We worked late Thursday evening and came in early on Friday and finished the session.
A Transportation deal was finally worked out. This raised ~$50 million for maintenance by doing several things:
1) Raises about $5.4 million by increasing fees for ITD services to make administration of program pay for itself;
2) Removes the ethanol exemption which raises $16.4 million;
3) Allows a program to allow semi-trailers to be registered permanently in Idaho. This is estimated to actually raise only ~$2 million, even though the sponsor notes $5 million
4) Limit the number of temporary permits for commercial truckers, which is expected to generate ~$1 million
5) Removes both the State Police and Parks and Recreation funding from the gasoline taxes starting on July 1, 2010. This provides between $16.4 and $18 million from State Police and $4.7 million from Parks. These amounts will be replaced with General Funds unless dedicated funding sources are found in the interim. This does not create new money, just moves it around. Unless dedicated funding sources are found in the future, the effect may be less money for other needs.
6) Created a Gubernatorial Task Force to look at Transportation funding issues.
The costs of servicing the GARVEE debt will be $22,424,691.25 in FY 10, of which ~$8 million is interest. So in reality, our efforts have resulted in making administration costs pay for themselves, paying for GARVEE funding, and moving money around. This is hardly progress in maintaining our roads.
In the meantime we borrowed $82 million more in GARVEE funds! We are starting to look like the folks in the beltway.
The bottom line is that we have to raise the money to pay for the maintenance of our roads because it costs 6 times as much to rebuild them as maintain them. AND we should not continue to go further in debt and pass this debt onto our children and grandchildren.
A fuels tax would have captured money for our roads from the thousands of nonresident vehicles that pass through the state every day and have them help pay for our infrastructure. Unfortunately, the other body did not see the wisdom of this.
On the 117th day, it is time for the session to end. At just after 1 p.m. the Senate adjourned sine die.