sharon fisher

I recently attended two meetings in Boise about road maintenance (the only candidate from District 21 to do so, as far as I saw). As you may recall from the last legislative session, Governor Butch Otter wanted more than $200 million to perform what he said was long-overdue road maintenance.

You may have heard of GARVEE bonds, which are adding new lanes to I84 between Caldwell and Meridian. The difference is that GARVEE bonds are used to build new roads; what the Governor and the Idaho Transportation Department say they need is money to fix the roads and bridges we already have.

$200 million is a lot of money, especially considering the economy. What makes things harder for us is that the economy is bad on a national level as well -- meaning we may be able to get less money from the federal government to help than we've been used to. In addition, Idaho is what's called a "donee" state, meaning we get more money from the federal government for roads than we pay in taxes. Some of the "donor" states are reportedly trying to change the existing formulas so that they get a larger share of the money they pay in.

Some legislators last session were concerned that ITD wasn't making the best use of the money it already receives, so they allocated money for the Office of Performance Evaluation to audit the department. The first phase of that study is due in January. (Here's more information about it: http://www.legislature.idaho.gov/ope/ScopeITD.pdf).

Governor Otter suggested a flat $150 registration fee for all vehicles, which the legislature criticized, so he withdrew the proposal.

So here's what I will do:

Look at the results of the audit. I know the head of OPE and he takes his job very seriously. I trust him to give us good results.

Find out where Governor Otter gets his $200 million figure. Is it just based on a percentage of what he says is the value of Idaho roads? Is this the standard way to decide how much money to spend on maintenance? If not, what do other states do? The figure may be accurate, but I want to know what's behind it before I agree that we need to raise $200 million on the backs of Idaho's citizens and businesses.

Once we find out what the figure really should be, and what changes can be made to ITD to make better use of state money, *then* we can look at how to raise the money. ITD has performed a good first step by looking at fees and gas taxes in neighboring states -- not just increasing the fees we already pay, but finding other sources of revenue. For example, wouldn't it make sense for the vehicles that put the biggest loads on the road to pay a larger share? Studies show that a 40,000-ton truck can put more wear on the road than 60,000 one-ton cars. And with increasing pollution levels in the Valley and high gas prices, shouldn't we encourage people to use more energy-efficient vehicles?

Let me know what you think!