Agreement small on how to fund roads

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- That state funding for transportation is a serious problem in immediate need of fixing brought forth no dissenters during a legislative hearing on Tuesday. However, consensus on how to pay for a solution remained elusive.

The Senate Transportation Committee heard testimony on six transportation funding bills. While all include provisions to raise revenue, the types of tax and fee hikes called for and the amount of revenue to be raised varied.

Suggested revenue streams included adding 3 to 6 cents to the state's 17-cent-per-gallon fuel tax, increasing license fees, hiking gambling boat entrance fees by $2 per person and raising the general sales tax by up to one-quarter of a cent.

Diesel fuel

The least expensive proposal, adding 3 cents to the tax on diesel fuel -- but not gasoline -- and raising commercial driver's license fees, would cost $39.5 million. The most expensive would raise $657 million through a sales and fuel tax hikes, licensing fee increases and gaming boat fees. The latter source would require voters to approve a constitutional amendment allowing such revenue to be earmarked for transportation.

Any transportation tax plan that clears the Legislature would also go before voters in November.

The committee will forward a bill to the full Senate in the coming weeks, but it is unclear what form it will take.

Henry Hungerbeeler, director of the Missouri Department of Transportation, said the department has no preference on how new revenue is raised. Hungerbeeler has repeatedly said MoDOT needs another $1 billion a year to pay for everything Missourians want.

"Of course, we can make significant improvements with less than what it would take to do everything," Hungerbeeler said.

Transportation has traditionally been funded by users through fuel taxes and license fees. State Sen. Wayne Goode, D-Normandy, said that's how it should remain. Goode is sponsoring a $466 million proposal that relies on such fees.

"I think roads should be paid for with user fees," Goode said. "It is a process that has worked for 70 years and works well."

While his bill includes a sales tax hike of five-sixteenths of a cent, that would go to general revenue to replace fuel tax money that is currently diverted from the road fund to other, unrelated purposes.

Representatives of the Missouri Municipal League urged senators to avoid raising the state sales tax. Cities and counties also rely on sales tax and increases by the state hamper local sales-tax efforts, they said.

User fees

However, St. Charles County executive Joe Ortwerth, a Republican, said user fees alone wouldn't generate the revenue needed to fix Missouri roads. Ortwerth was testifying in favor of the $657 million plan offered by state Sen. Ted House, D-St. Charles.

"Quite simply, there is no way to dig ourselves out of the hole we are in without resorting to something other than user fees," Ortwerth said.

Ron Leone of the Missouri Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Store Association said raising the state fuel tax by more than 2 cents would be counterproductive.

Leone said areas of Missouri bordering other states have a competitive advantage by being able to offer lower prices. An increased fuel tax would put Missouri businesses at a competitive disadvantage, Leone said.

"A fuel-tax increase may actually be offset by fewer gallons being sold in Missouri," Leone said.

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