on the money its residents pay in federal gasoline taxes.

Ohio residents contribute a bigger share each year to the federal fund that pays for transportation improvements across the country than their state has ever received in return.

The gap cost Ohio $140.5 million in fiscal 2010, the last year for which the Federal Highway Administration calculated stateby-state spending and tax collections. Ohio has lost out on $1.5 billion during the past decade and on more than $5 billion since the Federal Highway Trust Fund was created in 1956.

When Ohio Department of Transportation Director Jerry Wray announced last month that the state should delay 34 major projects for as long as 19 years, he said the state could afford $100 million every year in construction projects to expand and improve its highways.

Last year, ODOT had $1.6 billion more work on its calendar than budgets through 2017 allowed.

Although Wray called the federal policies that take too much money from 24 states and give too much to 26 others outdated, he said that discrepancy isn’t to blame for proposed roadwork delays across the state.

The agency has promised too much in the past and isn’t able to deliver in a time of declining gas consumption and rising construction costs, Wray said.

Alaska has received a share of the trust fund that’s $8.5 billion bigger than Alaskans’ gas-tax contributions through the years would warrant. Ohio is one of the top five states on the losing end of national policy.

Federal officials say gas-tax money has been pooled since the 1950s because of the need for a national highway system built to a uniform standard.