Next session: roads and bridges
Roads fix is going to take a lot of money — and a steady stream of it
Next session: roads and bridges Roads fix is going to take a lot of money — and a steady stream of it Check out this story on clarionledger.com: http://on.thec-l.com/1FuuIpd
Geoff Pender, The Clarion-Ledger Published 2:03 p.m. CT April 4, 2015 | Updated 12:57 p.m. CT April 8, 2015
Geoff Pender(Photo: The Clarion-Ledger)
Last year about this time, as the 2014 legislative session ended, I predicted the election-year 2015 session would include a push for "a tax break for the masses."
It did, although it failed.
My prediction for the big issue for the 2016 session: roads and bridges.
Why? Get in your car and take a drive pretty much anywhere in Mississippi. Try not to spill your coffee or tear out the front end.
Also, state business leaders will be pushing the issue. The Mississippi Economic Council, the state's chamber of commerce, is working on a study of road conditions and funding. MEC agreed to hold off on recommendations during the election year but will come out with them next year.
And it will probably conclude what many other studies have: Mississippi's roads and bridges are crumbling. And, it's going to take a lot of money — and a steady, recurring stream of it — to fix the problem.
So in the course of a year, lawmakers will likely shift from considering broad tax cuts for the first time in years to seriously considering a tax increase (most likely on fuel) for the first time in years. It's either that or try to borrow millions or shift money from elsewhere. My guess is they will consider a mixture of all three.
Lawmakers borrowed some money this year to throw at the problem — $162 million, mostly for bridges. But estimates are Mississippi needs $550 million in bridge work. And, transportation leaders have said, Mississippi needs a steady $400 million to $600 million more a year just to keep up with road maintenance.
A U.S. Department of Transportation report recently graded Mississippi's inventory of bridges among the worst. It said 2,275 of 17,091 of the state's bridges are rated "structurally deficient" — dangerously dilapidated — and another 1,290 are rated "functionally obsolete."
Experts also have predicted more than half the state's roads would be untravelable by 2030 if the problem is not addressed. Just anecdotally,
Part of the problem is the state, with an ambitious road building program started in the 1980s added 3,000 miles of four-lane roadways with no money programmed for maintenance. Another problem is state road money is generated by a flat tax of 18.4 cents a gallon on gas. As construction costs and gas prices rise or fall, and cars become more efficient, the tax remains flat.
Lawmakers will try — and already have — to lay the blame for road problems off on the Mississippi Department of Transportation, saying it's inefficient and uses politics instead of engineering when prioritizing roadwork. Ironically, this comes as MDOT appears less political and inefficient than it has in years. But the major problem isn't politics. It's potholes — and lack of money for maintenance.
And it will be staring the 2016 Legislature in the face.
Some other predictions for the next session:
•Local-option tax push. Cities, like the state, are facing serious infrastructure problems and lack of money to pay for them. The Municipal League held off during the election year on its perennial push for local-option sales taxes. But in the first year of a new term, that lobbying will be at a fever pitch.
•College Board overhaul. It wouldn't surprise me if "The Dan Jones Act of 2016" is the first item of business for the next Legislature. There will be a push for an overhaul of the state College Board governance to give individual universities more power in response to the board's ouster of Ole Miss Chancellor Dan Jones.
•MAEP. GOP leaders have talked about and threatened an overhaul of the Mississippi Adequate Education funding formula for years. Depending on how a lawsuit and ballot drive for full funding of public education shake out, it wouldn't surprise me if Republican lawmakers try to redefine what full funding of K-12 means.
Contact Geoff Pender at (601) 961-7266 or gpender@jackson.gannett.com. Follow @GeoffPender on Twitter.
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