FUNDING SPLIT TO BE STUDIED

The Missouri Highway and Transportation Commission has established a new committee to examine the split in state transportation funds between urban and rural areas.

The Transportation Advisory Committee will formulate recommendations on how transportation money should be distributed around the state.

The committee, which will hold its first meeting later this month, is expected to offer its recommendations to the commission and the Missouri Department of Transportation by April 1.

According to MoDOT, funding under the department's five-year highway plan is split evenly between urban and rural areas with the St. Louis and Kansas City areas receiving half of the funds and outstate Missouri getting the rest.

Commission Chairman S. Lee Kling said that ratio has fluctuated in the past and will change in the future to address the state's most pressing transportation needs.

"MoDOT obviously cannot address all the state's highway needs at one time," Kling said. "We want the advisory committee to study the issue and devise criteria for an equitable distribution of funds."

Although the 16-member committee is composed of people from various parts of the state, there is no representative from Southeast Missouri.

MoDOT spokesman Jim Coleman said the primary goal in selecting committee members was to have people with strong backgrounds in transportation issues, not necessarily to ensure that the membership is geographically representative.

"These are basically people who know about transportation needs and understand the issues," Coleman said. "They don't have to be brought up to speed. These people are aware of what is going on."

And with the target date for its recommendations less than two months away, that prior knowledge is vital, he added.

"That doesn't give them a lot of time to work on this," Coleman said.

Prospective members were nominated by legislators on the Joint Transportation Oversight Committee. The highway commission chose the Transportation Advisory Committee from the pool of nominees.

Of the members, nine are based in the St. Louis area, three are from Kansas City and seven are from other areas of the state.

Coleman said the membership split is actually evenly divided between rural and urban areas.

Jim Henson, the business manager for the Eastern Missouri Laborers District Council, is considered a rural member, even though his office is in Bridgeton, a northern suburb of St. Louis, Coleman said. Henson's organization represents labor interests throughout southeastern and central Missouri.

Coleman said the committee members, who represent a variety of organizations interested in transportation issues, will fairly examine the needs and concerns of both urban and outstate residents.

"These people are professional and will weigh things fairly," he said.

The issues the committee will examine include which funds and transportation modes should be subject to a rural/urban allocation, what factors should be considered when making allocation decisions and how the relative weights of those factors should be determined.

Because of a state law that allows companies to pay transportation taxes directly to the state rather than through individual retail outlets, a breakdown of the percentages of the tax raised in urban and rural areas is not easily determined, Coleman said.

COMMISSION MEMBERS

The commission members and the organizations they represent:

-- Randy Adams, Regional Commerce and Growth Association, St. Louis

-- Jim Anderson, Chamber of Commerce, Springfield

-- Harriet Beard, Transportation and Development Council, Kirksville

-- Tom Boland, Boland Ford, Hannibal

-- Gary Elmstad, governmental affairs consultant, Kirksville

-- Gary Evans, Chamber of Commerce, Kansas City

-- Estil Fretwell, Missouri Farm Bureau, Jefferson City

-- Jim Henson, Eastern Missouri Laborers District Council, Bridgeton

-- Jim Herfurth, Transportation and Development Council, Lake Ozark

-- Gil Langley, Missouri Transit Association, Kansas City

-- Karen Miller, Boone County Commission, Columbia

-- Brian Mills, Mid-America Regional Council, Kansas City

-- Bob Millstone, Missouri Transportation Coalition, St. Louis

-- Sandy Moore, 2004 Group, St. Louis

-- Les Sterman, East-West Gateway Coordinating Council, St. Louis

-- Pat Tuttle, city council, Joplin